Adult orphans

LegacyUser

Any adult orphans out there? I'm in my late twenties and have recently lost my mum whom I was so close to. Dad died some years ago, am an only child and although I am married I feel very alone in my grief. Has anyone a similar experience? We were best friends, just the two of us for years and am very lonely now.

Rubberchikken

hi op
sorry to read of your loss.

i guess it's even harder on an only child as there's no one else who could remember good times and bad with your parents.
i'm an adult orphen 17 years and i still miss my mom. i'm one of 5 so i've found that we each have different memories of our parents. our dad died when i was 18 so my younger siblings and i have onlky childhood memories of him, but we knew our mom as adults and it gave us so many different memories and experiences of her which was great.

do you have any relations that you could talk to about your parents? i''ve found that being able to mention them in ordinary day-to-day conversations has helpoed grieve for them and yet keep the memories alive.

take care

Kalimah

MissHer wrote: »

Any adult orphans out there? I'm in my late twenties and have recently lost my mum whom I was so close to. Dad died some years ago, am an only child and although I am married I feel very alone in my grief. Has anyone a similar experience? We were best friends, just the two of us for years and am very lonely now.

That's very sad. I was 23 when my mother died and in my late 20s when my father died. My sister was a teenager. We knew very few people in the same position. My sister was an orphan in college which she found very difficult. Even now in my 50s I know very few people who have no parents left. We were just very unfortunate.
Not a lot I can say to comfort you. As time goes by it will get a bit easier. I found when I had children it was lonely. No one to share pregnancy moans with. My mother in law wasn't very interested. My mother would have loved grandchildren. I felt very hard done by for a long time- still do sometimes.

LegacyUser

Thanks guys, yes I feel really hard done by also. Thought I had got my fair share of bad luck with dad dying so young and losing a brother (he was only an infant), but I guess life isn't fair and we must be thankful for what's good in our lives and I have a great husband. But part of the reason why I feel lonely now is that I have very few people to talk about mum with. Her sister has not contacted me since the months mind, mums friends who I would have been very close to also, have not been in touch much. I feel totally disconnected from the life I had before. Only a few months ago myself and mum would have regularly met up for coffee with her sister and her friends etc, they were so supportive of mum in hospital. I suppose I hoped that they would keep in touch with me after she died, but this hasn't really happened. I would love to share memories of mum with the people who knew her so well or just keep in touch with them. My poor husband is just the shoulder to cry on/ listening ear all the time. He cant really share stories of mum with me as I was always with him when we were with her.

jennyhayes123

I am 34 and an orphan too. I feel very hard done by. My dad is nearly 3 years gone and my mum 2 weeks.
It's a cruel world

ticklebelly7

My father died back in May. Ma and me (I'm an only child) were estranged from him for years for reasons that don't bear thinking about but at the end, we cried for him and went to his funeral, and to save him being scattered anonymously in some crematorium in Essex, I asked my aunt - his sister - for his ashes.

This August I brought me Ma home on holidays as I always do. I was carrying the Aul Fella's ashes. Despite her 95 years of age, me Ma was lepping to get to the Curragh races on the last Sunday of the month. As we drove across the great plain to the racecourse, I stopped off near Donnelly's Hollow and found a spot looking out over the Curragh where I scattered half the ashes under a hawthorn tree.
'I see you're leaving him with the fairies' sez Ma.
And indeed I was, because God knows, he was away with them most of the time. And as a Kildare man, it was a fitting spot for him.

We lost all our money at the races.
We went to the bingo on the Monday and lost even more.
Tuesday Ma went and got herself a new pair of trainers.

Wednesday morning she got up, bimbled about for a while, got a cup of tea with her sister whose house we were staying in, and then complained of a pain in her chest and head. My aunt came and got me; I found Ma with her hands on her ears.
'What's the matter, Mam? What's the matter?' I said.

With that she slid off the couch. I caught her and lowered her down to the floor and phoned 999. They got me doing CPR for 15 minutes till the paramedics turned up and they continued for another half an hour. But in my heart I knew she was gone very soon after she'd gone onto the floor. The priest came down and gave her the Last Rites, as was fitting for a devout Catholic.
And so me little Mam passed away on the floor of the family home. And it was a righteous thing to happen.

