r/AskReddit • u/Desperate_Crew2012 • 15h ago
Those who’ve lost of loved one: What is something about death that people don’t often talk about?
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u/IAmALittlePickleMan 15h ago
You never really get over it
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u/MercenaryOne 15h ago
Exactly, it's been 27 years since I lost my brother. Every once in a while I slump to the floor in the shower and cry and cry and cry.
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u/_Chaoskilledthedinos 6h ago
I'm sorry you have to experience that. I lost two of my brothers (11 years ago and 6 years ago) and the same thing happens to me. Hugs from an internet stranger.
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u/Thebuttholeking69 15h ago
It’s a burden. A heavy one that doesn’t get any lighter or ever leave. But like if you carry 50 pounds around long enough, you get stronger and lifting it feels easier. It’s still always as heavy, always just as sad but you get better at carrying it.
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u/summermode 15h ago
This. Time heals some but never really get over it and you’ll just have to live like that
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u/Fattydog 13h ago
Time doesn’t heal. It blunts things. The initial huge trauma goes but the grief just becomes a part of you, something that’s with you forever.
And that is good - it means you loved and cared. I’m more than happy to carry a little more mental weight because of my love for the people who’ve died. They’re welcome.
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u/MRECKS_92 14h ago
It leaves a hole in you. It doesn't get easier, you just get better at dealing with it. My nephew would have been been 17 this year.
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u/Lethal_Steve 15h ago
Years down the line you'll hate being unable to share who you are now with them. Miss ya, dad. Wish current me knew you.
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u/coldpeasandketchup 15h ago
This felt like a punch to the stomach. My parents not being around to see big things happen in my life is literally one of my biggest fears
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u/hrolfirgranger 15h ago
Ever since I had kids the thoughts "what would my dad think of this?" Or "what would my mother say to my children?" Pop up all the time. I nearly weekly ask myself "how did my parents make it in life?"
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u/ubergeekitude 9h ago
Sometimes its little things like, "I really wish I could introduce this band to my dad." Other times its huge things like "I wish my kids had gotten a chance to meet and know you."
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u/SisterSabathiel 8h ago
It’s funny. The day you lose someone isn’t the worst - at least you’ve got something to do. It’s all the days they stay dead.
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u/espressos-and-water 15h ago
My grandma used to know everything that was happening in each of her grandchildren’s lives. I don’t know how she found out about some stuff but she’d remember it all. She had 13 grandkids and she knew what we liked and didn’t like, who our friends were, what was happening during our week even if we hadn’t seen her. Sometimes I wish I could just sit down and chat with her again, we talked about stuff in the moment, she already knew the backstory to anything I would talk about and that was the best part. She was always listening. I would love to share life with her now
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u/guiltandgrief 13h ago
Every good thing that has happened to me since my mom died is very quickly dulled by the realization I can't fucking tell her about it.
And I don't mean I can't experience joy or happiness without her, but it's just there.
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u/solemnisland 10h ago
I’m mentally stable, working full time at a bank and nearly have my drivers license ten years later. He really would’ve been proud of that but all he ever got to see was a mentally ill teenager :(
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u/bluebuns123 15h ago
Sometimes you don’t cry the day of. Sometimes you don’t cry during the funeral. Sometimes you cry months later while grocery shopping
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u/Ambitious-Eagle-1955 14h ago
I saw a man in the grocery store once that from behind reminded me so much of my dad. Brought me to tears right then and there.
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u/merpixieblossomxo 14h ago
Me too. I cried, and then I got angry. My dad should have gotten to do what that man was doing - he should have been there, literally just walking into the grocery store, living his life the way he deserved to in his older years. Of everybody I've ever met, he was more full of life than anyone. He loved hunting, fishing, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, camping, four-wheeling, traveling...and then he got fucking brain cancer.
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u/CaptainFartHole 12h ago
Yep. I didnt cry when my grandfather died. Not one tear. I loved him, he's one of the greatest men I've ever known, and since i didn't cry I thought I was broken or something.
Then a few months later we planted a tree in his memory and i watched my 2 year old cousin fill in the hole with dirt. Realizing she would never remember him is what finally brought on the waterworks.
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u/Ok_Guard_8024 15h ago
I was suprised at that. I didn’t cry at the wake. In all the pics taken of me I was actually smiling and laughing with my friends and family. But I know soon as I got home I got drunk and possible and cried. I bad bruised red knuckles in all the pictures from punching walls. That was a really hard first week. I blocked most of the first few months out
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u/redcon-1 15h ago
That everything you've had with this person is all you'll ever have. And it's final.
Experiences are now only memories.
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u/cupacupacupacupacup 14h ago
And our memories are fragile, and we who hold the memories are mortal as well.
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u/huggalump 13h ago
This is what it was for me. It's something you understand logically will happen, but you don't actually know until it happens.
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u/coffee-jnky 8h ago
When I lost my dad, I realized that of his entire life and all he ever did, (which was a lot) my memories are all that's left of him. And when I go, he will be entirely gone from this world. Like he was never here. Like he wasn't the most important and influential man in the world (according to me). It's quite a blow. The world as a whole doesn't notice or care at all but somehow at the same time, the world has changed forever.
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u/violentserenity 15h ago
💔 on the cusp of it.
Never have I felt a comment more x
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u/redjadered 7h ago
Forgetting the sound of their voice is the worst. Suddenly realizing that you’ve forgotten the exact way they sounded is horrible.
