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Loved One Not Being Able To Enjoy Things In Life


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I'm back in the place where my dad passed, and it has been extremely hard to be back here. Lots of things flooding back.

I go to stores and see my dad's favorite food. There was this one specific ice cream flavor that my dad wanted while he was in the hospital, but I couldn't find that flavor because it's relatively rare. I bought tons of other food he loved, but this one thing I couldn't find. I just saw it in the store, and I suddenly started crying because I couldn't buy it for him when he was alive. Through life, I had a habit of buying things for my dad I knew he loved. It was kinda our thing, be it a big gift or a little thing like his favorite candy.

Logically, I know my dad probably wasn't pining away for that flavor all the time. He probably only mentioned it twice. But still. It has grown in my head, and I imagine him begging for it or something, even though he never did.

So today I'm crying a lot over ice cream. Why was I such an idiot? Why didn't I try harder to get it for him? At the time, I went to the stores near the hospital via taxi (already kind of difficult because I don't speak the language so had to point to words someone wrote down for me). I walked for about two-three miles from the hospital, trying to find it and some other things dad wanted. I found just about everything on the list except for that.

I walk around and see restaurants and stores my dad would have loved to go to. Yesterday, I passed a restaurant that serves our favorite cuisine in the world. I saw a father-daughter team eating by the window. I know that if my dad had been with me, we'd stop at the front, read the menu, then go inside. Dad and I had spent a lot of time together, went to a lot of restaurants and places, but it makes me so sad that we can't go to the new ones I discover. Trying new restaurants all the time was one of our favorite things to do.

Everywhere I go, I see something and get excited for a nano second, making a quick mental note. "I have to tell dad--" Oh. Wait. I see all the things life has to offer, and I can't believe dad can't enjoy them. I'm not sure if I believe in God. Maybe yes, maybe no. If I had true conviction and faith, then I could tell myself, "Heaven is tons better than what they have here. Dad's probably scoffing at life compared to what he has up there." But I don't know if I believe in heaven, and I don't know how to just have faith that there is one so I can believe that dad's in a better place. I just look around and see things he can't have. It's so depressing. :(:(:(

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Dear Em,

Like you, I feel terrible that my husband cannot see the garden this summer, eat the produce, go boating, laugh with his kids. Enjoy his life. I suppose we get past this longing for the other person's loss. I feel for my husband as much as I do for myself. Maybe more. His will to live was enormous. His enjoyment of life contagious.

I am thinking of you tonight.

Valley

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Em, I found myself nodding, almost manically whilst reading your post, in complete agreement ... you're not silly, it is completely natural for you to feel like this.

I don't know if I believe in God anymore either ... but I do believe in goodness. I don't follow the faith of a particular church, rather opting for community ... but I do believe that there is an after-life, I just don't know what it looks like. And I know that in the days after Cliff died, I could sense his spirit or whatever you want to call it ... it was so STRONG - and that gives me the faith and comfort that I need.

I'd really recommend reading that book that I mentioned on another post Em - it helped me so much, when all those thoughts were scrambling around in my head, sounding uncannily like where you are today.

xx

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Em and Boo,

I do too....believe in GOODNESS. I think the Dalai Lama said that for each evil act, there are a thousand acts of kindness in the same day. Something like that. This sustains me.

Cry over that special flavor of ice cream for your dad and think of it as the flavor of love.

I bet your dad does.

Love, Valley

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Hi Em,

I was hounded by a similar feeling of guilt. When my dad was visiting with me, he had asked me offhandedly to buy him a digital camera (he had never used one before). His eyesight was failing, he wouldn't know how to transfer pictures to a computer etc. so I didn't take it too seriously. All I had to do was to buy him a simple camera that would have made him enormously happy. I didn't. There were other issues going on in my life then, and all the focus was there. Eventually, he went back from visiting me for a few months, and his health started failing.

After he passed away, this issue grew in my head, and kept nagging me. What a thoughtless idiot I was. That simple act of gifting him a camera would have made the both of us so happy -- suddenly, all my love for him seemed to be in question from that one thing (was i a good son after all?). A few days after I came back from his funeral, something in my mind drove me to Frys. I bought a camera just as if he were alive, one that he would have really liked. For his posthumous birthday, I bought him a pair of sunglasses that he would have found very useful. These gifts are in a box for him, not ever to be used. I think I will continue to do things like that. That's my way of keeping him alive, I guess.

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Thank you for sharing that, bsk. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who keeps buying things for my dad. I keep them in his room. I bought my dad things all the time, and the thought of stopping kills me, so I'm going to continue buying things for him.

If I could only have a tiny sign. If dad could tell me that he's in a better place and is having a BLAST. If he could just tell me that life pales in comparison to what he has now. I'd be able to rest easier. :( :( :(

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I've been having premonitions of my own passing. For some reason, I think I'll die in a car accident. Wondering if anyone has experienced this? It's nothing I put much stock in, but I just have a feeling that's how I'll go. And I can't say I'm upset about the idea of my death...I think, well, there might be a chance I could see my dad again and get rid of all this stress and pain. I know it's morbid and :wacko:.

