Losing a Parent While Young...

This is an interesting post. Obviously for the wrong reasons, I'm sympathetic to all of you i cannot fathom how it must be to lose a dear one so young.

My boyfriend lost his dad when he was ten and i wonder how it has effected him. Hes very emotionally closed up.

Lost my mom at 7.

I leaves an empty place in you.

Fill it with memories.

It is part of you.

Accept it and move on.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


my boyfriend as well..but how do YOU deal with it?
cuz its so very hard for me to be the one sharing my inner most feelings with him, while he has these barriers put up around his heart...how will i ever be able to break them down and see him for who he truely is?

it scares me sometimes, and i wonder how long i will be able to be the one who gives a lot in this relationship...!

my mother committed suicide when i was 5, i dont rember much about her and i never cried about it.

now at 18 it is really coming out. i think because i never had a mother figuer it is corsing some truble with starting relationships or evan talking to girls.

it will always be there with any one who loses some one, we just need to deal with it.

my parents never died so I cant say I know exactly how your feeling but they left me and my sister for dugs when we were 12 and never came back. I definetly know what you mean when you say it gets worse when your older. Its like even though im 19 I still feel like I need them around.

I really wish the best for you because if either of my parents died it would tear me apart. It definetly helps to talk to people who went through the same thing.

I lost my dad in 1990. He was helicopter pilot for the marines and flew some dangerous missions only to be killed here, in America, for his wallet by three guys. Wondering what life would be like with him here now is hard to imagine considering I had only such a short time to know him. I have a few distinct memories of him. My little sister has some vague ones and my little brother knows our dad only by name and pictures/videos we have of him.

Being that young I never really realized what I had lost at the time. Being 26 now though, I think I miss him more than ever because I look back on everything I was not able to experience with him. My high school graduation, working on my first car, graduating college, and now i'm about to complete my MSW.

Reading through all of these posts, it gives me a little comfort being given a reminder that i'm not alone in how I feel yet it saddens me that we all are sharing the loss of someone we knew who was close to us.

"Lost" my parents at birth, actually. Being adopted at age 5 days old, this loss still is something my body feels. My parents had quite a few kids already, so they put me up for adoption. The next loss was due to the family situation of my adoptive parents. Mom was 45, Dad was 62 when I was born. Somehow, lawyers allowed the age-difference to be allowed back then in 1964. Dad was a hard worker and long-time smoker so he developed lung disorders and died when I was 6, in the 2nd grade. Mom came down to school one day to take me out of class and her and the teachers told me he had passed in the hospital.

I don't know if life would have been much better had he survived longer into my childhood. I would have been an active kid with a father in his 70s with health problems. My mom did a good job raising me and also taking care of her mom until grandma died at about age 95. As an only child, it was a very small family with very little family support, so I kind of raised myself to some degree. I'm very much ok hanging out with myself - even at times when I could be doing something with my wife or my kids. It's not that healthy to be too self-sufficient, it seems like, when family members are near.

My mother is still going strong, at 90, despite arthritis in her knees and hands. She's going to sell her house this year or next and move closer to me.

[edit on 7-6-2010 by bonaire]

My Dad committed suicide when I was 4 and Mum died from various health problems when I was 19.

I'm sure Dad's death affected me and I'm probably in complete denial about it but I don't feel like it has.

Mum on the other hand.. she missed my engagement, wedding, birth of my child and then wasn't there to help me through my divorce or the challenges of my autistic child.. it feels like abandonment even though I know it's not. She was only 56 when she died so that has become the 'magic number' for my sister and I to live past.

I do feel their spirits around me all the time though.. it's still not the same. We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get on with life don't we.