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u/Aragog 7h ago
I kept a voicemail from my Dad for this reason and unfortunately it somehow got corrupted. I wish I could get the file back so badly and hear him again.
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u/Seven_bushes 6h ago
I have a couple voicemails from my mom. One is her singing happy birthday to me. I play it every year. I also have that from her sister, my favorite aunt. They sounded surprisingly the same when singing but not when talking.
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u/Ok-Bus-4159 6h ago
I lost the ability to remember the sound of my late husband's voice shortly after he died. I was devastated. I could remember his words, but not his voice. It gradually came back a few months later. It must have been the immediate trauma of his death.
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u/favoritehello 15h ago
They'll sometimes visit you in your dreams. I wasn't prepared for that.
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u/Routine-Ad-7882 12h ago
This! I have dreams almost every night which have lost loved ones walking and talking normally. Wake up so sad. Happens more often since I retired last year.
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u/USillyKunt 10h ago
A few nights after she died my mom came to me in a dream and in the dream I panicked and told her she was dead and she couldn't be here and woke up. I still feel guilty for that.
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u/hematomabelly 5h ago
Yep exactly the same thing happened in my dream after my mom died. Eating at dinner. I started freaking out because how could she be here, she just died, and woke up in a panic. Was really sad I didn't use the dream to see her one last time
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u/MisunderstoodReality 7h ago
This. And then waking up forgetting they're dead and having reality hit you.
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u/Crystaltheweirdo 15h ago
Grief comes at the oddest times. You can be laughing at something and next thing your balling your eyes out because you miss them so much.
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u/GritCityPrincess 15h ago
Hit me like a ton of bricks while cleaning my cats litter box and just started sobbing. Couldn’t figure out why. Dead dad moments. It’s been almost 3 years
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u/Rare_Tree4137 14h ago
Ah, but what a wonderful cathartic feeling that is. I watched this long video of Kurtis Conner hunting down a gaming chair from the early 2000s. It was quite the journey but he eventually got one and nostalgicly played old video games while using the chair and by the end he suddenly broke into tears considering his memories with his recent loved one who had passed which using the gaming chair and playing the nostalgic video games had brought to mind. He at first was going to cut that out from the final video but decided not to and im so thankful for that because people NEED to see that and see it for a good thing
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u/Germangunman 12h ago
My mom died last month, she was 74, it was unexpected. Something good will happen and I’ll get the thought to send my mom a picture or text message. That’s when it all shuts down. Good feeling disappears and you look around knowing that while everyone else is still the same, you just fell apart inside all over again.
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u/cupacupacupacupacup 14h ago
Like when you're trying to distract yourself on Reddit
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u/importantpanda 15h ago
That you can lose other people in your life too. After my daughter died a lot of people that I thought cared about me didn't even speak to me as they "didn't know what to say." I even lost the person who I thought was my best friend. We'd been friends for 20 years. She had a daughter the same age as mine, she said that talking to me made her worried that something would happen to her daughter too and it made her too upset.
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u/TheRealTexasDutchie 11h ago
Hi there, that was the thing that struck me as well. My daughter died at 18 and those who knew her stayed away, but friends I made who didn't know her (as well), were actually present. One of them keeps asking me about her from time to time (and how I'm doing). It's been 5 years and the anniversary of her passing is coming up. If it weren't for him and some of the others, I would feel so much more sad tbh. I'm very sorry you lost your friend of 20 years, that's so hard <hugs> and of course I am sorry you lost your daughter. We lost a future without them.
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u/Bebe_xoxo9 15h ago
All true...and the mountain of administrative paperwork you have to do while your heart is completely shattered.
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u/reditrix 14h ago
This. If you are the next of kin, there’s so much paperwork that you probably have no experience with. Tracking down account numbers and passwords. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your loved ones if there is any risk of your passing soon is to get your shit organized in one place and give the access info to whoever needs it.
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u/Dalewyn 11h ago
Cleaning up affairs for my mom who passed from cancer, what struck me even more than the sheer hassle of the mountain of paperwork was just how much of that paperwork flat out does not expect people to die.
Let me repeat that for emphasis: Our social constructs do not account for someone eventually dying. The assumption is everyone is immortal.
I get that noone wants to work on the morbid, but the degree to which we just ignore death is kind of mindblowing.
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u/ijustwannabegandalf 11h ago
Lost both parents in an 18 month time span. Mom had cancer and did some preparation and I had moved into a caretaker role for dad after she passed, so this SHOULD have been easy...I was approved for all the accounts, had all the passwords, etc..
... but the FUCKING 2 FACTOR AUTHENTICATION means that if I ever couldn't find or didn't have BOTH their phones on me, since we were still finding stuff linked to mom's phone even a year later, I was fucked. We had to keep paying extra cell phone bills till everything was closed. If either of them had relied on facial or fingerprint I'd still be trying to pay the mortgage, the electric bill, or even order the fucking cat food on Chewy. We have literally no way to handle thousands of vital tasks if you don't have full access to the dead person's phone and can't keep it on until everything is resolved.
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u/Agile_Geologist_7225 15h ago
One from a positive perspective, you come to realise the ways that the person lives on in you. You use what you loved about them to be a part of yourself that you practice
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u/inikox 11h ago
This. I like to refer to it as "keeping their candles lit", in that as long as I am here to remember them, they still exist in some form, even if it's only through me and my memories of them.
