Anonymous wrote:Hi, this is OP again.

I would like to thank all of you for your advice, your kind messages of support, and for sharing your stories. I'm sending hugs to those of you who have also lost their parents.

Deep down I know I would benefit from getting counselling. I have often thought about it but then didn't act upon it as, like I said in my post, I was brought up to solve problems on my own and not ask anybody for help. I thought I would eventually make peace with my parents' deaths as time passed, but I know I haven't. I try and avoid situations that trigger me, and I hold onto my parents' material things. Some examples. Celebrating Christmas with my inlaws. One of my SILs and her husband love hosting family on Christmas Day. They are great hosts and wonderful cooks. I love Christmas too, but celebrating with DH's family makes me feel anxious and sad because I miss the Christmases with my parents. I even get anxious in the weeks and days leading up to the day. I know it's pathetic to feel like this. I smile and act jolly when I'm there but I'm hurting inside.

I've kept most of my parents' clothes. They are neatly stored in our house. I sometimes look at the clothes or I feel the fabrics, especially when I'm feeling down. They're like a comfort blanket. I have also kept many of my mom's books and her postcard collection. And all the family photos (hundreds). My mom's glasses. My dad's paperwork and notebooks. And various other things.

My parents had a full and happy life, they loved every minute of it, and I'm thankful for that. I know they would feel sad and disappointed even, if they knew I was unhappy.

As for making friends, I find it quite hard to develop new friendships as an adult, which is strange as I work in a very people-oriented field where I have to do a lot talking to new people all the time. I do have 2 or 3 good old friends in my hometown. We've know each other since kindergarten and they never moved away. They knew my parents, and I knew theirs.
We keep in touch and we meet up when I visit.

DH has been so supportive throughout.

OP get the counseling. You don't want to get to the point where you aren't fulling living in the present and enjoying your husband and kids. I can see some extremes in your writing. Nobody "enjoys every minute" of their life. You are making them sound like they aren't even human which is what we sometimes do when we lose loved ones. We give them saint status. You have to find a way to have them live in your heart without having it have a such a negative impact on your enjoyment of life. Get therapy to honor them. They would not want you to be stuck.

Hi, this is OP again.

I would like to thank all of you for your advice, your kind messages of support, and for sharing your stories. I'm sending hugs to those of you who have also lost their parents.

Deep down I know I would benefit from getting counselling. I have often thought about it but then didn't act upon it as, like I said in my post, I was brought up to solve problems on my own and not ask anybody for help. I thought I would eventually make peace with my parents' deaths as time passed, but I know I haven't. I try and avoid situations that trigger me, and I hold onto my parents' material things. Some examples. Celebrating Christmas with my inlaws. One of my SILs and her husband love hosting family on Christmas Day. They are great hosts and wonderful cooks. I love Christmas too, but celebrating with DH's family makes me feel anxious and sad because I miss the Christmases with my parents. I even get anxious in the weeks and days leading up to the day. I know it's pathetic to feel like this. I smile and act jolly when I'm there but I'm hurting inside.

I've kept most of my parents' clothes. They are neatly stored in our house. I sometimes look at the clothes or I feel the fabrics, especially when I'm feeling down. They're like a comfort blanket. I have also kept many of my mom's books and her postcard collection. And all the family photos (hundreds). My mom's glasses. My dad's paperwork and notebooks. And various other things.

My parents had a full and happy life, they loved every minute of it, and I'm thankful for that. I know they would feel sad and disappointed even, if they knew I was unhappy.

As for making friends, I find it quite hard to develop new friendships as an adult, which is strange as I work in a very people-oriented field where I have to do a lot talking to new people all the time. I do have 2 or 3 good old friends in my hometown. We've know each other since kindergarten and they never moved away. They knew my parents, and I knew theirs.
We keep in touch and we meet up when I visit.

DH has been so supportive throughout.

Anonymous wrote:I'm early 50s, married, no kids.

My mom died in 1999, cervical cancer. She died 7 months after being diagnosed.
Dad died in 2008, of sepsis, after having been ill with complications for more than 3 years. Dad remained single after my mom died.

