The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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When tragedy struck my family, and really struck me for the first time in my life, I looked to tradition to guide me. The Catholic Church has historically encouraged a mourning period of about six months for the loss of a parent. So, I told myself I’d mourn and hurt for six months, then steel myself emotionally and put the past in the past.
Which brings us to today. Six months went by shockingly fast. I cried harder than I had in a while today, looking through some photos of my dad and me, shortly before his death.
I thought I would do a better job of coming to terms with things. But there are still moments where I forget he is dead. I still don’t know what he died from—he was fine one day and gone the next, and the doctors still can’t agree on what happened (they’re even still ordering tests.) His affairs aren’t wrapped up, though we’ve made considerable progress. I don’t know what my widowed mother’s future looks like. I still resent anyone older than me with both living parents. I still resent everyone who lives to enjoy their retirement.
I resent the fact that he lived more years without me than with me. I resent that my daughter won’t remember him, and my future children will never know him.
I resent doctors and medicine and Steven Pinkeresque arguments about how much life and technology are improving. I loathe health and longevity advice—how can I take that shit seriously after watching a lifetime runner die of a cardiac mystery event in his early sixties. The last time I saw my dad we ran a five mile race together.
Oh, and this guy (I discovered…) highlighted parts of his test results and took notes in the margins when he reviewed with his doctor. So I resent the implication that being an active participant in your healthcare does anything to deter or delay the ultimate end.
I’m 30. If I live as long as my dad, I’ll live another 34 years. If I live as long as my grandpa, 38 years. Great grandpa, 12 years. Anything and everything I want to do I need to do with a sense of urgency. I resent the time that others have, or feel they have, to enjoy and grow and waste before gracefully aging into the next phase of their lives.
Where does that leave me? My career feels like a game. I still take my profession seriously—I am after all a professional—but “saving for retirement” is a joke. I don’t much care about making more money because I have enough and my dad was the only person I felt it was both fun and appropriate to brag to.
My kids are real and my marriage is real, so I know what I need to do and who I need to be in the years ahead.
But shit, it’s a bitter bitter pill to swallow.
I was trying to eat my lunch downtown when I read this and you had me crying.
I was once rescued from a dream in which I was at my dad's funeral trying to say some words about him. I was roused and told I was whimpering and hyperventilating in my sleep. I'm sorry OP.
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It's been several years for me and it still hurts. Ages were roughly the same. What hurts most several years on is that as I pass through the same gates in life that he did, I can't call him up and tell him "at last, I get it now" or ask him "how did you feel when you were standing at this juncture?" And I can't show him the man I've become. I'm sure he would have been terribly proud.
The best you can do is just treasure happiness while you have it and never take it for granted. Human existence is a long stream of suffering, drudgery, and petty indignity. Hug your mom and your kids when you see them. Let small stuff go. Take a moment each morning and evening to be grateful and give thanks. Happy times are so fleeting.
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Impermanence is a mfer. When we are born we walk with death.
The harsh truth is that 1/3 of us don't live to see retirement/65+. Even in modern Western countries. So your father wasn't particularly singled out for anything. He might have died years earlier if he hadn't taken good care of himself. Not that that's much of a relief. Sorry for your loss.
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Sorry for your loss. The day my father dies is going to devastate me.
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