i just lost my father on August 16th due to Mantle Cell Lymphoma Cancer. I am having a very hard time with this because of me being so young (20 years old) and I am/was very close with my father. i was wondering if there is anyone else out there my age that is going through this???? i am having a real hard time. I have many things in front of me that I need my father there like when I get married, when i have a child, when i graduate from college and so on and he will not be ther phusically. and this is very hard for me to cope with.

Katrina
California

Very recently was told that My Aunt had terminal cancer. Because I've been dealing with deaths of both parents, and an Aunt whom I dearly loved and still miss. I feel like I'm on overload. Can't bring myself to tell my Aunt. She is frightened of most everthing. Because she trusts me with her life, I feel like I'm the "executioner" with this death sentence. She lost her husband 16 months ago, and is not coping well. She is as you can imagine very fragile. I am makeing arrangements for her and Hospice. But still, I feel like I'm missing something. While she has a large family, they are elderly. My Aunt is 83 years young. Can you help me put the pieces together? Before I fall apart.

Jane
MA

Over a 10 month period my beloved husband and my father died. I found books, "You Can Heal Your Life," several books by Emmet Fox, "Saved By The Light" and vigerous exercise to be of great help. I would like to know how other people survive their loss.

Sheila
CA

after being at my dear sainted mother's deathbed...there seem's like nothing could be harder in life...except the death of your child (god forbid)...yes i believe that the death of the brain is not the death of the essence of the being...that the essence of mind is the soul..and goes on and on infinatum...since energy cannot be destroyed....and mom had tremendous energy.....

the morning after her passing was feb. 14th, 2000 and

as my older sister and i had coffee in our usual chairs at the kitchen table...mom's chair was empty...suddenly the kitchen light blinked on and off 2 times..by the third time my sister and i looked up and she said "what the..." and i said "good morning mom"....and turned to my sis and said it's mom!!!....the light blinked a couple of more times ( a total of 5 i think....never before in 30 years that my sister lived in that house..nor since...has the light in her kitchen ever done that....coincidence???i think not.....

another thing is that i never lose or misplace things...however the handkerchief my mother gave me years ago...and that i used at her funeral and many many times after that....as i was driving in my car or at home and broke down in grief and mourning...disappeared!!!>>>>just ....disappeared...mom said in that ..o.k.adeline...that's enough crying.....and i understood....i also said that the first fruit of my fig tree...that i wished she was here to enjoy the figs with me...that morning i picked 3 figs to bring to work and as i drove i said ...in italian...the blessing my mother always...always said over the first fruit of the season...and said out loud that i wish she could taste it with me....well..when i got to work...i only had 2...yes 2 figs...i searched hi and low for the 3rd one....and knew...just knew that momma had the first fruit....

not the overactive immagination of a grieving adult child....but a down deep...bone believing feeling that momma manifested her incredible will to comfort from beyond her mortal self....momma, i love you....

arrividerci...not goodby..till we meet again...

Addy
Florida

I am very frustrated with society's treatment of those of us in grief. I have lost many relatives of the course of my life and no one ever talked about the way they felt. After the funeral--which was very somber and quiet--every thing was over and done with. Now that it is my turn to be the one "left behind" I don't know what to do with the grief. I don't know what to do with the pain and the sadness and the anger. I stuff it in like my family did and it comes out when I least want it to. When my father died my employer gave me two days off for the funeral and then I had to go back to work, ready or not. My boss said it would be good for me to get back to work and keep busy. HOW THE HELL DID HE KNOW WHAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR ME!!!!! When my mother was in intensive care I tried to take family leave and my employer wouldn't let me. A few months after she died they fired me. They said it was for another reason but everyone knew why--because I spent all that time at the hospital and because I was so u

Phyllis
Ohio

When my beloved husband died 21 months ago my life ended as I knew it for the approximate 15 yearsof our marriage. I was my husband's legal secretary. Six months after my husband died I moved in with my father to care for him in that his health was failing. My beloved father died five months after I moved in with him. I have found ways that have helped me to survive my losses and I would like to discuss the positive ways to survive with anyone else who has done so.

Sheila
CA

I have contemplated my own mortality ever since paying attention to the words "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take".... I have never dreaded death. Have the attitude of --guess what, from the time we're born, we're terminal. As Life goes on, I look more forward to exiting each day.The sad part for me is that I'm very aware that my desire to be done with life is not for the comfort of being with the Lord (as my beliefs have lead me), but rather to just be done with what I've been handed. I do not sieze the day. I look forward to the day being snuffed for me.

