Reply to How to embrace a loss of a loved parent?

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[quote=Anonymous]I think the idea is to embrace the natural order of things. To recognize that your loss, while real and meaningful, is also inevitable and shared by almost everyone eventually. The unique tragedy is to be a parent who outlives your children, an unnatural loss only some people have.

I find it useful to try and zoom out as much as possible. It’s easy to zoom in on this moment and this grief, but try to imagine the following: your father mourning the loss of his father. Your grandfather mourning the loss of his father. Your great-grandfather mourning the loss of his father. If you can, you may even imagine your children mourning you. There is sadness in all of this, of course. But it is also the way of things. The fortunate among us (and it sounds like your dad was fortunate in this way) live meaningful lives in between their birth and their death. And death lends those lives greater meaning because it reminds us that life is precious.

Another thing you can embrace is that you now occupy a role in your family that your father previously held, as an elder. You have learned from him how to care for and support younger generations, and if you embrace that role, you become part of his legacy even as you build your own. [/quote]

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