My behavior...

[Thundar73]

When my sister died 28 years ago, I cried while at her open casket wake, her burial, her school's memorial bench ceremony they did in memory of her, but after that I really didn't cry until like a few years ago when it all hit me.    

 

When my mom died this month on the 15th...I cried on the 14th, holding her hand & looking at her in the cancer ward in the hospital....she was alert that morning.   Her cancer went super fast so, I have this stunned feeling still with my mom's death.   Kinda like what I was like when I heard my sister got killed when she got hit by a Ford truck while crossing a highway by foot.  I was stunned & confused...until that whole 2 day funeral process (wake + burial), then it hit.   But with my mom, there's no funeral, she didn't want one...they are talking about a celebration of life in a few months...but right now I feel like there was no real closure.   I know my mom's dead, but it just seems so unreal since she was doing fine a week before Easter last month (except for a stomach problem...which was revealed to be a tumor hitting her diaphram which caused her not to keep food in her for that long.)      I'm 42 years-old & and she's been there for me for 42 years & it seems odd now that she's gone, it's like I'm in the same life, but something big is gone, missing & won't come back.    It's just an odd feeling.

 

[kayc]

Hi Thundar,

I lost my mom 1 1/2 years ago.  Before that I'd had lots of losses, dad, grandparents, a niece & nephew, my husband (that was the hardest), lots of pets (those are pretty hard too), but losing my mom, my last parent was like the link to my history that is now gone.  She was the person who'd been there for me my whole life, and it's odd, like you say, not to have her there any more. 

[Thundar73]

So sorry for all those losses.   I am/was a momma's boy.  It's not right to prefer 1 parent over the other but I felt relaxed talking to my mom all the time.   With my dad, we only talk a minute on the phone....with my mom we talked about family, movies, politics, etc.    When my mom was alive, whenever I called, my dad would answer the phone, say hi, how am I doing, etc...then hand it over to my mom.  

 

[KATPILOT]

I was pretty close to my mom but she died when I was thirty. After that, I became so much closer to my dad than I ever had been. He lived more than thirty years longer but when he died (just six months after my wife) it was a far deeper loss. My grief over the loss of my wife made it hard to accept his loss for some time but as one eased, the other came to the grief party.  Now without parents, I feel much as you do Kay. When the second one leaves, the impact  of that realization is tremendous. Thundar I am so sorry for your loss.  It's hard and going to be for some time.