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[quote=Anonymous]Tomorrow is my father's birthday, he passed away five years ago while I was in my early twenties. I have been particularly anxious all week, which is uncharacteristic compared to the last couple years. It was a S4 glioblastoma (same cancer as Senator McCain) and he survived 4 months after discovering it. During the biopsy there was a complication and he had a stroke, became bedridden and never returned home. I was his care taker during the time he was in nursing homes for the chemo treatment and then the hospice center. He was very aggressive towards me at that time, genuinely mean and hateful but within a second he'd return back to his semi-normal self. Doctors told me it was just side effects from the brain injury paired with being his emotional outlet. I understood that and didn't take it personally although those 4 months were difficult.

A year before, he married a neighboring divorcee who had lived on our street the same 15+ years my family had, but we had never socialized with her before. They met, 3 months later engaged, 3 months later married. 12 months later inoperable-giant-tumor. My younger sister (18) and I were glad to see our Dad happy, even though we didn't easily blend with New Wife and her Lower-Alabama-Paula-Dean-Evangelical-Lifestyle. For the most part we just played the roles of supportive daughters and trying not to get in the way. He sold our childhood home (I wasn't living there) and moved in with her. Dad meticulously sorted through our entire house of possessions of what he wanted, we wanted, and what he was saving to give us at a later date (family heirlooms etc). My mother had, for lack of a better term, abandoned us about ten years prior. Before she left she was just a normal woman from a family, had her own set of mementos. There were antique items from her side of the family that she didn't want back. When Dad moved in with the NW, she unpacked a lot of it because it was pretty and valuable. Once he passed away she kept absolutely everything he brought into the house. Even our Christmas ornaments. She wasn't punishing us, she felt entitled to all of it because he was her husband, legally and morally. There was money he had for us. She worked for a law office and when they married they also combined assets. Before he married I was fully informed of my father's estate. She became the power of attorney and made changes. Whatever was then intended for us had been consumed by funeral expenses. I did not fight this, something like possessions or money seemed trivial in the following weeks after his passing.

I went through depression and worked with mental health professionals about it. Pretty standard grief stuff? As of today no one really has much to do with NW. She didn't want us around (just our stuff?)

I am now married with a baby. DH and I just moved in together a month before my dad got sick, DH was there for all of it. Now, every time a holiday or special date comes up that makes me miss him, DH insists I don't have closure and need to find a therapist over this. My thoughts are: A terrible thing happened. It lasted 4 months. It's over and will never happen again. People experience worse for longer periods of time. This is what life is about, the changing of seasons? Now that I'm a mom, I can't even put myself in the shoes of a parent with a sick child (my 78 yo grandma flew 2,000 miles eight different times to be with her son).

I'm on DCUM because it's easier to talk about this stuff anonymously than having to share with the ones I know. Everyone feels so bad for me, still. I don't want them to feel bad, I don't want to be the debbie downer. But I'm hoping other people can relate at all... to the loss of a parent or having to be the caretaker??[/quote]

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