My dad died in early March and we had to wait a month for the funeral. There was a backlog. He had metastasized cancer but didn’t want to know his prognosis. He was so positive and determined as was my mum up until the very end and I think it caused a lot of denial but this was for the best. He wouldn’t have wanted to know. I know I definitely had anticipatory grief, I work in healthcare and I wanted to know more but totally respected their wishes.
I’m feeling a lot of anger about having to go back to work because my boss made me work extra hard the day before he died. I let my manager know 2 days before he died that he’d deteriorated and oxygen had dropped to 70, I was having to dip in and out of work while I looked after him. The following day she sent a really strict email with a list of tasks to make up for the day before and to notify her if I needed to take any time at all to look after my dad to “mitigate business need". My job isn’t high level at all and she knew what was going on but decided to micromanage me while my dad was dying. I remember venting and crying to my ex-partner about it. The only good thing is that my job ends in June, but the flip side is I have no job to follow. I apply for roughly 3 jobs a day and I’m not getting any interviews. I’m such a hard worker and normally I get quite a few interviews so I feel really worried about paying rent on top of the grief that I’m feeling.
Sadly my ex and I were having trouble prior to my dad’s death, he messed up big time but he never resolved it and I was hanging on. The more I asked him to be there for me, even just as a friend, the more he backed away and wanted to focus on himself. So unfortunately I’m dealing with a brutal breakup as well. It made me really angry and sad that he chose to do that as the time of my dads death, literally about 4 days prior he said I’m sorry your dad’s dying but it’s not my.fault. It makes me feel selfish and annoyed how much it’s upset me. I had a lot of guilt and anger being upset about my boyfrien, and I think this caused me to push away feelings of grief for a while in an attempt not to give my ex headspace.I felt numb for a while after my dad died. But I had lots to sort out and put all my energy into giving him a good send off.
We had the funeral at last week and it hit me like a truck, while I doing his reading it suddenly came over me that he was dead. I almost lost the ability to read and had a wobble towards the end. I felt like I had some kind of outer body experience where I was looking down on myself and the funeral. We planned everything so meticulously with so much thought and effort. He was a really well loved person and there was a huge turnout and we wanted to make it really special. Listening to the celebrant (who did an amazing job) it just felt like words or talking about someone else. It felt like a third party when the reality was my dad was dead in a coffin next to me. The whole funeral and Wake I spent looking after my adult autistic brother, making sure he was included and not getting into trouble. I found it hard navigating so many people along side that. It was exhausting. My mum was so brave and positive, she has a lot of friends from my parents heydeys and I was so pleased she was surrounded by love. I don’t think I saw her cry but I’m sure she did she’s just good publicly. I felt like a wreck in comparison but did by best to celebrate his life and meet people who loved him id never even met but knew so much about me.
Afterwards I was sad and annoyed that I wasn’t having meaningful conversations with all of the people my dad had impacted. Although I know that’s nearly impossible, there were over 80 people who attended. By just resent having to spend precious time talking to idiots. He didn’t even really know my Dad.
Now the funeral is over. I’m starting to have feelings of sadness and grief. Lots of tears only seem to come out when I get some privacy away from my family. I think because I’ve tried to be strong and supportive, I have been so busy planning the funeral. I think part of me still doesn’t believe it’s real, he was such a positive force of nature and he refused to believe he was going anywhere … only a couple of days before when I tried to tell him I loved him. He cried and shouted “nooo don’t! I’m not going anywhere yet.”.
I have so many feelings and thoughts.I have dreams of him laughing just behind me as we walk into another room. Sometimes I remember when he was looking deeply into my eyes but I don’t know if he was really that her or if he was seeing something. I get so emotional because if I knew I would have spent every second with him I wouldn’t have been worrying about working stupid bosses. Sometimes I just can’t believe the whole thing, and feel completely numb and useless. I feel like I didn’t make him proud and I feel really guilty that he didn’t get to see me successful and happy towards the end of his life. I just feel like I’ll probably let him down. He asked me about my ex-boyfriend who he really liked and I had to tell him that we weren’t going to make it. And he didn’t have the energy to talk. So he just played some sad music… and I just cried, I didn’t want to break up but it’s what my boyfriend wanted, he said he couldn’t be there for me. I’m 36 years old and I feel like a stupid teenager who’s just wasted some precious he is on things that didn’t matter when my dad was going to leave my life forever. I feel like the grief of both of them is intertwined and I hate it so much. I want my dad’s death to be totally separate and respected and I don’t want to give any air time to my ex at all. It’s so s*** that it’s happened at the exact same time and I think he’s such a coward to have basically abandoned me when I was asking for some support, even as just a friend. He left me in a bar crying. I remember my dad said that life was too short for such nonsense when he was mucking me around earlier. What a waste and I’m so sorry Dad. You didn’t deserve to see me like that and have that stress and sadness to deal with. I hope one day I can make my dad proud. I’m just happy that you didn’t know it was coming to an end and that you were still laughing and joking with the nurses when you managed to come round. I know you were having little chuckles to yourself in your sleep and you managed to have some apple strudel. I’m sorry there was a bit of pain towards the end but I’m glad you were out of it too. I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there with you when you died. I wish I was there, I would have been making jokes and singing songs to you. I’m so happy you are at peace and without pain. I love you so much