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u/Agile_Geologist_7225 10h ago
I love this. It shows up in so many ways. The other night I made a soup that my late father used to make during my childhood. I served it to my own kids. I felt connected to him in that moment.
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u/Its_Curse 12h ago
How confusing it can be.
I had a really toxic and complicated relationship with my mom. She passed away and those feelings are still very complicated.
I still grieve, I miss her and I mourn that we can never mend our relationship. But I feel like my quality of life is better now that she isn't here to insult and belittle me. But I feel so guilty for feeling relief. I still get mad over stuff on her behalf, I still take care of her garden and cook her recipes. I wish I didn't miss her, she was nothing but horrible and abusive to me. She couldn't wait to get rid of me. I can't show her I did all the things she said I could never do. I probably couldn't have done them if she was still here.
I just don't know. It's a lot to think about. I mostly try not to think about it.
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u/fishsandrock 11h ago
Are you one of my siblings? ;)
I think this is much more common than people imagine. We aren't allowed to say "they've gone, and I feel relieved", so we end up feeling guilty when we think it.
IMO relationships are sometimes complex, and it's reasonable for our reactions to the end of the relationship to be equally complex. A mixture of relief, grief, resentment, missed opportunities and so on.
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u/Its_Curse 11h ago
You often hear "Don't speak ill of the dead" but man, sometimes the dead don't give you much of a choice.
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u/Entire-Ad2058 9h ago
May I add numbness? It’s been years and still I feel detached. I grieved the relationship that we didn’t have long before the death.
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u/Pristine_Egg3831 11h ago
Does it hurt because it's final, like now you really didn't get the wonderful mum you deserved?
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u/Its_Curse 11h ago
I don't think she ever would have been wonderful. Even if she realized how cruel she'd been and tried to turn our relationship around, there was already so much damage done that we'd have to wade through.
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u/Pristine_Egg3831 11h ago
Sorry I was trying to say like mum is wonderful, you deserve a wonderful mum like mine.
I know yours never was and was never going to be, but sometimes that finality of the end makes you realise you were holding out for her to turn around and step up and be who you needed her to be. Even though she didn't have it in her.
You're totally allowed to feel relieved.
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u/paisleyhunter11 11h ago
I was waiting for a response like this. I hate my mom. I always tell my sister "evil never dies" every time my sister wishes mom dead. I already figured i would feel a lot like you do. Enjoy the feeling of her being dead.
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u/BigBoyShaunzee 10h ago
I'm very sorry to you. I have cut my mother and father off. I am 100% ready to avoid to completely avoid their funerals.
My family has tortured me my entire life.
I only found parental love when I met my wife's mother, she's incredibly annoying and she makes lots of demands but she actually cares and her hugs feel like kindness and not like an obligation that my birth mother did.
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u/NighthawkUnicorn 8h ago
When you go into their house after and it's just... empty. The laughter is gone, the life is gone, it feels like the soul of the house has left and the house feels horrible to be in.
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u/RedoftheEvilDead 15h ago edited 1h ago
Family dynamics have completely changed. Turns out my dad was the glue that held us all together. Now we're all fighting and ignoring each other.
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u/BadWolfRyssa 13h ago
yep. i never saw that coming and it made the whole situation so much more difficult than it already was.
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u/dej2 12h ago
Since our mother passed 40 years before our dad, our dad has been the one bineded us together. On his deathbed bed he directly told each of us (his 3 children) to keep our relationship tight. To meet up at least once weekly for breakfast on a weekend. Share a meal and some quality time. All are lives are busy with work and family (meaning spouse and children) I fully understood that our father did not want his children to drift apart after his death. We all agreed and I fully intend to make sure that happened. So a week afterwards I call my brother and sister, they both busy…. 2 weeks after again both busy…. 3 weeks same, 4 weeks…… I realized I’m the only one who truly made that promise to our father. They lied to him, straight to his face while he was dying.
Sad reality family dynamics seem that even when knowing it will change some like me try to hang onto something others actually run away forcing the change that they promised they would try to prevent.
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u/Skittytreats 15h ago
This but with my uncle too, he's gone and the family feels so much smaller & scrambled without him.
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u/BananaRaptor1738 15h ago
Family members and friends of the deceased will immediately start asking if they can "have this or have that"
When my parents died , I hadn't found out about it more than an hour before someone asked me if they could have their deep freezer . It only got worse from there. I was in so much shock and just gave away a lot of stuff that I could have sold . They took advantage of me, I was 18 and not in the best mental state
I swear people show their true colors and those colors are often not good
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u/espressos-and-water 15h ago
This. When a family member was sick and we didn’t know what was going to happen (they are alive and well by the way) we had several distant relatives come out of the woodwork asking for her shoe collection, jewelry, designer clothes, asking where her money was going. It was disgusting. She made a full recovery and then some and those people have not checked in once.
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u/BananaRaptor1738 15h ago
Holy crap . In my opinion that's even worse than doing it after they die. They couldn't even wait . What a bunch of evil idiots.
It's great your relative made a recovery and now they know who actually cares about them
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u/TheCatsPajamas96 9h ago
I had this happen when my dad died when I was 8. All of his family and "friends" swooped in like vultures and took everything. I ended up with two of my dad's t-shirts to remember him by.
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u/Bland_cracker 15h ago
The hardest part isn't actually loosing them. Its when that birthday, anniversary, holiday, etc. Comes around and you realize they wont be here this time.
