:angel: He was an angel! He died from a immediate heart attack friday january 14, 2005. It has only been 10 days or so and it is so hard to believe. We all feel like we are living a dream. He was the most kindest, generous and selfless man I have ever known, he would help anyone and always had a smile for you. He is my partner's father and I love him so much, always will.

My partner is having such a hard time with the loss of her father. It was so sudden and unexpected, he was 71. They were 2 peas in a pod! They had a very close and loving relationship. He shared things with her that he would never share with his own wife. She not only lost her father, but her best friend too!

Can anyone help me to help her in offering any advise on how to handle her sorrow? She says she lived to please her Dad and now she doesnt feel like living or doesnt have anything to live for. I want to help her so much, I feel for her, my heart aches for her. I tell her she must live for herself and it will get better but I have not lost a parent I was that close to. Thanks for any help, I appreciate it!

I have lost both my parents -- my father to cancer and my mother to heart disease. Both parents suffered before they died and I remember my mother saying that she wished she would have died from one massive heart attack rather than numerous weaker ones she suffered from. My sister had a very hard time dealing with our mother's death but there was something that I told her that helped a great deal, then the priest at her funeral said the very same thing -- that the person has not really died. That we are all spirits who borrow a body to come live on this earth. The body or "shell" will eventually give out as it not meant to last forever, however the spirit does live on. Your partner's father hasn't died, his shell did. His spirit is still alive, only in a different form than she is used to! She feels like she has nothing to live for anymore (exactly like my sister) because she feels a gaping hole in her heart that cannot be filled by anyone else. Nobody else CAN fill that emptiness -- it is now to be filled with memories, and of her father's spirit which still exists. He is still around and she can still talk to him, she didn't lose HIM, she lost what she was used to -- his spirit in the human form.....

It sounds like her father was a very kind and Loveing man, Im sure he would not want her to give up. She should carry on her fathers sprit by doing the things he would have done let him live thru her. Do something in his memory, I feel like from the sound of her Father she also is a kind and loving person. I know it is painful but I just believe he is looking from Heaven waiting for her to be the strong person he instilled in her. My Prayers are with her and you also for reaching out to her, God Bless You :angel:

Hi

My father died suddenly from a heart attack. I was 24 (I'm now 28) and he was 56. He was also my best friend and the kindest, most wonderful man. He was everything to me (and still is). My boyfriend found it hard too. You will, and she will. But she will find it hard beyond belief for a long time. You have to cultivate an attitude of fatalism, she will have to dig DEEP inside herself for strength, get her head down and endure it. She will have to have faith ( I don't mean necessarily in god but in herself and in her power to endure) and SHE WILL get through it. She will never get over it but she WILL learn to live with it. I started to breathe again after a year probably and I am no where near getting over it. People say there's stages to grief and you come to an acceptance. I'm not sure about that. She will feel robbed and cheated and angry and alone and frightened and she will find it so difficult to understand he has gone. She will live through it though. The best thing you can do is give her time, listen when she wants to talk, don't be afraid to mention him in conversation (one of the hardest things is feeling people have forgotten) hold her if she wants you to when she cries, leave her to grieve in her own way, in her own time. She will be numb for a long time and, one thing I learned was the unexpected ways it can rip a family apart but she will find the strength to live through it.

One thing I found helpful was bereavement counselling. An organisation called CRUSE offers it free and it helped me. Maybe it will help her or you, I don't know.I'm sorry she has to go through this. I'm sorry I have to go through this.

You sound lovely though and your support will help I"m sure