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My First Fathers Day Without Dad


tinkeral

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Looking for anyone who is a teen, im 15... that has lost a parent. I lost my dad this April in a car accident. He was 41. I feel like maybe im not greiving properly. I feel horrible like i cant get out of bed one day and the next i feel like i wanna go hang with friends, i dont know whats wrong? I really just miss my dad and my mom is having a really hard time too, any tips, or experiences are greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

tinkeral

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Hello! My name is J. Beckstrom.  I am a counselor in Nebraska and also, I am someone who lost my Dad two years ago to cancer.  I have joined this site to understand the grieving process better, to hear others stories, and to help others by reading more in depth.

Don't know if I can help you but I can give you my take on how I have come to look at the issue of death and what it means.  I truly believe, first off, that my Dad's spirit is still with me.  I do believe in God and in his (fatherly) abilities to send us messages when we need reminders of our lost loved one. 

What does that mean?  :)  I will try to explain.  My Dad shows up at least weekly. In my life, I can see a van on the highway that looks like the one he used to drive and I smile and grin and say aloud, "Hi Dad... thanks, God." 

My Dad might appear (through God's help!)  by making me frustrated at a memory that I can't quite remember right so I will call my sister and say, "What do you remember about..._____?"  and she (with God's help) :)  will provide me the opportunity to talk about Dad.  It is this belief in God that has gotten me through the terrible memories of his death.

He died slowly, in a recliner, in his house.  My mother cared for him as best she could and towards the VERY end, we all had slumber parties, to watch over him for 5 days straight.  We didn't want him to die alone, so we took shifts.  I have never been very religious but it was in these last days with him that truly made me really think about what I believe about religion and what it gives people. 

Have you ever wondered?  I would encourage you to wonder, to read, to search out others to talk about their opinions.  Everyone should have an opinion about it.  I don't think there are right answers... but I think it's in the ASKING questions that's important. :)

I found Dad this morning when I turned on the radio and heard Carrie Underwood's song... you know the one?  Temporary Home...  if you haven't seen the video, watch CMT to understand what she is saying. 

Take the time you need to CRY.  Don't hold the tears in!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You must become a river if you haven't already.  This will be healing, don't be afraid to let go of the tears.

Hope this was helpful.  My heart went out to you.  I wish you love and courage. :)

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There is no wrong way to grieve. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. Go with what you feel.  The most important thing is to not run away from what you feel though we all do this sometimes. I don't mean you need to think about it all the time. It's just that sometimes we might turn to drugs or alcohol to deaded pain and then it just comes right back and bites you. We need to move through the pain, figure out how to incorporate it into our lives- the loss I mean.

I'm with you in this way- this was my first father's day without my Dad too. It was really hard. I knew I couldn't just hang out with  my husband and 3 year old daughter-someone might say that made me a bad mom or a bad wife-I don't think so. We did a father's day dinner for my husband the night before but on father's day I loaded by two beloved dogs into the car and drove off to my Dad's favorite spot at the beach. I stayed there all week. I thought I wouldn't want to see anyone all week but it turned out there were two friends I was open to seeing who wanted to come so they spent a night with the dogs and me. On Friday, June 25th, my husband and daughter flew down and we all spent the weekend together with my stepmom and brother. It was the first Dad's birthday since he died too. Yup, June is a rough one.

My Dad died Nov 11, 2009. I miss him so. I am not at acceptance yet.

Julie, 45 year old therapist in SF, CA

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Thank you both of you and my heart goes out to you two. Right now I'm having a horrible time greiving. Because my mom is having a HORRIBlE timeJust living like honestly it's hard for her to even function she has panic attacks a lot. I'm really worried for her and feel like I have no time to grieve myself. I cry at night a lot because that's the only time I'm not as worried about my mom, how did your parents take it? And what should I do?

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westleysmom

Tinkeral,

I'm so sorry for your sudden loss of your Dad.  My dad died after a fairly long illness at the age of 79  in 2006.  And I'm old (48) so its different from you, but I saw that you had written today and thought I would send you my thoughts and prayers.  I miss him still, but the edge has worn off of it and I don't forget anymore that he's gone like I did at first.  Not that I really forgot, I would just think some days "I'll go by and see Mama and Daddy" because it didn't seem real that he could be gone.  He was always there, and now he's gone. 

Are you an only child? You probably don't have any close friends who've lost their Dads, that makes it so hard to find anyone who understands.  My 20 year old son died in his sleep in January of this year, and aside from one close friend who doesn't live close by, none of my friends have lost a child, so I feel like they don't know what to say to me and don't want me to mention it much, because it makes them feel uncomfortable.  But its all I think of most of the time.  And then again I'll have a day when I don't cry hardly at all.  That's what you're doing.  A person can only cry so much, and then they have to take a break, even if its just a little one.  I'm so sorry that your Mom is having such a hard time, I can't imagine losing my husband, and so suddenly.  I know you want to help her, and I know that when my husband laughs or makes a joke or goes fishing these days, it makes me so happy, because I can be sad all I want, but I want to see him getting better.  Because when he feels better, that makes me feel better.  I don't want him to be sad all the time, and your mother doesn't want you to be sad all the time, even if she herself is right now.  She's doing the best she can and so are you.  But don't feel bad on those days when you want to go hang with your friends, because that's what your Mom and your Dad would want for you.  We all expect to lose our parents someday, but its so unfair that you lost your's at such a young age.  Just like its unfair that my son died.  But it happened.

And it hasn't been that long for you.  I know it seems like a long time, but since April has only been 3 months and that's not very long to get used to something so horrible that you couldn't even imagine it until it happened.  I will be thinking of you and your Mom.  Give yourself time and be there for each other. 

Rhonda Westley's Mom and Earl's daughter

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Encourage your mom to go see a grief counselor or therapist. Tell her it's not just for her but for you. Maybe you can go together. Your mom needs to be getting support outside of you.

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Sorry to hear about your son weatleys mom and thanks for your kind words.

And we do see a grief cousnelor together the. Each of us has an individula counselor and my mom goes to a grief group.

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Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.- Facebook and Twitter Integration- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it. - Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible. 

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other. 

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com

Kelly Baltzell, MACEO/PresidentBeyond Indigo Family

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