Some of the most important people in our lives are our parents. Whether we stay in touch as much as we’d like or not, their death can really make us feel like we can’t breathe.
When someone dies, everything changes. We can’t talk to that person anymore when we need someone to talk to, and it hurts to even say their name. Yes, we will all die someday, and we have to accept that. But when it happens to someone close to you, it takes you by surprise, whether you were expecting it or not. No matter what is going on, when your mother or father dies, you will feel lost.
When one of your parents dies, your life will change in many ways. I’ll talk about some of them below. If you’ve ever lost a parent, you know how important these things are. Losing this much is hard to deal with, and it takes longer to get back to normal than you could ever think. Here are 9 Changes in How We Feel When a Parent Dies:
1. The way you live changes.
When one of your parents dies, you can’t move forward in the same way you did before. You make changes in your life to try to make them more proud of you. You’ll wish you had done this before, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.
2. You feel alone.
When one or both of your parents die, you feel more alone than you ever have before. You don’t know who you are or how to go back to normal.
People you care about seem much farther away than normal. The person who has been a part of your life since you were born is no longer there, and you won’t be able to move on as long as you’re alone.
3. Something seems to be missing.
You’ll feel like something is missing as you move forward. This feeling won’t go away quickly, and it will take much longer than you might think to get used to. You are missing something or someone, and you can’t get them back. It won’t be easy to figure out how to live without them.
4. You don’t feel like your achievements count anymore.
Since your parent(s) are no longer here, you won’t feel as good about the things you do. You won’t have as much help as you used to, and it will affect you in ways you can’t even think. Still, what you’ve done is important, but you don’t feel like it.
5. You have a lot of breakdowns.
You’re going to break down a lot as a person. Some days it will be hard for you to get out of bed, and sometimes just thinking about them will make you cry. When you care a lot about someone, you will never be fully okay with losing them.
6. You never get over it.
When a father dies, you will never get over it. No matter how long you wait, there will always be something you miss. It won’t be easy to learn how to live without your mother or father, but as time goes on, you will get better at it.
7. Everything seems to be falling apart around you.
When you lose a parent, you feel like your whole world is falling apart. You feel like you’re becoming a totally different person and that the world will never be the same again. It won’t ever be the same again, so this is very true.
8. You’re jealous of people who still live with both of their parents.
When you’ve lost your own parents, seeing other people with theirs will make you wish you could see yours again. You’ll be envious of people who get to spend more time with the people they care about the most.
Most of the time, you will tell people how short life is and how important it is to make memories with their parents while they still can.
9. You feel bad about everything you did wrong or didn’t do at all.
When your parents are gone, you will think about all the mistakes you made and the things you wish you could have done better. You will feel bad that you weren’t there for one or both of your parents the way you should have been. You will feel a lot of different emotions that you might not even be aware of.