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Dear Cassatruopia
Losing a parent prematurely is such a challenging experience. And I can imagine that it is even harder with the additional challenges you had to go through with not being able to see your dad anymore and also the fact that it all happened around Christmas.
Even though we can rationalise some of what was happening, and we knew that it was inevitable, we are still left with a lot of ‘if only…’. And the pain of the loss is there in all force, together with all the other quite common feelings of sadness, regret, guilt, sometimes anger. In my experience, those feelings can come and go in waves for quite some time. Sometimes it felt to me like they just want to be acknowledged and taken care of.
I know mum (she died of cancer as well) wanted to die at home. And I felt guilty at the time that we took her to hospital. Now I think it was better for her (and probably us as well), as in hospital she had the best palliative care and I know now that it would have been very difficult to manage her pain and the gradual dying at home.
I hope you have people around you who can hold you and sit with your pain, where you can just let go of your emotions, even those more difficult ones. Whether it’s family and friends or professional services like Griefline or a counsellor, I found it very helpful to talk through what I was going through. Or sometimes just have someone sit with my quietly without trying to fix it for me. Take good care of yourself.