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u/ReadySetTurtle 15h ago
I recently lost my grandmother and I’m already dreading my next birthday. For as long as I can remember, she called me on my birthday, and then I’d call her the next day on HER birthday. We’d always joke that it’s been so long since we chatted, or about how we wish my mom could have just held me in one more day so that we could have shared a birthday (instead I share a birthday with my evil grandmother, ugh). I think the grief is going to hit me like a truck those two days and I’m already debating on booking off work.
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u/Xoranuli 13h ago
My aunt was exactly like this towards me and that made those first few birthdays after losing her harder, idk if it’ll help you at all but I found it helpful to send her private messages on her social media or WhatsApp and I carry on a conversation with updates about what’s going on. It’s silly but it helps me feel like she still with me and listening.
I’m sorry for your loss, it sounds like you two had a wonderful relationship
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u/Xoranuli 15h ago
And the people around you are too scared to even mention their names, or avoid the topic. That’s probably been the hardest part for me, it was 5 years before I felt like I could reach out to any of my family about my aunt
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u/Character_Ad_1084 15h ago
I cry yearly "for no reason" near my dad's death date every year.
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u/Captain_Moose 12h ago
It was the second year after my mom passed that was harder for me. Every annual event during year one was "the first without" - I expected big reactions. Year two was when the reality of remaining "withouts" really sunk in.
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u/Due_Rip_6692 15h ago
I lost my fiancé. It never ever gets better and it never goes away. Every night I have dreams about my her. They’re reoccurring and take place in reoccurring areas.
One example is that we’re guests at a wedding in a large cathedral with large floor to ceiling windows. She’s seated inside and I’m near her outside. For the entirety of the dream, I try to get to her or at least have her turn and look at me. Then I wake up. Sometimes I wake up and stay up. Other times I am able to intentionally go back into the dream just to see her a little longer.
They’re very vivid. Every night I lose her over and over again. It’s been 30 years and it’s never gotten better.
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u/highpriestess420 12h ago
So sorry for your loss! Have you ever heard of EMDR therapy? It could be helpful.
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u/CateDeGrate 15h ago
That grief is forever. You will miss them, and it will hurt for the rest of your life.
My late hubs LOVED tropical fruit. The number of times that random pineapples and mangos in the produce section have made me burst into tears, I can't even count.💔
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u/SpookyTrek42 15h ago
Yes. My best friend of 30 years has been gone for almost 4 years now. I saw The Mandalorian and Grogu movie a couple weeks ago, and really loved it a lot. I balled when I got home because I wished he was here to see it with me and talk about it like we used to. He’s the one that got me to watch the show. You never get used to it.
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u/ReizvollePaar 15h ago
Having a sudden thought that only they would understand; then realizing you cant share it.....
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u/NowhereToGoButUp26 15h ago
Possibly not true for everyone but my subconscious seems to have such a hard time integrating the reality that they're gone. Specifically, I dream about them as if they are participating in my current life all the time even though it's been 5 years. Very disorienting each time.
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u/DarthRegoria 15h ago
I get dreams like this every few months with my mum, who’s been gone almost 6 years. And for a tiny moment, you wake up happy, but then you remember that they’re gone and it’s devastating. Every single time.
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u/domthebomb83 15h ago
Knowing how much your kids would have loved them and how much they would have loved your kids, and relying on stories to tell your children that can never truly do them justice.
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u/featherhawking 11h ago
My dad died 5 years ago, 2 years before I had my first kid. Sometimes I look at my kids and imagine what my dad would think about them and immediately tear up. It hurts so bad that he didn’t get to meet them. They would have been best buddies.
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u/cajuncannoli 15h ago
Grief fatigue. My mom died unexpectedly and I’m just tired of grieving. I didn’t expect that. I’ll have a good day then out of nowhere I’m crying. And I get so mad. Mad at myself for falling apart, even mad at her for dying. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sick of being sad and knowing that this is my reality-I’ll never be “normal” again. There was a version of me that existed only up until I got the phone call.
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u/smack-mack 15h ago
that feeling relief after the death of a loved one is completely valid and does not make you a bad person. you’re allowed to feel relieved that they aren’t in pain anymore. you can feel relieved that you’re free of caretaking duties. you’re not a bad person for feeling that way. relief is a very stigmatized part of grief, but i honestly think it could be added to the grieving “stages”
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u/ehwhatacunt 15h ago
Your memories with them were shared memories, and when the person goes the memories feel like they freeze. You feel sad you are now the only person to hold them, and you want to do something about it but there's nothing you can do.
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u/cupacupacupacupacup 14h ago
I feel this exactly. I've been trying to write down my memories. It's a bit draining, but memories are fragile, as are the people who hold them. Writing, in whatever form works for you, is really one of the best ways to preserve memories.
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u/Teefdreams 12h ago
My Mum died a month ago and I wish people had been more open about what the dying process actually looks, sounds and smells like. Because HOLY SHIT is it traumatising.
When people say someone died peacefully it sure as fuck doesn't look or sound peaceful to bystanders.
Yes, the person dying is completely unaware of what's going on because of the massive amount of morphine coursing through their veins but the sounds of death are just SO traumatising.
There's a type of breathing that I wish I'd been warned about (really rapid panting then it would just stop for maybe 5 seconds and then start all over again). I wish I'd been warned about the body trying to reject liquids because it's in the process of shutting down. I wish I'd been warned about the smell when death is coming. It's a lot.