Mom was only 51 when she passed, and Dad 64.

Time has not been a good healer. I am still finding this hard, after all these years. My parents have missed out on so much, and so have I.
I sometimes get angry and sad inside when I see friends with their parents. Especially their mothers. Or when they talk about the all the fun things they did with their parents, like going on a shopping trip, having meals together, going on vacation. Christmas is a big trigger. Mother's Day too.
It all feels very unfair.

I often try and imagine what my parents would be doing now if they were alive. Mom would be 74 this year, and Dad 77. They would be retired and doing all the things on their bucket list.
My parents always lived life to the full, for which I feel happy

I don't have siblings, so no one to share childhood memories with. I have aunts, uncles and cousins and their kids. My relationship with them is friendly but not really close.

My DH has been very supportive, but I still feel alone and sometimes detached from others in a strange way.
It doesn't help that I don't have a large friendship circle. I have mainly acquaintances and co-workers but no close friends.

Any suggestions? DH suggested bereavement counselling but I've never had counselling or therapy before. I was brought up to solve my own problems.

Therapy. You need to talk to someone to help you solve this problem. You aren't solving it on your own. A therapist can help you reframe your losses. A therapist can help you develop the skills you need to form friendships and mentoring relationships going forward.

Anonymous wrote:OP, go to the family relationships forum. Half the women want their moms dead. 75% wants the same for their MIL. 85% wishes that their SIL/Sister died.

Be thankful that you have good memories.

Seriously. My parents made life difficult in so many ways. I care for them but there would never be these happy fantasies you have alive or not.

I also have a sibling with whom I’m not close and is a source of chaos in my life.

Anonymous wrote:Hugs OP.

I have no advice as I feel like a lost soul myself. Lost my dad at 11, mom at 21. Both sudden.

I don’t think the grief will ever fade.

Agree. In way, though, you get used to that feeling, used to the fact that they are gone. I feel like there's a hole in my heart since my mom died. It's cliche, but I actually feel her loss physically. It hurts, but I've grown used to it. It's amazing what we can live with.

Anonymous wrote:OP, my mom died in her 50s as well. I'm her only child. It's lonely to not to be able to share/laugh about memories with any siblings who would have known her like I did. Being an only child makes grief a little different in my opinion. I agree with counseling, its worth a shot.

I met my best friend in a parental loss bereavement group 12 years ago. I lost both parents within 8 months of each other. I have many siblings, my friend was an only child who had just lost her only parent. In group, she remarked that grieving with your siblings is better than grieving alone. I told her that my siblings and I were all grieving and of little support to each other and we might as well have been alone. Grief is a personal process. Over the years, I've learned so much about her parent, that I can picture them throughout my friend's childhood and young adulthood. We are more like sisters at this point and I support her and listen when grief rears its head.

Hugs OP.

I have no advice as I feel like a lost soul myself. Lost my dad at 11, mom at 21. Both sudden.

I don’t think the grief will ever fade.

The older you get, family often grows more distant, other than parents, and disappoints. Your misfortune is your opportunity to make really close friend relationships. I'm in a somewhat similar situation. We can build or own village in time. But for now, I'm so sorry you lost both parents so young. That's a big loss. Hugs to you!

Offering a slightly different perspective. My grandmother is the last one standing (so to speak), of her generation. Something I've noticed over the years, is that as she lost her siblings, their children, and grandchildren, gravitated towards her, and she welcomed them with open arms. She has a whole host of "children" that she didn't birth, as a result. That substitute figure does not replace a parent that one loses, but they have some of the strongest memories of the lost parent, what they were like as a child, the shenanigans they got up to, and some comfort can apparently be found in learning that history.

If you think your mom/dad's siblings, cousins, and other relatives would be open to the idea, reach out to them. Talk to them about your parents, see a side of them that you likely did not know existed. That might help, in addition to grief counseling.

