Author Topic: Still difficult 2 years on 🙁  (Read 1430 times)

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Offline Jfd7000

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Still difficult 2 years on 🙁
« on: January 30, 2021, 12:49:21 AM »
It was January 31st 2019. My dad was unwell and went into hospital. This wasn’t out of the ordinary as he got older winter wasn’t kind to him. Exactly a year previous he was in bed not well. When he went into hospital he was normally discharged pretty quick. This time was very different. The hospital phoned and ask me to come asap. I knew something was up. When I got there I wasn’t allowed in to him straight away as they were seeing to him. When I finally went in he looked scared. I asked him what was going on and he asked if I had spoken to the doctors. I said no and he said speak to the doctors. I was taken into a small room with a consultant and another doctor. They explained there was nothing they could do. He had pneumonia that was too advanced and his organs were failing. My dad had already been told. I felt so sorry for him. He looked so afraid. He was sat up with oxygen on talking to me. I kept telling him he can’t leave me I wasn’t strong enough. My brother came and my mum who was divorced from my dad. I sat with him day and night and told him I loved him and he replied and said the same. In the early hours of the 3rd Feb I had fallen asleep and woke up and told him I loved him and he didn’t reply. I lost it I couldn’t take the grief. 3 hours later he took his last breath. I went my dads every day with a paper and done his shopping and washing. I wanted to look after my dad like he had looked after me. After he died i still went to his home and sat in his bedroom on a chair next to his bed. It was left how it was when the ambulance came. I would talk to him as though he was there. I got the strength to organise his funeral and everything else but I don’t know where it came from. People would say to me that time is a healer. My brain wouldn’t accept the loss. I just cried all the time. I did have counselling and it helped slightly. I just kept telling myself time is a healer. I would walk around the cemetery every day as that’s the last place my dad was for the funeral. I couldn’t go and pick his ashes up for over a year. He is now in the cemetery and has a head stone and I go all the time. I drop my kids off at school and go the cemetery. I miss him so much. Sometimes the grief hits me so hard it hurts inside. My wife has been amazing but I feel so lonely. I was dreaming about him for a while after he died then they stopped. Last week I had a random dream that he was stood at a bus stop shivering with cold and I stopped to give him a lift. I am constantly asking him to look after me. Asking him why he left me. I have my wife and kids and other family but feel so lonely. I get annoyed that life has moved on. Watching my dad die was torture. I try and stay positive because I did get chance to say goodbye but it hurts so much even 2 years later. Is this normal? Others just seem so strong and are carrying on as normal. I just want next week to pass by.

Offline Karena

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Re: Still difficult 2 years on 🙁
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2021, 02:05:25 PM »
 :hug: yes it is normal you clearly had a very strong bond with your dad  and you may find you  come to a point when you say you are fine and actually you arent and a lot of the people you think have moved on may be doing the same thing.
Others here and myself have often found the second year really difficult add to that the year we have all had in 2020 and it doesnt help either .
We expect it in the first year - all those anniversaries- Xmas, birthdays etc ahead - but our culture has this year of mourning illlusion - and illusion is all it is - invented by the Victorians for reasons of convenience -but it is so ingrained we imagine it will be a magic goalpost and eveything will  be better once we get past the first year and we look around and see those "moved on" people and think something is wrong with us and how we are grieving but it isnt the case grief is very personal and the relationship we had with the person who has died is never exactly the same as it is with others - not that its any less or greater just different.

Instead of thinking you should move on which suggests to move away from some-one and think of them as lost too us -   i find its helpful to think in terms of moving forward which doesn't mean moving away from them but taking them with you just in a different way - whether that's through  your memorys of his life - the things that made you smile or cry even little things that were annoying at the time - or whether its through a religious - or afterlife belief  it doesnt matter  moving forward just means taking them with you - going to the cemetery is fine there is nothing wrong with that at all  but we are all different in that way as well and have to find what heals us ourselves -i dont have a headstone to visit  but for me that would be focussing on the end of some-ones life and for me we are much more than tha time - we need to be some-one who lived and thats how i would prefer to be remembered with smiles not tears  if that makes sense.

For me it was going to the places me and my husband loved and planting wild daffodils as an affirmation of him being there and perhaps making others smile on seeing them when they have a bad day  and the being out in the natural world which was important too us both as well -  then it was  doing some of the things we talked about doing but didnt get round too or things he would have liked to do that were not things i would have done but i was doing them for him  - and you dont need to do this alone maybe once lockdown is over take your kids to the places he took you when you were small  and talk to them about those times  - so they get to know him as he was when he was younger and in sharing those happier times you start to feel close to him again yourself.