Worried About Mom When Dad Dies From Cancer

[julieusaf]

Hi all- my name is Julie and this is my first post here but I have a feeling I'll become pretty frquent when my father dies.

He's terminally il with cancer - bone, lung, spine, renal cell....he's doing various experimental drugs right now with chemo, diagnosed for a 3rd time about 18mths ago, 69yo. We know this is the twilight time and that he won't escape the cancer this time - it's just a matter of when. He's frail, extremely thin, bad side effects of the drugs, lost his spark and great sense of humor.

I know I'll feel my own loss - that's a given. But I also feel I'm mentally prepared for his loss as I hate the poor quality of life he's leading. He lives out of state, so I don't get many opportunities to see him.

Anyway, my real concern is more for my mother. Married 40 yrs, they're extremely co-dependent on one another. She's mentioned suicide after he dies and that she doesn't want to go on living without him, etc. She's borderline alcoholic and think his passing will certainly push her over the edge as she uses it to self=medicate her internal pain and suffering over his demise.

I'm not sure how to best handle this angle....any book recommendations that *I* can read to better help me help her? Everything I see seems to be for HER to read about grieving her husband or for me to read about losing a parent. I feel like I'm going to need to become a therapist to help her cope with his loss.

I don't know if I'm even allowed to post here until he passes away....If not, please feel free to pull my post - just want to get my mind around this so that when he does leave us, I can allow my heart to grieve while being prepared in what things to say and do for my mother to help her.

He really is a great man - a very loving father and feel very lucky to have been raised in such a loving family.

Thanks-

Julie

[Maylissa]

Hi Julie,

I'm glad you've found this helpful site, for use now &/or the future.

Firstly, I feel I must make one comment about what you said regarding being mentally prepared for your father's death. Respectfully, I have to warn you that being 'mentally' prepared doesn't prepare you in the least for the emotional reactions to losing a loved one. So you'd do well to bone up on grief literature before the fact, although you'll probably get more meaning out of it by reading it afterwards as well. And anticipatory grief is different, too. Neither is as powerful as the actual grief once it happens. Whether one is close by or not is almost irrelevant to grief reactions. Another thing to keep in mind is that your empathy for your father's current suffering is likely to remain as one of those ambiguous feelings during your later grief...neither right nor wrong, but a part of it.

You mentioned that your mother was "borderline alcoholic". I'm not too sure there is technically such a thing, but in any case, aside from grief resources, you might also want to consider reading books about alcoholism, to learn about enabling behaviours associated with either alcoholics or so-called 'problem drinkers'. You did use the word 'co-dependant', so it sounds like you might already have some understanding of the relationship problems that arise from alcoholism. Further to this point, I'd like to refer you to another post by our Marty T., the counselor for this site, where she was responding to someone's wish to help their Significant Other. The last few paragraphs, in particular, may be of help to you. ( some resources are mentioned as well )

Click on Entry #865

Of particular note, Marty mentioned that it's probably not the best idea to try to become someone else's "therapist" around their, and your own, grief. Each person needs to find their own way through the grief. While it's admirable to want to help your mother through this, you also need to take care of yourself, and very often that has to come first, or at least concurrently, which isn't always possible. I've heard many women trying to juggle looking after everyone else's needs while they try to grieve themselves, and they too often end up suffering more because of it. I'd say the best thing to do is to read up on what's entailed in grief and line up some outside resources for both yourself and your mother for when it's needed. If your mother doesn't want to partake in anything ( keeping in mind that everyone's timetable for reaching out for help varies ), then you'll have to come to terms with that and help yourself as much as you can. I am, BTW, a daughter of an alcoholic and an abusive 'problem drinker' myself, so have had lots of life experience with this kind of scenario.

I hope you will find this useful and do keep this site in mind for later, as you'll find many of us, both 'newbie' and more long-standing mourners, have so much to share. Good luck on your learning curve.

Edited January 31, 2006 by MartyT

[MartyT]

Hi Julie,

There is precious little I can add to Maylissa's wise and caring response -- but I do want to let you know about two additonal articles that you may find helpful. (They are listed on the Death of a Parent page of my Grief Healing Web site, where you may find other relevant and useful references, too):

Helping A Grieving Parent (Article by Helen Fitzgerald)

Helping Yourself Heal When A Parent Dies (Article by Alan Wolfelt)

I also want to add my voice to Maylissa's in welcoming you to this site. Not only are you "allowed" to post here, but we strongly encourage you to do so. We are all fellow travelers on this grief journey, no matter where we happen to be in the process. Many of us have been on this road for a very long time; others have just begun -- and some, like you, are wise enough to be looking ahead and planning for the trip. For that, you have our admiration and respect.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Marty T

[julieusaf]

Thanks Marty and Maylissa....I will look at those references and other posts when I get a chance. I've always had that sneaky suspicion that my actual emotional response to my father's passing will end up being different than what I anticipate. It's so easy to sort of imagine how we'll handle these life changes, but when the reality that you can't call him and you won't see him again hit home, the response may very well be different. I just rely on the fact that I'm emotionally stable overall in general and can only hope that I'll follow traditional grief reactions without experiencing too much profound grief. And I feel fortunate that his illness has allowed us time to try to say things that need to be said and whatnot. And I also wonder if I'll have that "blessing" attitude to know he'll no longer be in pain....I guess only the future will tell. But I believe these forums are important and therapeutic in its own way. I hope to steer my mother to some form of therapy - whether it be grief counseling or other support forums.

Thanks for your well thought out replies.

Julie

[julieusaf]

Oh yeah - I should also add that I suspect my mother is a "functioning" alcoholic....she doesn't drink all the time, but she does like her wine and she's had several occasions where she drinks WAY too much and blacks out and calls me crying about my dad, etc. She doesn't miss work, she doesn't drive drunk, etc, but her father was an alcoholic and even she's acknowledged that she probably drinks more than she should, especially with family history. Oh, and my dad has commented to my brother that one of the big things that worries him about his own death is that she'll sink further into booze to ease the pain.

Julie