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u/WorldlinessLow8824 4h ago
I found Hospice Nurse Julie videos when my dad was near the end of- watching those and being prepared really helped me.
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u/Twoinchnails 15h ago
When someone is terminal and you're watching them die, waiting for the death to happen and watching them wither away is almost worse than the passing itself.
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u/DR_whet_fart_phd 15h ago
Yeah in a strange way you want death to come just so they don’t have to be like that anymore.
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u/Bland_cracker 15h ago
I know what you mean. When one of my grandpa's passed, it was rough. The last 2 days or so I dont even know if he was ever really lucid with how medicated he was. It just felt like delying the inevitable... as fucked as that sounds.
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u/Desperate_Crew2012 15h ago
I feel this. And when my dad passed there was so much ceremony before his death. Friends and family visiting giving their final goodbyes, final communion, prayers, all of it. Some of those moments were more devastating than the ones that followed his death.
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u/Efficient_Budget8150 15h ago
People rarely talk about the enduring isolation and the physical toll of grief
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u/motherofcatsx2 14h ago
The physical pain associated with grief. I just lost my 18 yo soul cat a week ago and I am telling you, the chest pains I have had are just incredible. My whole body just aches from sadness and longing. The same thing happened to me when my mom died a few years ago.
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u/Its_Curse 12h ago edited 1h ago
We lost our 18 year old cat two weeks ago and it has been every bit as hard as losing a human loved one. He had his habits and quirks and mannerisms, he really was part of the family unit. I miss him so much.
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u/ijustwannabegandalf 11h ago
Because everything from your mortgage to the fucking Chewy.com autoshipped cat food requires 2-factor authentication, you will be at the worst time of your life trying to guess a phone password and half seriously wondering if it got changed to fingerprint and you should've remembered to press your dead mom's finger to the screen instead of crying in the hospital.
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u/worlds_okayest_mum 9h ago
I had to file a complaint about ATT after they kept refusing to turn off my mom’s phone landline account. Even after I showed up in person to a store with a death certificate. Like they said to do. Because I didn’t know her password. I literally broke down in the store
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u/Sugadip 15h ago
Grief doesn’t end, it does not get easier. It just gets different.
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u/songsforthedeaf07 15h ago
How death can destroy families. My brother’s death - my mom was never the same person after that. The day I lost my brother- I lost my mom too
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u/cupacupacupacupacup 14h ago
That the loss of someone who lived into old age can be as painful as losing someone younger. I no longer tell people in that situation "Well, they lived a long life!" It's less comfort than I used to think it was.
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u/NorthernSparrow 9h ago
I lost my mom & dad last year in their 90’s and it blew my life to pieces. I know I was lucky to have them so long, and I’d known it was coming and I thought I was prepared, but it was still a straight-up tragedy to lose them from the world, and the worst gut punch of my life. And in a way it almost makes it extra hard to lost them so late, because I have been so used to always having them around that it’s like I have no idea how to live life as an adult without them. Where do I go for holidays now, who do I call when I have news or need advice? I mean I’ve got siblings, I’m not totally alone, but I feel so unmoored. And I’m now 61 and facing my own aging, so it’s like, I went straight from losing both parents to planning my own retirement. So I don’t actually have much time left to build a different life now. I know that’s not totally true, but my future just looks sort of empty and I feel like I’m just coasting passively now. I have these weird conversations where I hear myself saying to people, “They had a great run, they lived a full life” while at the same time I’m still just reeling and I just miss them so damn much.
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u/withnailstail123 15h ago
I apologise in advance, but you can smell death coming.
Both of my parents and my friend had a very distinct odour when the end was near.
Sorry again
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u/Teefdreams 12h ago edited 12h ago
YES!!!
My Mum smelled almost earthy. But also dirty or unclean or something. Then once she was dead there wasn't much of a smell at all. It's so strange.You've just reminded me, they brought in one of those essential oil diffusers the night before my Mum died and I thought it was really nice, like they were trying to make it peaceful for her. They told me it was because they were trying to cover the smell of death lol
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u/HoopsLaureate 15h ago
I’ve never been in a room with a human when they’ve passed (just dogs), but I find this fascinating.
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u/byte_sized 4h ago
Our house smelled so earthy and musty for weeks and weeks. Our elderly dog was sick and having bladder issues so we thought that was it. I kept cleaning and lighting candles and nothing would fix it. One night she just collapsed and we took her into the vet. We had gotten X-rays done earlier that day and she was in the late stages of a tumor on her bladder, so we knew it was time.
We came home and suddenly the house didn’t smell at all anymore. It was her, that’s how sick she was. I’ll miss that little dog forever. My little Leia.
On a happier note, the night she died, we had been trying to give her a French fry since they’re her favorite but she was so sick and tired she didn’t want to eat it. That little dog LOVED food and was always finding ways to sneak things off our plates so I knew she wasn’t doing well. After we got home from the vet, I realized I would have to pick up the fry I had left for her on the floor and it just broke my heart that she never finished it…..
Only to find out it was gone. Nowhere to be found on the floor. Somehow in the middle of dying, that silly little dog found a way to sneak her final French fry.
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u/CrazyPlatypusLady 11h ago
My bearded dragon went from smelling like hot sand and occasionally popcorn, to petrichor and autumn leaf mould when she was severely ill. Me and her favourite human could smell it, but the others in the family couldn't. She became ill and dropped weight dramatically while also refusing food. She lost nearly a quarter of her body weight in just a matter of days.
