10 things that change inexorably when we lose a parent
When we lose a loved one, we realize that the world we have lived in up to that point will now change forever. It will change a little because we will have to deal with the absence of the person who is no longer there until the end of our days, a little because nothing will ever be the same, and we will not be able to do anything but react in our own way to this painful change, internally and externally. Here are 10 things that change in us when we experience a sudden and painful death in the family, especially if it is a parent.
via Psychology Today
- We will feel lonely and sad: no matter how much time will pass and has passed since our parents' departure, the suffering caused by this great absence, this unbridgeable void, will never cease to exist within us. But time will also soften this pain, without canceling it.
- We will feel uncomfortable with others: we will probably feel uncomfortable with our loved ones, with our friends who still have the privilege of spending time with their parents. Indeed, the early days we will hate them for this, and we will feel a certain subtle envy. But that's normal.
- The holidays will no longer be the same: Christmas will no longer have the light and joy of the past, birthdays will no longer be that moment when our father or mother called us on the phone to wish us well and to cheer our day. Family lunches and dinners will always bring with them an inextinguishable void.
- We will realize how much we loved them: only with their absence will we really learn what it means to love our father and mother so strongly. Their death is the moment when we fully understand that the world without them seems to no longer make sense.
- We will hear all kinds of stories about them: To keep their memory alive others will tell us many stories and anecdotes about them, maybe episodes that we did not even know as children, but which will bring us even closer to their essence.
- We will understand the true meaning of "family": only when our father or mother are no longer there will we deeply understand the meaning of family, of unity, of mutual affection, of unconditional love. Values that in the hectic everyday life we tend to forget too quickly.
- A part of us will no longer exist: it is as if, at the moment of their death, a part of our body or our heart was forcibly torn away from our bodies; our soul will never be what it was before, the inner transformation has taken place...
- We will tend to be weaker: it is no coincidence that we will often tend to feel sickly, weak, feverish, physically out of shape, as if our body is looking for a parental figure who can take care of it again ...
- Sadness will always be with us: sadness for having lost them will not go away easily, and moments of leisure and happiness will be increasingly rare.
- We will still feel the urge to call them to talk to them: we always did it when they were alive, and now that they are gone it will be hard to gradually lose this habit.
Although mourning for a parent is one of the greatest sufferings that a child can endure in life, this pain, with time and with the right self care can fade, it can transform into a new awareness of ourselves, of a new phase of a life that unites the whole of humanity in its inevitability. Eventually, we all become orphans.
