I can empathize with you and send you angels. Dad passed in 1986 after waiting for my daughter to be born so he could see her at least once. He was 75, almost 76. Came and went with Halley’s Comet. Mom passed in 2010 after a 5 year bout with lung cancer. My wife and I moved to Florida and took care of her during that time.
They say you never really grow up until your folks are gone. I do know it’s made me more cognizant of life and it’s riches. I believe in an afterlife, not “heaven” but an afterlife nevertheless. I feel my parents presence often and to this day if I walk in my parents house, I can hear my Mom’s laugh. They will always be a part of me, as yours will be a part of you. Not just genetically speaking either. You are who you are because of them. Your strength flows from their love for you. Keep their pictures handy, say “hi” often. Time will heal the hurt but it will not erase their memory from you. Cherish that part.
My sincere condolences. I, too, know that feeling of loss when your final parent dies. Being single, it brought home the fact that there was really no one to look after me now, if something happened. Even though I never needed it, knowing that safety net was there made it easier to walk the tightrope that is adult life.
Dec 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, would’ve been my mother’s 83rd birthday.
I’m so very sorry. She sounds like such a good person. A friend of mine is in hospice care right now. It seems like many are leaving us before year’s end. It will be a sadder Christmas. But maybe, the chance to have shared good lives will ease the loss.
I think I can say I know how much it hurts, as I recently lost my dad.
So very sorry to hear of your loss. Keep your own thread bookmarked, you are going to need to come back and bend our ear again, take my word for it. It sounds like you loved her very much, that’s why it hurts. Be sure you take care of yourself, get enough sleep and eat right.
I was rather amazed that one of my first thoughts after my dad died was, “I’m an orphan.” Somehow my mental image of an orphan required a child, until I became one in my mid-30s and felt so entirely alone.
Flowers and things have started arriving at my sister’s house. The floral arrangements are beautiful, but one of the “things” was a large edible “bouquet”-various fruits cut up and shaped to look like a floral display, like small chocolate covered banana pussywillows, and pineapple slice and cantaloupe ball flowers. It’s the type of thing that should be delivered to an office party and devoured immediately, not delivered to a house of two people. We took pictures, then bagged and refrigerated the fruit.
There is still her room to deal with. All her oxygen equipment has been picked up quickly and quietly, but there is a lot of work to be done in there and a lot of decisions to be made.
When my dad passed in October, I was surprised by how quickly hospice was there to pick up the equipment. It wasn’t immediately (he died close to midnight), but they were there the next day, before noon.
Don’t feel bad. When the son of a co-worker died and we were all deciding what to bring, the Yankee one of us suggested pizza.
Have you noticed that when somebody dies their things do, too? The dresser they’ve had for years, useful, sometimes hiding special secrets, now just seems scarred and old. Their closets feel empty. Their wallets crack when you open them. Everything seems like yesterday’s mail.