I’m sorry about your father, too.
I’ve read many of your threads about her. I mourn that for you, too.
Makes you wonder if a certain poster might not be worried about his own dark secrets being passed down.
I’m bookmarking this thread for the day when my mother passes. I love her, but she is the most toxic person I’ve ever known and has wreaked havoc on everything in our lives. I’ll miss her terribly when she’s gone because she does have her occasional stand alone moments of normal (even wonderful) mom-ness. But all the love and missing will be tempered with relief, hurt and guilt over not being the daughter she apparently wanted. So, I feel for you, Alice. I can imagine what a difficult and odd road this is to walk. I’m sorry for all that you’ve had to go through.
This is also me. Mental illness aside, there was no way I was subjecting a child of mine to her, so there’s no concerns there. It just is what it is.
That’s the thing, though- it’s not difficult. I feel nothing over his death except relief. It is odd, though, to not have the “normal” feelings that one has with the death of a parent. If I don’t keep in mind what kind of person he was, it would be easy to question whether I’m a horrible person for not being in mourning. Most people that haven’t been there would say, “But he’s your father!” If he’d been like your mother, it would be a lot more difficult. But he wasn’t, he was 100% toxic, it had been almost 20 years since I’d last dealt with him, and I’ve gone through a lot of therapy in that time. So it’s okay. Any difficult feelings I’m having right now have to do with my reconciliation with my mother, who, although not mean or abusive, is still, I feel, culpable for the abuse of my childhood due to her willful negligence. And that’s hard for me to deal with.
No, you’re not a cold hearted person.
You don’t have to sound sad, just call up your mom and say sorry for your loss mom.
It’s for your mom, not him. Then take it from there.
My father wasn’t quite the person yours was, but he went to prison when I was a kid and never really got his shit together ever since. I made attempts to foster some sort of relationship with him later on but him behaving like a perpetual adolescent made it difficult, and just reserve myself to the fact that it was a lost cause. I don’t know how I’ll feel when he passes, but I do know whatever it is it won’t take me long to get over it and move on.
Ah, sorry, Alice. I meant difficult in it being a different reaction than most people expect or anticipate. I’m fubarring language right and left these days. Mea culpa.
Oh, no, I misunderstood, then. Be gentle with yourself- you are actually experiencing real grief these days!
I can totally see not mourning, and actually being pissed that you didn’t have the kind of father who you would mourn in a normal way. Feeling relief seems perfectly reasonable to me!
My father isn’t that bad, but yeah, I hoped he would die first so I could be with mom and take care of her as an old lady. She died relatively young and now I live with him because I wasn’t doing anything else, he probably needs the company, and he’s not as scary and domineering as he was when I was a kid. But if he dies first my reactions will be:
Shit, now I have to figure out how to file his paperwork and taxes, and fix up and sell this house.
and after that:
I’M FREE!!!
I get you, Alice, my mother passed this spring, and the hardest part was being gracious to peoples well intentioned sympathy. Best wishes.
I can imagine what that “plan” was and I’d bet many others would join you.
So what exactly are they doing with the body? Just cremation and having the ashes scattered?
Cremation, but I don’t know about the ashes. When I called my mother last night, we really didn’t discuss him, as odd as that may seem- the only time I mentioned him was when I remarked that I’d heard that her husband had died. I really didn’t want the first conversation I had with her in 10 years to be dominated by him in death the way he’d dominated everything between us in life, if that makes sense.
Wow, I cannot imagine the relief you have now that he is gone. And your probably right exposing his bad behavior to future generations so years from now they forget and he becomes someone they honor.
This has to be the saddest and most depressing thread ever.
I don’t think so.
why? The notion that The Cleavers are the Ideal American Family is what is sad. I turned out more-or-less OK but I won’t lie and say every day growing up was “Hi honey, I’m home!” and “golly gee whiz, Wally!” and “Oh he was real sore on account of me forgetting to take the trash out.”
There is no perfect family. Growing up poor with one parent in the inner city might help you turn into a gang member and kill someone. Or become a multimillionaire. Growing up in a wealthy family with everything you could want or need might see you kill four people. Your parent(s) might have done things right by you but you were a sociopath who felt you were entitled to decide who deserved to live and die.
there are 7+ billion people on this planet. there are shitty parents, and shitty kids. it’s not “sad” to acknowledge that.
Yeah, there are actually very sad and depressing threads current right now- there’s one where a poster has terminal colon cancer, one where another poster’s beloved husband just passed away, and numerous threads where actual loving and nice parents have recently died. This thread is about feeling relief and not-grief, and how odd it can be to feel that when your parent dies, but it’s not sad and depressing. To me, anyway.
I intended no offence and I apologize if I caused any. I am a father of three and I’m nowhere near perfect, but I’ve tried hard. The reason this is sad and depressing to me is the number of posters who say they have no positive feelings for their parents. I can fail at a lot of things and still recover, but if I fail at being a parent I don’t know what I would do.
My father passed away a year and a half ago, and I miss him every day. I’m sad that you didn’t get to have that kind of a relationship.
No offense taken. I’m sorry for your grief.
This is why I brought up in #31 above if we should tell future generations about the bad ancestors and #35, if people in their later years could ever have some positive closure with the people who have harmed them in the past.
Turns out yes on 1 and no on 2.
All we can do is learn from our past and go on.