My dad…

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A few hours ago, I received a phone call from my son.  He told me to call my mother and said she had been trying to reach me for several days.   He said it had to do with my dad and was important. There were no notifications of any messages and I had not received any calls from her.   Even though I’m NC with my mom, I still felt terrible.   Of course I called her right away.

She told me my dad fell down on some pavement a few days ago, and there has been bleeding in his brain. He has suffered from Parkinson’s for a couple of decades, but recently  he’s been unable to keep his balance and is prone to falls.   He’s also very fragile at age 90.  He is unable to speak or move, and is being transferred to 24/7 hospice care, where doctors expect he will pass on.   However, his wife (not my mother) tells me that he is conscious because he will squeeze her hand to let her know he heard something and earlier today he opened his eyes.   My dad has always been in good health for his advanced age, in spite of the Parkinson’s, and has a strong will to survive.   So it does look hopeful but because he is so fragile and his brain could throw clots at any time, he might not make it.

I wish I felt more emotional than I do.  I haven’t had a lot of contact with my father in several years, and only speak to him a few times a year, but he always tires easily and doesn’t always make much sense when he can talk.   I feel like I’m going through the motions of a worried/grieving daughter, but I only feel a vague sadness, as if this happened to someone else’s father.  Of course I don’t want him to die, but I know it will happen pretty soon even if he survives this.   Because of our unfortunate family dynamics, where I’m so estranged from both my parents (my father less so), I feel very disconnected from family events and milestones and can’t work up a lot of emotion.    I’m glad he’s in good hands and has a devoted wife who takes care of him and friends who are checking in on him.

If you pray, please say a prayer for my dad’s recovery.

35 thoughts on “My dad…”

  4. My most positive thoughts are with you. I so hope your Dad recovers well from this incident I relate very well to the issue of a certain detachment as I went through it with my own Dad. I’m not religious. But you are in my thoughts.

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  7. Praying for you and your dad. Don’t try to feel anything. Just try to accept whatever emotions come. Be true to yourself.

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  9. I’m praying for your dad and for you.

    When my father died unexpectedly many years ago, I felt nothing at all, at first. We had been estranged and had not spoken in over eight and a half years, but still, I couldn’t understand why I did not feel anything. I thought I was a terrible person for feeling nothing.

    Thinking I was a terrible person upset me worse than my dad’s passing, at first.

    Later — a long time later — I did feel grief, and it was intense and very painful. Horrible, really. I think the initial “nothing” feeling was my subconscious mind’s way of trying to protect me from pain. It had nothing to do with not caring or being an awful person. In fact, the opposite proved to be true.

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  10. Praying for you and your dad. It is okay to not feel anything. I was numb when my dad died for all the reasons we learn to live in numbness with a toxic family. I think I projected all the grief of my life on my dog when she died unexpectedly. The sorrow of that was breathtaking, falling down weeping at her memory 2 years later. I felt guilty that my grief over a dog was so intense when I was just operating on numb with my family.
    Later I decided dogs are so safe to love (except they die) that some of us give our hearts to them in a way that we couldn’t give to family lest they stamp on it with steel toed boots. So I think the grief about the dog is also grief about my father,. Maybe you learned its just not safe to feel anything around the family

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    • I know exactly what you mean about projecting your grief onto something else later on, when you’re more able to handle the grief. I’m not sure it’s safer to love a dog though–you can get very attached to pets, they become family members.
      I remember when I was about 7, not feeling very much when my maternal grandmother died. We weren’t very close–my mother and her mother didn’t get along–but she did come to visit us frequently enough that I should have grieved. But I did not. A few months later, the mother of an acquaintance from school died suddenly (I barely knew the girl, much less her mother) and I was beside myself with grief and could not stop crying. I think I must have been really crying over my grandmother since I knew her a lot better than the girl’s mother.

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  11. Prayers for strength and peace to you, your father and your family. Your grief may very well be delayed when he passes but it may not…you’ll know when it happens. But, as far as how you feel now, you may just be steeling yourself for the inevitable family gathering. Try to take it all as it comes and not get ahead of yourself, if at all possible. Hugs to you

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  12. I’m sorry that your dad is having a hard time. You are in touch with your feelings is all, try not to feel any guilt that they’re not more than they are, it doesn’t make the love for a parent any less. Like others have pointed out, you may feel differently later. I pray he pulls through this.

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  18. I am sorry to hear lucky Otter. Rest in peace the soul of your dad, and I accompany you in your griving. I have been there too. 💝💝

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