I am sorry for the loss of your mom and the anticipated loss of your dad. Their is a word to describe that grief: anticipatory grief. It is like you lost someone but they are still there.

I found when my dad died, that I had all these hopes and dreams that he would accept me as I am and not as he wanted me to be or as I thought he wanted me to be. He never talked about deep things so I never really knew what he thought.

So when he was gone I had to ask myself what good did all these expectations do now that he was gone. I did spend time with him in the later years but he was not saying anything much because he could not. So I told him lots of things like how much he had helped me and recalling some of the fun times we had. The hospice worker said she felt he heard me and understood.

So when he was gone I had to reinvent who I was. I was not his child anymore in one sense, although he taught me a lot. So I started doing things he would have never approved of like yoga and exercises but they are things that made me feel good. Eventually I started to think of myself in a new way and let go of trying to please him, because it was no longer possible.