# Losing Your First Parent (to Death, Not a In a Mall or Something) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 10, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516 "2016-09-10T13:02:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/61 "2016-09-13T13:30:29Z")
I was 32. Dad was 65. He died of stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/62 "2016-09-13T18:12:09Z")
It’s hard to lose a parent no matter the age or even the relationship. My father dropped dead in front of me at 57 from a heart attack. I was 24. I was an immature 24-year-old and it really messed me up. I’m so thankful that my mom is still with me at the age of 78 and I hope she’s still here for quite awhile longer. Her father died at 92 and her mother at 98, so here’s hoping we still have a lot of time… ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/63 "2016-09-13T19:49:09Z")
My mother died when I was 41, she was 69. She was sick with the cancer and diabetes for several years and was in generally poor condition. It was a relief that she was not suffering any longer. My father died 3 years later, he was 76, and also not well for some time. Early 40s for me not a fun time. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/64 "2016-09-13T20:43:51Z")
My mom died in early 1993, so I would have been 34. ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/65 "2016-09-13T21:26:54Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I think I was 34 when mom died. We were a single parent family. She’d been ill for a very long time so it wasn’t quite as devastating. I cried and missed her and for a while I really wanted to call her up and hear her voice and have her just listen. She was the only person in my life I could just call up have listen to whatever, for however long. I still miss that, though it’s been 18 years I think. When she died she took a few secrets with her I regret not having gotten out of her before it was too late. Wow. Except for being 44 at the time this is me. She’s only been gone 8 years but I so miss having no one else to talk to. I was 36 when my father died. He abandoned us when I was 11. Having shed enough tears over him throughout my life I had none left by the time he was gone. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/66 "2016-09-14T23:03:15Z")
I was 57 when my dad died at 78. He said if he’d known he would live that long he would have treated us better. My mom is still alive. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/67 "2016-09-15T12:05:56Z")
My father died on leukemia at the age of 57 and I was 24. He had been horribly abusive when I was growing up although he had mellowed a bit in the years before he died. Because he had been the tyrant that ruled the family, his illness caused the family to unravel. My older brother, the oldest of the five of us, simply ran away. He was married, lived less than 10 minutes away and we saw him once during the final five months. My oldest sister lived in Chicago and never called. The second sister had a breakdown and lived by flopping at various friends’ places. My younger brother spent most of that time in the psych ward for youth. My job was to take care of my mother who was coming apart. At his funeral there were more of my friends, who never knew him, than people from his workplace of 30 years. They didn’t even send a card. Not that I blame them. My mother misses him but the rest of us agree that the only thing unfortunate about his death was that it didn’t happen 20 years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/68 "2016-09-15T13:31:25Z")
My dad, in good health for his age (93) died peacefully in his sleep in the house I grew up in, on my 55th birthday. Word did not reach me (in a remote Bolivian village) until a couple of weeks later. But owing to his age, I was not strongly affected by it. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/69 "2016-09-15T15:31:10Z")
My mom was 49 and I was 25. I’m 46 now and still grieving, but it’s just a dull ache these days. I miss her horribly though. I have a hard time around her birthday, which is actually the 20th of this month. She was far too young, but she was sick for a very long time after battling viral pneumonia when I was a child. Congestive heart failure, a bout of cancer that couldn’t be effectively treated because her heart was too weak, morbid obesity they only knew how to treat with extreme diets she could never stick with… she killed herself though, because she couldn’t stand hearing that death clock ticking anymore. My father died about a year ago. I didn’t care at all. He was horrible person I had nothing to do with anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516/70 "2016-09-15T19:43:01Z")
My mom died when I was 46. I’m not entirely sure how old she was–her past was kind of a mystery to all of us. She could have been 77, or she could have been 84, depending on which version of her birth certificate you believe. It was a huge shock–it happened fast and I went from “not knowing anything’s wrong” to “mom’s gone” in less than a month. My dad died two years later, on Christmas Day. Another fairly sudden one–my parents weren’t good about telling me when they were sick, and I think they were both in denial about it until it was too late to do much about it. He was 81. I hadn’t really had much experience with close relatives dying before then, except for my paternal grandparents who were both quite elderly when they died as well. Losing two parents in two years was quite a shock. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/losing-your-first-parent-to-death-not-a-in-a-mall-or-something/765516.md?page=3)