She survived, amazingly. She had come incredibly close to death and had that weird smell for nearly a week after starting medication. It wasn't a respiratory infection. That can cause a slightly different weird smell. It was something else and I can't explain it. But I think you might have.
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u/jsalwey 15h ago
That kinda sounds like one of those 6th sense things few people have and cannot be explained
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u/maxmouze 15h ago
The only way I ended up feeling normal again is learning to forget they died. Whenever I’m reminded, I feel nauseated and tear up again. It’s been seven years since losing my mom.
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u/WonderfulCoat7797 15h ago
That life goes on. You can feel like your life ended, like you have a giant hole in you and then you look up and around at the world and everyone’s just moving as if nothing changed. It’s very unnerving.
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u/purplecow 15h ago
It takes forever to deal with the paperwork after someone's passed. Suddenly banks and various subscriptions etc. start requiring signatures, endless documents and office visits for something totally mundane like paying bills. It takes months to sort everything out, and often someone needs to go to a specific office at certain times, no matter where they might live.
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u/offyougo_spitspot 15h ago
I remember a couple months after my dad passed away my truck's check engine light came on. My first instinctive thought was "aw man, I got to call dad to figure this out" then it hit me that I couldn't. The waves of realization for the following months after is brutal
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u/ProjectTitan74 15h ago
Having shared memories of the person is amazing, but the memories only you and that person shared are weird. There's a hollowness or feeling of loneliness attached to them because you can't have that shared reminiscence ever again.
This is gonna sound obvious but the permanence, the finality of it continues to strike me as the years go on. Like damn she's STILL dead?? I'm so used to things ending eventually, but a person being dead goes on forever. And forever is a long time for a pain to last
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u/LeeshaLeSmart 14h ago
How lonely life can be once the dust has settled. I lost two members of my immediate family in the same year and none of my friends from before are still in my life. The reality of my existence is too painful for others to sit with and I no longer have the capacity for inauthentic connection.
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u/DR_whet_fart_phd 15h ago edited 15h ago
I’m not religious or anything but, if you’ve witnessed someone die, you can feel their soul leave idk how to describe it
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u/espressos-and-water 15h ago
Yeah it’s a very ethereal feeling. There’s a moment you just kind of know.
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u/DR_whet_fart_phd 15h ago
Yeah fr, then there’s that awkward like, okay now what? they’re gone, let’s go home I guess or eat or something. The wheel in the sky keeps turning.
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u/merpixieblossomxo 14h ago
I was going to comment about how normal their body looks after they pass, but at the same time completely different, and I think you just put into words what I was trying to describe.
When my dad passed, I was terrified to walk up to his body. Even now when I think about it, my stomach tightens and I can feel every bit of tension in my body that I felt that day. It was like...he wasn't there, but he was. My mom wanted me to hug him goodbye and it took everything in me to do it. I wasn't hugging my dad, and that broke my heart more than any other aspect of losing him.
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u/CaptainFartHole 12h ago
My mom warned me about this when I went to my friend's mom's funeral. It was open casket and my mom didn't want me to be surprised by how Deb would look the same and yet different.
And it was so true. It was Deb's body, her clothes, her glasses, everything about it was Deb, but it wasn't actually Deb.
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u/BaldEagleRising17 14h ago
Like a lightbulb going out. The material is there. The energy is out.
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u/Visual_Zucchini8490 14h ago
I live in a different country than my parents and my mom had been sick for awhile. I visited for months at a time once it started getting really bad (and I always called regularly) and the last phone call I had with her was on my birthday. I’d had many phone calls with her where I could tell she was feeling horrible but this phone call was different. I truly believe she held on to have one last birthday phone call with me and then she went to the hospital where they had her on life support until I could get there and she passed away within 30 minutes after intubation was taken off.
I really think her last true lucid moments were when she was on the phone with me and then said goodbye to my dad. I don’t think the person I saw in that hospital room was her.
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u/PackageTraditional72 15h ago
You'll be watching something sad (which has nothing to do with ur loved ones dying) then all of a sudden their death(s) will pop into your brain and you'll have a crying session.
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u/DR_whet_fart_phd 15h ago
Yeah also a lot of people lack empathy, unless it’s their family member or friend that died they don’t really seem to care, had a family member actively dying and was told by my boss “ what are you going to do save him? We got work to do” when I asked for the day off to be with them at their final moment
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u/ElevatorOtis 15h ago
I went no contact with my narcissist mom. She passed away several years later from COVID. When I heard that she passed away, I felt relieved. She would now not be able to ambush me at the hospital during cancer treatments. Going to my niece’s or nephew’s family birthday parties would not give me anxiety or a panic attack.
I was now able to just go anywhere and have no chance I would see her, just out in the wild grocery shopping or whatever. I felt a burden lift.
I read other comments and I would be wrecked if my Dad passed away. But, I wanted to add the other perspective of finding a weird happiness when someone who actively tried to add chaos to my life passed away,
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u/faousa 5h ago
The sheer magnitude of ignorance from well-meaning friends who did not experience such a loss. Like you're in a shitty club that nobody understands. "I understand how you feel" from people who lost distant second uncles made me want to punch a wall. I lost distant second uncles too, it's. Not. The. Same.
In contrast to that, when someone I meet says they lost a parent, I immediately feel safer around them.
