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Death of my Father


Nami

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~N00b in the haus~

My father passed away at 65 on July 17th very suddenly.
I have one brother who has just reached technical adulthood, and I am in my early twenties.
Our mother is alive and holding things together as much as she can, what with her own terminally ill (and abusive) partner.

It has been ten days since he passed away and what with the funeral arrangements and delays with the release of the body, the shock is immense.
Grief rolls over in waves that I struggle and fight against. I refuse to drown.
I've spent hours meeting people and planning his funeral and liaising with everyone who was immediately close in his (rather unconventional) life.
Doing lots of 'useful' things is helping me not fall to pieces, and everyone I am speaking to says that at some point I must fall to pieces.
The way I feel, it's a bad enough situation without me losing my mind at the same time. Everyone reacts in their different ways, and I cannot stop working on the loose ends. 
There's too much at stake, now that my Dad is gone, and my brother's gone to pieces.

I have a few questions to the denizens of these forums:
- Timing: I've been warned that the 8-12 week mark is often where mental health takes a really big backslide, when the funeral arrangements are done and it's just the slow-grind wheels of bureaucracy to grapple with. What are your experiences within this kind of time-frame?

- Disposal of possessions: We do not have space (we live in a minuscule apartment) and therefore will need to sell or otherwise dispose of a great quantity of my Dad's stuff as he had ~7 full shipping containers worth of household items. What were your emotional responses to sorting and clearing the belongings of a deceased loved one, and what strategies did you use in an attempt to mitigate the pain? 

 

The funeral is in a little over a weeks' time, and I'm up to my eyeballs in planning things according to what I recall him telling me about this "contingency situation" as he called it. I'm immensely grateful, in hindsight, for the suicidal teenage years that led me to speak to him thoroughly and frankly about death.
Obviously, I'd have liked to have the chance for him to be alive, and all the awesomeness that would have been. 
However, I have now experienced the two certainties of life; death and taxes. And they suck,

Signing off,
The Flying Dutchman's Feisty Daughter
aka
Nami

 

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Nami,

I am very sorry about the loss of your father. In response to your questions--I didn't fall apart until the first anniversary, and even then, I didn't fall completely apart. I was quite frankly too busy and too overwhelmed to allow myself to fall apart. I did let myself cry my heart out. I went through anxiety, but I managed it. I went through depression, but I exercised, and I took care of myself physically, which definitely helps with the emotional well being. 

My mother wanted to dispose of my father's things immediately. She gave them out to all of us, and or gave them to charities, etc. We cried as we went through them. But now I cherish the things I have. 

My best strategy for mitigating the pain was to cry and talk about my father. I even talked to him (I'm convinced he could hear me). I went for long walks, etc. Sometimes (almost 8 years later), there are still those moments. I let myself cry and feel awful, but then I pick myself back up and move forward again. 

I hope this has helped a little. 

We will be here with you,

ModKonnie

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