[Onyx999]

Hi guys. I was chatting with a friend last week. I discussed my recent trip home to CA to spread my mom's ashes in the Pacific. She and I are the same age. She still has both parents (lucky), and she is a daddy's girl just like I am. My pops died back in 03, and it is still hard. My mom died in March.

She said something I thought was profound. "A world without parents. I am not ready." I responded, "yeah and there's no way to get ready either."

For those of you either middle age or older who are no longer anchored by your parental units in this realm, how do you do it? What do you tell yourself when that sadness hits? I know it gets better, but with my mom's recent death, it has opened up other thoughts of abandonement. I'm an orphan or at least that's the way it feels. The very thought brings me to tears.

[Unrigged64072835]

It's tough. Even being in middle age I felt like I was an orphan. What I guess is, as with all other types of loss, that it will lessen with time. I don't have that lifeline I used to have. I don't have them to fall back on. That's how it felt. I got through it by being closer to the people I do have in my life: my spouse, child, and friends. I also discussed it in therapy.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Onyx999: The Skeezyks is an older person... getting to the point where I'll probably be the one to go in the not all that distant future. I grew up in an elderly extended family. The next youngest person to me was my mother. And she was older when I came along. I spent a good share of my childhood going to one funeral after another as each of my relatives passed away. My mother died... oh... probably 25 years ago. My father died probably around 15 years ago... maybe longer. I don't even really recall for sure at this point. I guess I could sit down & figure it out.

Losing my parents was not a traumatic event for me. I had been independent for many years. It had been many years since I had considered them to be any kind of a source of support. In fact I lived halfway across the U.S. from them. After my mother passed away, my father remarried. I never met his second wife. I flew back for my mother's funeral. But I didn't even attend my father's. I would not have known anyone there.

I can recall that, back when both of my parents were still alive, I would occasionally think about the fact that, at some point in the future, they'd be gone & I'd be alone in the world. And now, here I am... & have been so now for quite a long time. I am married. But otherwise I have no extended family left at all. So, for me, it has simply been an evolving process. I'm comfortable with it.

I feel very hurt when others around my age or older tell me, "I'm so thankful that I have one (or both) of my parents alive". It seems everyone I know around my age and a little bit older have one or two parents living. My Mom passed away ten years ago and my Dad passed away in 1998. I felt like I was very young to lose both my parents. I was 41 when my Dad passed away; and at that time I felt like I had no parents because my Mom had Alzheimer's.

Like Skeezyks had said, I have been independent myself also. I was at the opposite coast in the last ten years of my parents' lives. When I lived with them I didn't feel emotionally close. In fact, I couldn't stand it. But ironically I felt closer to them when I moved out and very far away. Going to visit them once a year was something to look forward to and I enjoyed it. After my Dad passed away, I went to visit my Mom with her living with my sister, her husband, and kids. I didn't enjoy visiting there after my father passed away.

I don't miss them a whole lot though, much to my surprise. I feel very bad for saying that. There hasn't been a time when I ever cried because I miss them so much. But there were times when life got a little bit hard, they were there for me to help. And that I miss.

Also it seemed like I had depression and health issues a lot more after both of them passed away. I don't know if it's because of their passing that it happened; or is it because I got older?

[Trippin2.0]

Idk the answer to your question...


My dad died when I was 25 I'm 32 now and my mom looks like she has one foot in the grave (dementia + cancer) so I have 1.5 dead parents, whether she survives the cancer or not.


The thought of losing my mom as well, it initially scared me shytless, but now some days I wish she'd just get it over with because she clearly has no will left to live and its painful to watch... It's like she's enjoying suffering.


Idk how we cope. I guess we just put one foot in front of the other and adjust to our new realities without parents...

[Mike R]

Still a bit melancholy, my dad passed away in 1993, and somehow I feel lost. My mom died in 2008, same thing. I think one never gets over this. It hurts pretty bad sometimes,but I think it's just that way, and I'm 61.