Hi Underground, noticed this thread about your father and how that is challenging you.

Firstly, I am sorry that when you were young and were frightened by your father being taken away in an ambulance, that no one helped you with those feelings of fear. Unfortunately little boys begin to think they are not supposed to have emotions, so when they do have them they get either afraid or angry. Little boys need to know that it's "normal" to be afraid.

What is scary about having someone we know pass away is yes, as you mentioned, hard to figure out how to deal with having someone there and getting used to that, then that person is gone and they are never coming back because death is "final". The other thing about it is that it reminds us of our own mortality too. Human beings have "always" had a hard time with that and had many ways of keeping lost ones relevent to their lives, even when that individual is no longer living there were ways developed to deal with that better.

My parents are 90 and 91 now and I am terrified of when either one of them passes.
It's definitely a very private loss and it's different for each person too. There is always a fundamental part of us that is connected to a parent, even if there isn't a closeness and I think that is connected to how we are designed to connect and imprint as human beings, however many mammels are designed that way, even reptiles and birds. With human beings, it's a lot longer then any other living thing.