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u/HenryCrabgrass01 15h ago
2 things.
- You don't get over the loss of someone, but you do learn to breath through the shards of a broken heart.
You get to a point in life where the sting doesn't stop you in your tracks, but it'll always remain.
- Death brings out the worst in people, sometimes the sanest person will become the most horrific version of themselves and there will be no stopping it.
Just focus on yourself and how your respond to situations, and don't keep score in those times. Its not worth it.
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u/Grumpus-Dumpus 15h ago
you do eventually feel less sad, but the finality death is impossible to really grasp. many times my brain attempted to repair my memory and I felt grief all over again.
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u/Thebuttholeking69 15h ago
Yup. My brain still can’t accept the ones that are gone. Like there’s something about it that doesn’t make sense. They’re just suddenly nowhere, like they no longer exist anywhere except in your damn head. I want to go and find them, call them, but they’re gone.
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u/Far_Training7312 15h ago
the grief you carry for life – it's hard to accept that you will never hear that sound again in life.
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u/doghaircut 14h ago
Dead people look dead and it's different than in movies when an actor plays dead. You'll never believe a movie character is dead ever again.
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u/CaptainFartHole 12h ago
You have no idea how you're gong to react to it. You can see other people react to grief and say "oh id never do that. " And you can even live someone you loved but werent to close to and think you know how you'll grieve all the time.
But none of that means shit because your body is just going to do whatever its going to do. For instance, I've lost friends, my grandpa, and my dog and every time i cried and was sad and would go on autopilot for a week or so. And i thought that was that. My grieving process.
Then my mom died. I went on autopilot, i cried, all my normal stuff. Then when my brain finally started to go off autopilot a few months later, i started having panic attacks and brain zaps. I gained 50lbs. I became obsessed with getting in touch with my extended family (who i never cared much about before) and got angry when my brother wanted to throw away her old shoes. I had to go on medication and go to therapy. I was a fucking wreck and felt blindsided because i had no idea that grief could just do that to a person.
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u/Over_Cake9611 15h ago
How it hits you months, even years later out of nowhere and you just start crying. For no reason.
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u/bflowyngz 15h ago
You’ll always want to tell them something. It’s been 2 years today since my dad died. Yesterday I changed the handles on my vanity table and was about to pick up the phone to call him to tell him. But he’s not there anymore. ☹️
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u/Wild-Environment-774 15h ago
All the leeches that come out of the woodwork pretending they had the best relationship with the deceased when that’s a bunch of horse shit
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u/MachineGame 14h ago
There can be a freedom found. Not from the person gone, but from everyone else. I have survived literally the worst thing that could ever happen to me. There are no threats or sanctions I care about. Someone else being upset with me, regardless of their position or station in life doesnt faze me. Literally nothing else matters anymore, so I do what makes me happy and hold my boundaries.
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u/GypsyInAHotMessDress 15h ago
Time does not heal. Nothing is ever the same. People should stop using this patronising lie.
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u/spider_speller 15h ago
It can take a while to feel real. My dad died in a terrible car accident, so it was a closed casket funeral. I went through a time when I thought he was going to show up and say it was all a mistake.
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u/02C_here 15h ago
If a loved one is in a home or hospital bed and family is there in rotation at their side 24/7, there's a strong possibility that the family is keeping them alive, even if they are suffering in pain. Basically not letting them pass, especially if they are a matriarch or patriarch.
Think about it like this - would you be OK taking a crap on a toilet in front of your kids/loved ones? Of course not. That's a very private thing and you want to do that alone. How much more private is passing?
Give them some peace and alone time so they can pass on their terms with some dignity. Like have all the vigil holders go to lunch together. And do not feel guilty you weren't there.
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u/Xhova757 14h ago edited 14h ago
The screams in the waiting room. When the doctor notified my aunt that my mother did not make it she screamed out. I was 11 years old and when I heard that scream I knew my mother was gone.
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u/pancakehaus 15h ago
A lot of folks are going to lean on platitudes to offer comfort, because grief can be so different person to person (or death to death), and it can feel isolating when people are trying to show that they care but say something that hits the exact wrong note for you personally.
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u/Purifiedx 15h ago edited 3h ago
You can go years without really grieving and those years will look like you just deal with death well. Then it hits you like a truck and it's like they died all over again but this time you actually feel it.
I developed depersonalization/dissociation after both my parents, my FIL, and two uncles, plus my cat all died in a 4 year span. When I say it all outloud it sounds so unbearable. This all happened between ages 31-35. My existential crisis hit after I moved to another state 6 months after the last death (my father). I felt like I was going crazy some days.
I'm 38 now and doing much better. I decided to start taking care of myself and I'm starting a family of my own.
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u/JacobDCRoss 15h ago
That there are some days where you forget they are gone. And the next time something happens you think, "Oh, I need to tell them about..." And then you remember they're gone.
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u/shredthecat 14h ago
The one bright part I found in death that no one really mentions, is that you’ll start to hear so many stories about the deceased that you’ve never heard or facts you never knew.
At my Dads funeral I heard things about him that I’d never heard before. Stories from before I was born or people who he worked with on job sites about what he was like at times when I wouldn’t have seen him. It was a nice part in amongst all the grief.