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Hi Em, I've had similar thoughts ...altho I go from a heart attack. I think that on an emotional level, it is part of grieving ... this "want to be with him" feeling, and I think that we will slowly adjust to rejoining the world eventually. On a rational level, I reckon that it's because we now know that nothing is certain in this life, because we have been through the trauma of losing someone we love so much, who was a pillar to us ... that we start to think about our own mortality.

Does that make sense, and would you agree?

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Hi, Boo Mayhew. I definitely agree. Makes perfect sense.

I don't think I've rejoined the world yet (and, to be honest, I'm not sure if I ever will as I did before). And thank you for that book recommendation. As soon as I get home, I'll order it. Sometimes I feel my dad around me, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'm too grounded in this world because I am hung up on all the earthly goods he will miss. I knew all the stuff he liked, things I see now walking through the city that he doesn't get to eat/see/enjoy, and I can't shake that unfairness. When he came to vacation here, he only got a couple of days before ending up in the hospital! I'm preoccupied to all the material things he's missing out on. I get pissed when I see his brother eating my dad's favorite food. He's so much older than my dad, and he's alive (this sounds awful, I know). Why does HE get to enjoy the things now and my dad doesn't? What makes him so special that he's still here? How come his kids, who are so much older than I am, still get their dad and I don't? I saw him today, and I see how some features resemble my dad, and I seethe (not that I want anything to happen to him, either). Being here has really messed with my emotions. :(

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Em, I think you will start to feel a bit better when you get home ... it isn't fair, I agree ... none of it. But that book has gone some way to reconciling me with stuff like that. Here is my blog entry about the book:

http://boomayhew.blogspot.com/2009/06/deep-dark-and-sad.html

You know, I felt exactly the same way about my Dad's brother after my Dad died. I just remembered that! I think you are very brave to have gone to the town that you are in - full of memories - I still can't go to our old hometown and socialize in the old haunts - it's all too raw and I'm too chicken ;-)

Just remember there's nothing wrong with your feelings - don't feel bad ...

sending you hugs

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$*%&$(&%(*%&$(*%

I just had flashes of the conversations dad and I had on the phone when I left to go back to school. Suddenly, it seemed like the conversation was one second ago, and now I'm scrambling to find a way to get him back (which is illogical, but...). I feel like I have to call him back, go find him, do SOMETHING, not just sit here remembering what he said, unable to reply back to him. I just want him back. Why is that so much to ask for?

I #(%U%)U$*%$U%#% hate this.

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Em, I still sit here and talk to Cliff ... and I believe he hears me. I just caN'T see him or hear him anymore. It calms me ... and it helps me make better decisions when I do this.

Some people write their loved ones letters ...

no harm in trying?

Thinking of you Em and wishing you a peaceful week ahead ... when do you return home?

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Hi Em,

I'm new here. Not to loss but to the Grief group. I'm actually here to deal with the loss of my 37 yr. old son, Jon but I lost both of my parents in Hospice situations. It's been 14yrs since my Mom died and 9 yrs. since my Dad. I remember the time with my Dad the most. I had a lot of issues with both of my parents from my childhhood but when their lives were nearing an end, I was able to forgive and love them through. I was reading what you said about wanting to reply to your Dad.

I have to be upfront with you that I am a Christian and lean on my faith, especially right now. After saying that, I was watching a Minister on TV after my Dad had died and he was talking about unresolved issues and when he suggested a way to say what I felt I needed to say and never got the nerve to, it really helped me. He said to put a chair, or pick a chair in a room and close your eyes and imagine your loved one sitting there like you had seen them sitting before and just pour out everything you wanted to say to them. At first, I thought it was a dumb idea but I was feeling desperate, so I did it and it helped me. Maybe I was drawn here to share that with you. I don't know but when you see someone in pain, you want to share something that helped you. I hope you find a way. I have written letters to people who are no longer living as well. I think it's just getting it out of our head so it doesn't just keep replaying so much. Hope it helps. I feel for you. Even though I had a much different relationship with my Dad than it sounds like you had with yours, I had to grieve the loss of what never was and what never could be with him. I know it's hard to comprehend but the pain will get much duller over time. Kathy

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Em:

I have been writing letters to my husband (passed away 6 weeks ago) quite regularly. I find it helps to put my feelings onto paper. And a way to maintain a connection, in a way. I also tell him how much I miss him. Days when I see fathers and daughters together, or simply families of both parents and their kids can be very hard, as our 6 month old daughter will be deprived of knowing her father first hand (though I will do my best to tell her about him). I love our daughter so dearly, and wish so much he was here (he always looked forward to seeing her when she turned 6 months old, as he had been told by his friends that this was when babies really became little people....). I try to find my faith in a higher power and an afterlife, a belief that I needed to have, especially as he lay dying, but which I continually question. But I no longer fear death as I once did, as I look forward to one day when our souls will be together, again. And I often imagine our daughter can see him watching over us when she stares into space or at an empty wall.

Korina

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