I am 39 and I never in a million years expected to be going through this at my age. We take for granted that our parents will live forever... I knew that wasn't the case but I figured I would have at lease another 10 or 15 years.
Dad passed away on August 9th. He was 66. Sometime in June or July he fell playing softball. He told no one... just complained to my mom a couple of times of a headache. The morning of July 24th he woke up at 3 am with a headache so bad he and mom decided it was best to go to the ER. They found blood on his brain. After being moved to another hospital he has surgery the next day. Sometime between his last CT scan and the surgery he has a massive stroke. We didn't even find out until 4 days after the surgery... when the PA came in and said, "Well the stroke..." Mom was floored... stroke? We had no clue.
After being in and out of a coma and having several meeting on what to do we decided to take him off life support. He was moved to hospice the next day and passed away that next morning.
When dad was sick I went to Florida for a week (I live in Michigan). When the doctor told us his recovery was going to take a while I decided to leave... there wasn't anything I could really do and I had to get back to work. Less then 9 days later daddy died. I went down to Florida for 2 weeks to help my mom and sister. All our family lives in Vermont and New Hampsire so we were on our own.
I was super close with my dad and the last few years our relationship has gotten stronger. I see ALOT of him in me... and that makes me understand him alot more. It is hard to KNOW what to do. How do you move on when you can't seem to let it out or you hold back because you can't just pause the life around you.
RIght now I am in the middle of moving... dad would have helped me with this so that makes it harder. I have lived in my apartment for 10 years so I have ALOT of stuff. My new apartment is being shared with a room mate. I decided it was time for me to take the bull by the horns and save some money so I can eventually move closer to my family (this was something I decided before dad passed away). Now I am more motivated then ever to eventually (in the next 5 year) move out of Michigan.
How does one make all these life changes... deal with the loss of my dad and try to pick up the pieces of what has happened in the past? I am just overwhelmed.
I am so sorry for your loss of your dad......
I know they say not to make any big life changes for a year, but I think that may pertain more to a spouse than to a parent, but it sounds like you've already made the decision, and it seems to be a good one. One thing that helped me cope when my dad passed away was to make a list of memories of him. Once I started thinking of things, more just keep flooding my mind, things I had almost forgotten. It gave me comfort to write them down and reflect. I'm sorry again, be gentle on yourself.