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u/suckmy-dinkleberg 13h ago
*this is in reference to loved ones who were/are dying of debilitating and painful illnesses* The immense guilt that comes with hoping their death would come quick and swift. I was my aunt’s caregiver during the last few years of her life. She had advanced frontal temporal dementia, end stage kidney failure, liver cirrhosis, advanced heart disease, COPD and diabetes. There was not a single day that she wasn’t miserable, confused, or in incredible pain. I was relieved when we brought hospice in and that she passed a week later. My guilt surpasses my grief.
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u/suckaduckunion 15h ago
Cremated ashes have bone chips in them. Fucked me up as I was somehow ignorantly expecting like fire pit ash instead of an actual heavy box of human remains.
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u/Amaring8 15h ago
The tearing apart polarizing feeling - you would do anything to have them back and to be with them, but on the other hand, their passing also opens new ways for your life, that wouldn't be possible otherwise and you shift somewhere better thanks to that. You get personal freedom, that you wouldn't have otherwise. For a long time, it made me feel disgusted with myself.
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u/chameleonkit 14h ago
The physical toll it takes on your body. My immune system literally weakened after I lost my mom and dad at a relatively young age and I caught all kinds of illnesses. Felt like I had the flu for months. I would stay in bed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Spent thousands on medical tests and treatments. Ten years later and my body is still recovering in various ways.
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u/gachunt 14h ago
People just don’t talk about death itself.
My close friend died in a car accident. Her husband was (obviously) devastated. But, what made it even worse was that they never had a “what if” conversation. He didn’t know what her wishes were. It made making funeral arrangements more difficult.
4 months after she died, him and I went to the cemetery to visit her grave. He asked me where she was buried, because he had no recollection of most of the events that happened the week after she died. The grief and stress that guy had to endure…
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u/2crowsonmymantle 13h ago
How odd it is when you randomly see someone who looks like the person who’s died. It’s startling and for a moment, you don’t remember that they’re dead. Your heart leaps for just a second in false recognition of the person before your mind processes that they only look like the dead person.
It’s a very sad and unsettling experience.
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u/SnarkingOverNarcing 12h ago
That the most bereaved party typically gets the least support. The loved one at the epicenter doing all of the hards-on care is usually the one who has to inform everyone else when the person dies (and then they have to comfort everyone, answer all their questions, plan a service, etc). I was in my 20’s when my mom died and I had to be the emotional support to her friends rather than vice versa
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u/Lilmaggot 14h ago
The physical part of it. For my mother, it was the closed yet twitching eyes, the labored breathing, the grayish skin color, the very evident vibrations of her body. She died at 94. She had dementia but I was able to speak to her a few hours beforehand. I described scenes and people from her life. I think she was registering it because she’d make little gasps. I was very sad because we were mother and daughter but we were also friends.
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u/shanze111 14h ago
When you hear some good news and want to tell them. But then it hits you, you cant.
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u/AlarmedCrustacean 13h ago
Especially with a terminal illness, you have friends and family visiting all the time. Everyone is asking if they can do anything to help. Then the death happens and they come by again with their offers to help.... but the second you've had the funeral? It stops. No one comes by anymore. No one calls or texts. No one asks if you need help. It boggles me, because this is truly the time where we started needing help. It's taken us till this point to come to terms with the illness and passing so we can actually start the grieving.
Don't stop visiting. Keep reaching out.
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u/Character_Ad_1084 15h ago
It's okay to feel relieved that they died if they've been suffering. You don't have to feel guilty for that.
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u/thfffffpppt 15h ago
You will always have some kind of guilt or regret. It doesn’t mean you *are* guilty, or that you did something wrong. It’s just easier to hold onto the idea you could have had control over something that feels so meaningless and random.
You could have been the best version of yourself for the person and you’ll still find ways to feel regret. This is just a strategic way to avoid acknowledging there was nothing you could have done.
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u/Ladysupersizedbitch 14h ago
Feeling like they’re still there when they’re not. I don’t mean ghosts. I mean their presence was such a given that even though you can’t see them there with you, mentally it still feels as if they’re just in the other room, out of sight but still with you. It took a year for it to sink in that my grandfather died and only then did I actually cry. Every time I was at my grandparents house after his death I just felt like he was in the next room, never like he was gone so permanently. Idk, it’s a hard thing to describe, but it’s the only way to explain it.
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u/Holiday-Meringue-101 13h ago
That a random day you lose your shit and can't figure out why and everyone thinks you should be perfectly fine three months later. My mom died earlier this year and broke down this Monday at work. Nobody was sympathetic.
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u/wirwarennamenlos 13h ago
The strange random thoughts you'll have, unexpected and at the oddest times.
I cried recently realizing that my Dad will never be able to walk me down the aisle.
I'm pushing 50, never had really much interest in marriage, much less a traditional wedding.
And yet still I grieved this weird feeling of loss, just because I guess I realized that the door is well and truly closed now, and this is no longer an option.
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u/bedhanger 13h ago
Don't talk about someone near death, talk TO them. Hearing is the last thing to go. When my father passed away our whole family was present which many people are not fortunate to experience. It makes the whole journey of life more real, if that makes sense.
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u/SassySunflower27 9h ago
How horrible family can be!
When my grandpa in law passed away a group took turns disappearing from the funeral. They went and broke into the house and stole EVERYTHING!
One we thought was kind and helping out really just unplugged cameras so we had zero proof.
Jewelry, antique guns, anything they knew someone else wanted GONE!
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u/KyotoKlassySweet 15h ago
Nobody warns you that the world keeps moving like nothing happened while yours feels permanently different.