Anonymous wrote:OP, go to the family relationships forum. Half the women want their moms dead. 75% wants the same for their MIL. 85% wishes that their SIL/Sister died.

Be thankful that you have good memories.

OMG this made me laugh and I hate that I laughed. OP this is my point in a much more blunt way. I am sandwiched and have been for a Loooong time. There are no violins and frolicking in green pastures visiting aging family as we sip tea in rocking chairs as my heart grows warmer. Some people become really horrible with age. Sometimes it's a personality change, other times it's a loss of filter. There is no guarantee if they lived they would not be hurling insults at you or slapping you (due to dementia) because they feel anxious and out of sorts. There is no guarantee your life would not have been filled with years of emergencies and pseudo-emergencies where you get frantic calls, drop your life and zoom over....which is fine the first dozen times, but by the time you have done this for years the resentment grows. Nothing like explaining to your kids why grand-mommy erupted again and hurled insults. Seriously I had no idea middle age would be like this.

My cousin was missing her mom so much, so I encouraged her to spend time with my mother. That was the CURE. She always thought my mother was the easiest of the sisters. Nope. It gave her a glimpse of what she would faced with her mother and she is quite grateful she didn't have to endure this for years and years. She said she had created all these ideas in her head of what could have been and she had forgotten what her mom could be like at her worst. She also had not thought about what would happen as the filters fade.

I don't know that we ever get over it, OP. We learn to live with it.

My mother died of cancer when I was 23. She was only 52. I had no relationship with my father but he died when I was in my 20s, too. I've had no parents for nearly my entire adult life. My mom died before I hit nearly all of the typical adult milestones. It's been 20 years and I feel her absence nearly every day, but I power through. She would've wanted me to live a full, happy life so that's what I try to do. God knows I'm acutely aware of how short life can be, especially as I approach the age she was when she got sick.

I do things that help me to feel close to her. I talk about her often with DH and my kids. I share stories about her, or when we hear a song she liked, I'll mention it. I'm sure my DH has heard some of these stories countless times but he always listens. I've always been close with my mother's family, even as a kid, and we've maintained that closeness over the years. I just spent an hour talking to my aunt on the phone the other day. Having strong family connections beyond my immediate family of origin has really helped me.

But it's still hard, some days are worse than others. Even though I have my own family now, I still feel a bit untethered. The one person who loved me unconditionally, more than anyone else in the world, is long gone. I will never hear her tell me she's proud of the woman I've become, or that I've built a wonderful family, or that I'm doing a good job. I have to be the one to tell myself that. (No disrespect to my DH, who is wonderful, but it's different when those affirmations come from a parent). It's hard when I see my friends with their mothers, especially friends who have kids. Around the time I had my first child, it felt like I was grieving the loss of my mom all over again. No one could understand why such a happy event was tinged with such sadness and loss. Having my own children opened up the wound again.

I, too, read "Motherless Daughters" shortly after my mom died. More recently, I read "Motherless Mothers" by the same author. Both books helped a lot and put my grief into perspective.

Look into some therapy and/or find ways to keep their spirits alive, which might help you feel less alone and sad.

51 and both my parents are deceased some years ago.

I get the jealousy. A lot of people like you and I do.

When my Mom died I read “Motherless Daughters” and it was so helpful and therapeutic. I am not one to recommend books (like….ever) but that one is always on my mind.

The hard part is that except for your husband you really have no family and your parents were your only family. Loneliness can be brutal. I'd seek some counseling so you can really talk it out with a professional and at the same time I'd try to find new groups of people who share a common interest with you that you can bond and engage over. You really need friends and that will take a lot of work on your part because you are likely quite shy or inhibited.

My mom died at 37, I was 3. My dad died at 62, I was 24. My brother died at 19, I was 12.

You move on. Force yourself. Make your own traditions, knock out your bucket list, create strong friendships.

Therapy may help, but you have to be open to it.

Keep in mind that you probably have friends whose mothers are alive but have awful relationships with their parents and can't spend time with them.

But if all this time has passed and you haven't made peace with your parents' deaths, then it's definitely time for therapy.