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Post by cnu5000 on Jun 25, 2012 6:36:34 GMT -5
My first death of a parent. My father passed away June 4. My mother and I decided to take him off life support. He probably would have died of pneumonia anyway. His physicians felt he would not want to have been kept alive with a serious brain injury but it looked like he was going to die of physical causes.
Very hard on my mother. Am having to help her out more.
One thing that suprises me. Some people with children take the death of elderly parents very hard. I would have thought them having other family would help.
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Post by preraph on Jun 25, 2012 8:05:36 GMT -5
I'm so sorry for your loss and the difficult decisions I know preceded it for you and your mother. I know it's probably harder for you to deal with your grief while having to keep it together for your mom.
As to who the death of parents affects more, I think it mainly depends on the relationship between the parent and child. If they were always loving and close, of course the loss is devastating. On the other hand, if there was unresolved conflict, an untimely death can devastate the adult child as well because they had a need to resolve that conflict and get their parent's approval and never will now. That happened to a friend of mine.
Other factors are how long the person had been ill and whether the death was something of a relief to their suffering and everyone had had time to prepare themselves.
You know, I loved my parents, but there wasn't that real warm closeness some people have. They were both old when they went, and one's mind had been gone for over a decade. On both of them, I more or less mourned them when I knew they were "gone" mentally more than when their bodies gave up the fight, and it was combined with a certain relief because I had been taking care of their business long-distance. So I think I just mourned over time, and it wasn't that hard when it happened. My pets' deaths have been harder on me, probably because I did have a maternal relationship with them, and a very strong one, and because they sustain me in some ways.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on Jun 25, 2012 10:44:15 GMT -5
I am sorry for your loss.
I took it much harder when I found out that my mother was terminally ill than when she actually passed. By the time she passed, she had been so ill for so long, and in so much pain, it was a relief when she finally passed.
When my father passed, he had been in decline for a couple of years, had been in and out of the hospital, and had survived several bouts of pneumonia. He wasn't in pain but he was so weak and frail and had gotten to the point where he no longer had any quality of life, so it was a relief when he finally passed. It was more difficult to see him the way he was than it was to deal with his passing.
I had a very close, loving relationship with my mother. I loved my father but the relationship was distant, and there were some unresolved issues. But I knew those issues were never going to be resolved, anyway.
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Post by cnu5000 on Jun 25, 2012 11:07:52 GMT -5
My father was very sick in 2009 so in some ways I was prepared for my father's death -also he was almost 90. He had been going in and out of hospitals. He was a loving but distant person. I found out more what he did professinally after his death. He was a theoritical physicist. His work consisted in dealing with mathematical formulas. Some people he worked with said he was very good. He was always very disappointed in himself. We had our differences but they smoothed over for many years before he died.
However, I will have to help my mother more. She was very dependent on him. I am her only relative in this country.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on Jun 25, 2012 16:24:57 GMT -5
My mother passed first, then my father nine years later. After my father passed, my entire immediate family stopped speaking to me. I had a battle with my (former) brother for my inheritance. It's been two years and to this day I have no idea why they all turned on me.
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Post by preraph on Jun 25, 2012 20:40:05 GMT -5
That's like a triple whammy, so cruel, Happy.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on Jun 26, 2012 11:52:52 GMT -5
It wasn't too surprising when the one brother stopped speaking to me. We've never gotten along from the beginning, and pretty much became estranged when he became involved with--and later married--a woman I cannot stand. I did have a cordial, although distant relationship with his son and daughter, but they no longer speak to me, either.
I always had what I thought was a close relationship with the other brother. I was completely blindsided when he turned on me immediately after my father's passing. And he was the one handling the estate, if want to call what he was doing "handling". More like mishandling. I had to fight him for 22 months to get what was left to me.
I'm truly sorry that things turned out the way they did, but it wasn't my doing and I can't control other people's actions. It was a relief to finally get my inheritance money so there is now no reason for me to have to deal with these people again, and with any luck I'll never see them again.
What happened has pretty much destroyed the little faith in humanity I still had.
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Post by preraph on Jun 26, 2012 15:39:26 GMT -5
Well, siblings will do things to each other friends wouldn't, and that's a fact. I'm sure your executor brother would have preferred no one questioned the details of what he was doing so he could do whatever he wanted. Also, being a guy, he's probably thinking "How DARE someone question me on this." Well, that's his problem. Maybe one day he'll grow up and have some regrets about it -- or not.
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Post by happy2bchildfree on Jun 26, 2012 20:30:05 GMT -5
I never realized just how often these things happen until I started telling people what was going on. Almost everyone I told either had had a similar experience themselves or knew of someone else who did.
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Post by preraph on Jun 27, 2012 18:47:52 GMT -5
Greed tears lots of families apart.
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