Hopefully this is helpful to others

[cindyjane]

Hello everyone

 

It's been almost 6 months since losing my dear dad.  11 months prior to that huge loss, my mom passed on.  The toughest thing I have ever gone through in my life was losing both parents in less than a year.  

 

In looking back on this time I have to ask myself what got me through it all.  I keeps going back to the same thing.  I focused on the good things.  Even in our darkest times of losing a parent, if we are able to look, we will see good things.  For me it was reflecting on my entire life and seeing what good parents they were.  What good people they were and even through the life storms in families, I could see what loving people they were.  In my teenage years I gave my parents a run for their money.  I broke curfew, there were times that I disrespected them, I skipped school, took them for granted, etc.  But the bottom line is they were good people and loved me no matter what stupid things I did over the years.  

 

In being able to see these good things and who they were, I couldn't help but to feel grateful for having them as my parents.  

 

Something I share with people who are going through difficult times is this;  All you have to do is look to the left, then look to the right, and you will find someone else going through something much worse.  

 

What I am getting at is that I was able to change my deep sorrow, grief, shock, and sadness to feelings of gratefulness.  Grateful to have my mom and dad for parents.  Feeling grateful still brings on the tears when I think of my parents, but that pain in the pit of my stomach is more like butterflies in my stomach now when I think of them.  

 

I hope this helps anyone who is going through the loss of a parent.  When those memories come to surface and the tears start flowing, try to remember what a blessing your parent(s) have been in your life.

 

Take care and know that you are not alone.

Cindy Jane

 

 

[Phil47]

Thanks Cindyjane your words are a great comfort. I lost my mum on 27 Dec last year and 10 weeks on I still feel so lost and broken hearted. People like yourselve keep me some hope that at some stage I may be able to look back and be grateful of the time I shared with my mum rather than the emptiness I feel. It is only that hope that enables me to carry on as I don't think I could continue if i thought I was going to continue feeling as I do now. Me and my mum were so close she was 81 and I am 47 so I am thankful for the time I've had but to me at the end of the day I still feel I've lost the most important and dependable person in my life and the thought of Mother's Day in 2 weeks time and her birthday on 3rd April feel like days of dread fast approaching.

[cindyjane]

Hi Phil ... I am so sorry for your loss. It sounds like you've been blessed to have such a wonderful mom and your love for her shines through in your words.  You feel like you've lost most important and dependable person in your life ... and you have!  There is nothing like the unconditional love of a parent and that is why it hurts so much when they leave us.  I feel like I've lost a part of myself in losing my parents.  Yet, when I think of them I know to the core what they would want for me.  They would want me to carry on in this life and be the best person that I can be ... just like how they lived their lives.  They would want me to be happy and carry on the best that I can.  In knowing this is what they would want for me, I work hard to try to honour that.  When the sadness of missing them hits and the tears start flowing, I see that as a part of the healing from this great loss so I  say go with your feelings because we are always going to miss our parents but as time goes on, the heaviness of our hearts does lighten.  

 

Take care and hopefully on Mother's Day and our mom's birthdays (my mom's is on April 13th) our wonderful memories of our mom's will outweigh the sadness in missing them.  

 

Cindy Jane