My dad died in a car crash

[cookiewise]

My lovely dad died in a car crash, along with his wife in December. I am stil coming to terms with his death. He was old but was not ill (he had survived cancer) but walked a lot and was very happy and still very much compus mentis. He loved being alive and was looking forward to lots of things in the New Year, including having an 80th birthday party!

 

He was taken from us very suddenly. I did not see him too often as he lived abroad but he kept in contact and we skyped a lot. I have cried a lot. I feel very sad, very angry and at times very panicky. I have terrible thoughts of how he died and the damage that was done to his body. Some of my relatives got to see his body to identify him (by law). I cannot get the image of my lovely, soft, sweet and gentle dad being battered and bruised and damaged. Sometimes the thought of him not only being dead but being killed is so horrific I wish my own mind would shut down. I don't know if anyone else here has lost a loved one this way. It would be good to hear how your grief unfolded and things that helped you.

[ikaros]

I am grieving with you, on your behalf and mine. I am very sorry for your loss. I witnessed my mother's death after multiple failures on her doctor's and the hospitals' part as they neglected to identify a simple case of sepsis, then administered a drug that she couldn't process due to a prior existing illness. It put her in a coma and they couldn't revive her...

 

My mother and I had a strange and sometimes strained relationship, but we knew we loved each other. I suffered from terrible dreams and nightmares for a while because before my mom became unconscious she became afraid, and wanted to leave the hospital, and I had to restrain her in the bed. She was hooked up to catheter and I think I was doing the right thing, to hold her back, but she was panicking and wanted to leave. The thing is, if I had let her get up, she might have lived, because it was before the nursing staff gave her the Ativan that killed her.

 

I am deeply haunted by the look in her eyes as she pleaded silently for me to help her out of that bed. I don't tell you this just to share or arouse sympathy, but so that you know I am serious when I say the visions in my head and dreams were horrifying to me.

 

Slowly I began to focus on the fact that my mother loved me and that regardless of the harm that came to her, she would forgive me always. It didn't work at first; I was so angry and devastated and consumed that no amount of consoling (usually me trying to console myself) seemed to work.

 

I pretended she wasn't dead for months... crazy, right? I begged her to come visit me in my dreams, not afraid and pleading but as I hope and believe "spirits" exist after death... in a place of healing and peace and understanding. I am agnostic, which means I don't believe we know what happens when we die until we die. I do, however, believe the soul persists, and that comforts me.

 

I lost hope, and the horror of my sadness cooled and deepened and the nightmares subsided. One major thing that helped is I had a visitation dream. It was the singular most beautiful and soul wrenching experience of life, besides the birth of my child. The other thing that helped, cliché as it may seem, is being able to vent on this website. My family fell apart when my mom died, as far apart as a family can fall... I couldn't speak to anyone. I have health issues and no friends or family other than an elderly father who lives a few states away.

 

When grief lives strong within you and lingers there comes a time when you realize you cant be as open about it as when it was fresh. I kept breaking down at work, in public... I soon realized how uncomfortable that makes people. It helped to find this forum so I could say the things I needed to say without judgment. For me, writing words here is like looking another person in the eye and getting to be honest in ways I am not allowed to be honest in real life. It doesn't even matter if anyone reads my words. It is so comforting just to know it's out there, out of me and in the world where someone, anyone, can observe them and regard the truth of them without the bias of actually knowing me.

 

Anyway, this answer is probably more therapeutic for me than for you. Thank you for listening, and I wish you speed in reconciling your grief.