Thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply. I very much appreciate it.

Regards,

Sarah

yes some semblance of normality now. one day at a time.

talk soon!
Tania

It’s so good to read your comment as it shows that you are gradually getting back into some sort of “normality”.

Losing a loved one like a mother is such a huge thing in our lives and it’s not something you can get over easily.

Take your time with your grieving and your healing – do whatever you need to do and cry until the tears don’t come anymore.

I realise now that at the time of my father’s passing, I didn’t shed many tears. I become “superman” and got busy with sorting out all the funeral things etc – I had to be “strong” for the family, or so I thought.

You were lucky and privileged to have spent those last few months with your mother. Know that she is now at peace and in a better place.

Take care and all the best for the coming weeks and months. Go easy.

PS And see you again soon:-)

Love and best wishes

Arvind

Welcome to my blog and thanks for your kind feedback above. I am so glad that my article has helped you in some way.

I still think of my late father everyday even though it is now over three and a half years since his passing. I guess it is part of life and I will be dealing with these emotions coming up for the rest of my life.

I was lucky in that I was able to have my father around me until many years into my adulthood. I can’t even begin to think what it would have been like to have lost him from the age of say 10. He himself lost his father when he was only eight, and I often wonder what sort of lonely childhood he had.

As for you thinking that your Dad thought that you didn’t love him, how can that be? I really believe that parents (I am not a father) would not expect anything from children so young – instead they would be simply happy to love their children unconditionally, without any expectations of reciprocal love.

Sarah, maybe you don’t need to deal with this “issue”.

Maybe you just need to spend some time reflecting on how you can be the best person you can be, so that you Dad can be even more proud of you.

And perhaps you don’t even need to do anything more to prove yourself to your Dad (or indeed anyone else). Wherever your Dad is now, he is very proud of you already:-)

Sarah, you already have so much going for you and so much to be proud about. I wish you all the best for your journey.

Love and best wishes

Arvind

Loss and grief are difficult pains to feel. 18 years after my Dad passed, I still deal with some the emotions from time to time. My grandmother, who had lost her own mother very young, said to my mother, “they’re never going to get over this, you know”, about me and my sister (I was only 10 when we lost him). I have great memories of my Dad, and I mostly wonder what life would be like if he were here now.

To complicate things, in a fight I once had with my mother, she tried to make me feel guilt over my relationship with him, telling me he didn’t think I loved him when he died. Ouch. Rationally, I know this is a far-fetched idea that an adult man could think this about his 10-year-old child, but the fear that it could be true always lingers and causes the deep and tormenting pain of guilt that I can’t seem to shake (when I entertain it). My mother now denies she ever said it, so I’ll never know if it was true.

I believe there is hope for me with this issue though. Maybe it will take therapy. Maybe my Mom will shed some light on why she said that. Maybe I’ll just make peace with the fact that I may never know how he felt about me, and learn to grow around it and shape me into a person my Dad would be proud of now.

Indeed, I did have to deal with the guilt as well as the grief – I still wonder what would have happened if I had simply called my friend two days before his suicide.

As for how I have dealt it the guilt, time has helped and also the belief that his time was up and there was probably little I or anyone else could have done for him. Also I felt that he had been so ill that harsh as this may sounds, this was possibly the best thing for him.

I do agree with you that guilt does stop the healing process from starting.
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What a sad story about your friend. I wonder, did you have to deal with guilt in addition to your grief? How did you overcome that? I have not dealt with a suicide in my direct circle of family/friends, but have witnessed others deal with it and it seems the guilt is what prevents the healing from starting.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this. It was a nice tribute to those that matter.

Jen

I really appreciate what you added about learning to befriend impermanence on a day-to-day basis long before death visits.

I am currently reviewing where I am at in my life – and the hardest thing is to take on change on a big scale without feeling the perceived loss of things I would be “giving-up”.

Yes – “remember dying” in every moment – and each moment will be extra-special and meaningful.

Thanks you Sandra.
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Thank you for sharing so deeply from the depth of your heart and soul. You are such a beautiful person.

Even though we know that life is impermanent, it is such a shock when a death occurs in our life and very painful indeed. What I would add to your list is learning to befriend impermanence on a day-to-day basis long before death visits. Acknowledging and accepting death and impermanence each and every day helps us to live more fully in the moment and get our priorities straight. Christian monks used to repeat the phrase “Memento mori” – “Remember dying” as their reminder to make the best use of this life. Everything is constantly changing on a gross and subtle (sub-atomic) level too. It’s the nature of things. Knowing this can help soften the shock to some degree.
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And the tribe will come if the message is powerful enough:-)