What happened next?
Well the neighbours turned up with sandwiches and soup and stew and cakes and spuds and pies. And they kept coming for four days.
The undertaker, a wonderful chap, reassured me that all would be well, and he quickly and quietly got her ready to go off for the inevitable post mortem.

My grandson and Ma's other sister came over from England the next day and we were swept along on the shoulders of giants in that small village in the backside of west Wicklow. Those people supported us and loved us and laughed and cried with us and they showed kindness like I'd never seen in my life

Mam was buried up on a hill in the local town. And in the coffin went the remaining ashes of the prodigal son, the Auld Fella. Because despite all, she still loved him.

And desperate as it was for me to lose my Mam, I was happy for her and for us that it had turned out as it did. What better way to go than quickly and cleanly with no pain or fear or long drawn out hospital stay, with your old faithful daughter beside you.

If it had happened here in England, it would have been only my grandson and I to deal with it.
The paramedics would have seen a 95 year old and done nothing - what would be the point, she'd only be a bed-blocker.
The undertakers wouldn't have touched us with a bargepole unless we could find a 10% deposit up front.
We'd have had to cremate her as there was no other way we could afford to repatriate her as was her wish.
There would not have been friends and relatives visiting us day and night, keeping us company and lifting our spirits with hang sangwidges and soup.
We wouldn't be allowed to go back and forth from the funeral home for three nights, letting ourselves in as we pleased, and playing CDs and making tea and crying and laughing, with my Mam dressed in her best suit and new trainers, in her lovely white pine coffin with the silk handles.
And the police wouldn't stop the traffic so the funeral cortege could pass through the town with us walking behind.
And I wouldn't have had strangers come up to me in the cemetery that evening, people who had heard the Mass broadcast on local radio, people who offered to look after the plants on her grave till I could get back over again.
And the undertaker, God bless him, who, when he heard that Ma was a fanatic for the horsies, said: 'I have the temporary cross up with a plaque and a picture of Padre Pio on it ... but I'm going back down to the workshop now and getting a different one - a one with a horse and jockey, sure that would be far better for your mother, wouldn't it'. It sure would!

My Mam will be dead three weeks tomorrow and it feels like an eternity already. But I feel like she is home and loved and where she wanted to be. And I'm heartbroken and lost and lonely. But I'd not have had it happen any other way.

JupiterKid

Hi MissHer. I'm 40 years of age an an adult orphan. I lost my mum when I was 15 (she was only 46 - died of a massive heart attack) and then last year I lost my dad as well (74 from terminal cancer).

There's not a day that goes by when I don't think of them and miss them. My two sisters have been a great support to me as has been my ex-partner. If you need to talk, please don't hesitate in PMing me. You need support in the difficult weeks and months ahead - take care of yourself.

ticklebelly7

Ah thank you so much JupiterKid. How very kind you are to offer consolation to a stranger. I firmly believe that every act of kindness comes back to you eventually. Whether you believe in a god or not, you're blessed by me. xxx

LegacyUser

I'm an adult orphan but a bit older than you. I'm in my 30's, my parents died last year 4 weeks apart. One died through cancer, the other was sudden.

I find life very lonely. My siblings never bother contacting me anymore. I don't have my own family.

Pretzill

Lost my mum just a few weeks ago and dad a few years ago. I was very lucky to know them both as long as I did. It does feel like a new chapter in life but with a lot of blank pages to start with.

LegacyUser

I lost mine in my 20's.
My family are all married and got on with their lives.
I don't think about it, if I started to cry I don't think I would stop. I hate Christmas and "family" events as I feel so alone.
Just get up and get on with it as best you can. Some are lucky to have great support, some don't. I have a few great friends but I don't want to burden them with how I'm feeling all the time.
Be kind to yourself.

Adviceme

Hi.
23 year old adult orphan here. Lost my dad at 12 and my mum last year. It's tough. When my mum died, it felt like I was grieving both their deaths. I kept thinking "even if I had one of them".

Carter12

55 year old orphan here. Lost both parents in May and i just feel abandoned. Hubby is an orphan since March. We're both just lost

Peig Sayers

That was beautiful Ticklebelly 7!