Nikki
AZ

I'm afraid of watching my loved one die.

Barbara
Wisconsin

We are given the great and beautiful gift of life but we are also always being tested. Courage and strength are also gifts. We can call on these to go forward when the grief is overwhelming. Another help is to always remember that someone is having a much harder time and to be grateful for your situation in comparison. This was my strength watching an adult,young sister 9 months in intensive care in terrible pain before she died. In my time of grief, with my grandmother, I knew that when she passed away she would not be in any more pain. I also thought she would be in a better place.

Nichole
MO

For allcaregivers..I gave up my own life ten years ago to take care of my ill father. Today I would not take back any of those days and I do not begrudge him of any of it, but on August 31 we buries him on his 81st birthday. Today I can not really recall the day that he died. I am worried that I may have signed something that I shouldn't have because I was his POA. Maybe I was not sound enough to handle the responsibility but I was the one Dad had trusted and now I am regretting the responsibility that he gave me. I will always love him and I can't let go.

Sue
Pa

My grandmother died two years ago from complications of emphasema. My mother to her credit took my grandmother into her home and cared for her with my father to the best she could until it became necessary to hospitalize her and eventually put her into a nursing home. My grandmother, Nana as me and my brother called her, was absolutely wonderful to her grandchildren and we loved her very dearly, but she was in my opion suffering from a personality disorder that prevented her from being a very good mother to my mom. She treated my mother very poorly form the time she was a young child, and even in her last days refused to tell my mother that she loved her, but rather she complained about dying in a nursing home even though 65 years of smoking and a broken hip made it impossible to care for her at home. My mother is still suffering from years of emotional abuse from my grandmother, there was no reconciling even on her death bed. My mother understandably feels very hurt that even durring my nanas last moments there was no recognition of love between them. Even though she had repeatedly dropped everything in her life to help her durring her crisis's... esp her last. My question is... are there others out there with similar experiences with difficult parents, and.... where can I suggest to my mother to go for the kind of help and understanding she needs to come to terms with this, at least a little. There must be others who have dealt with caring for parents who refuse to be show gratitude or forgive past conflicts. It's a far less rosey situation than shown on the PBS program "On Our Own Terms", if it's possible.

Thanks
Chris
MA

My husband died May l5th from protate cancer at age 58. My family, friends, and a hospice group are helping me get through this loss

Cindy
Ny

Yes to the question. My or I should say our father died almost 4 years ago.If he were alive he would be 93 years old. When I think about how he died I still get very angry. He went into the hospital on his own volition with a stomach ache. After test that are normally done in the emergency room with his symptons the doctor said he had and ulcer and need surgery. Dad came through the surgery fine in fact he was joking in the recovery room. However because of his age and the surgery the doctor recommended that he needed a life line for necessary nurtrients and feeding. when the life line was put in the doctor puctured dads lung and he was put on a ventilator. 57 days later he died in route to a "ventilator patient hospital" Jacksonville, Fl. to get him of the ventilator. Dad was in the hospital 2 weeks before they realized he was blind. I guess the total lack of good care during his hospital stay and the attitude of some of the doctors is what is keeping me from a closeure of healing. Watching the program the past three nights ha

Martha
Florida

I recently lost my grandmother, a person who has been a vital part of my life. Her final days were spent in a Hospice unit. To my surprise the experience was not only comforting but helped us accept her death with a calm feeling. It is still to early in my grief process to lend any advise as to how to deal with it. But knowing she is not suffering is comforting to me.

Bill
CO

With grief and walking thru it, what has helped is my personal growth with God. I have a one on one relationship, not church, or religious. With situation that I have grown thru, I know and truly belief nothing happens by mistake. Even with tough and shitty situations. It help to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to know that I may feel like I am in a fog but that it is not forever. With my job in home health, I have had the privledge to meet and discuss and share my patients death. To share me with my patient and vice a versa. Now being 41 I have thought of "getting old" and what to do if I am ever incapcitated. I have a living will and have had talks with my husband and kids. Iread alot of mediation books, and have been getting more inovlved with church and other organizations close to my heart. Reading the mediations helps me to stay in tune with today and maybe tommorrow. But I am learning more of who I am. Not so strung out and controlling of situations. My threshold

Maureen
Wyoming

More comments

Tell us what you think.