The Loss of a Parent

At 51 years of age, I find myself in that awful position of having lost both parents. It doesn't matter how old you are when your parents die. You still feel like an orphan when they are both gone. My dad's death, being the most recent, is the one that I'm still working hard to deal with.
My mother died at age 53, so she has been gone for most of my adult life.

My dad was 75 years old when he died so I consider myself lucky to have had lots of time with him. He was the kind of man that everyone loved. He was smart, funny, and he loved life. He didn't give advice unless asked, minded his own business, and lived by the saying, "What goes around comes around." He had an unexplainable calming effect on me. I could be having the worst of days, some huge life catastrophe, or trouble with the kids and just talking to him on the phone could calm me down. He was not only my dad. He was my wonderful friend and a source of strength for me. I miss him more than I could ever find the words to express.

He was diagnosed with cancer eighteen months before he passed away. I knew something was wrong because he had been looking thin and pale. I think he knew, too, but maybe just didn't want to hear it. There was no hope of curing his cancer, but the oncologist felt that he could get him a little more time with chemotherapy. Thankfully, my dad consented to the treatments because it gave us a little more time with him. We knew that a time would come that the treatments wouldn't help anymore, and that happened about six weeks before he died.

There was a five week hospital stay, during which I never left him. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful husband who understood the importance of my being with him and also fortunate that I was not employed at the time. And even though my dad was so ill, and sometimes didn't even know I was there, I'll always cherish this time. It was probably the most difficult time of my life, but it was also very special. I needed to be with him, and be there for him, like he had been there for me all my life.

The healing has been a long, hard, painful road. There were days when I literally felt like screaming, and there were days when I cried for hours. These days don't come as often now, but they still occur occasionally.

Some of the things that have helped me through it are:

My relationship with God, lots of prayer and meditation

Allowing myself to lean on loved ones for support

Talking about my dad what I love about him, how bad I felt for him when he was ill, recounting funny stories about him, etc.

Writing poems and letters to him

Letting myself cry or feel sad when I need to

Honoring his memory by paying attention to things that were important to him for example, he loved to watch the birds in his back yard, so I put a feeder in my yard in his memory

Telling stories about him to his grandchildren so that his memory lasts forever

He always wanted to go to Alaska, so last spring, my husband and I took an Alaskan cruise. It sounds strange, but I almost felt like I was seeing it through his eyes.

Grief is one of the most difficult phases that we have to go through. The initial loss of a loved one is terrible, but as time goes by and life gets back to normal, we have to figure out how to live it without them. It's painful, and some days it seems like we'll never get better. But sooner or later we do, and the timetable is different for everyone. But a time will come when we will be able to think of the lost loved without sadness. The thoughts will make us smile with wonderful memories.

My description of how the healing works is: At first, it feels like there is a hole in your heart where that person used to be. As the healing progresses, the hole remains, but its rough edges seem to become smoother. There will always be a place for them in your heart, but it just won't hurt so much.