I spent years expecting one parent to die (chronic illness) - and then the other one died first (without any time to grief). Has anyone experienced this?
Hi! I'm a 37-year-old woman from Austria, and I've been thinking a lot about something since my dad died unexpectedly in 2024.
My mom has been chronically ill, on and off, since I was a child. She had a brain tumor in 1996, thyroid cancer in 2014, and has been living with multiple myeloma since 2016 - just to name a few of the major illnesses.
My dad struggled with alcohol addiction and eventually died of liver cancer in 2024. Just a few weeks later, my mom was hospitalized and nearly died too after her treatment stopped working. We had already said our goodbyes when, thankfully, a new treatment worked and she stabilized again.
At the same time, I was dealing with my dad's funeral, paperwork, a difficult situation with the woman he had married shortly before his death, and my mom's hospitalization.
There wasn't really time to grieve. I was mostly just functioning.
But there was another contrast between my parents that was difficult for me.
For years, I watched my mom do almost everything she could to stay alive. She tried treatment after treatment and kept fighting for more time. At the same time, I watched my dad continue drinking and smoking, even after his diagnosis.
I know addiction isn't as simple as choosing to stop. But as his daughter, it was still incredibly hard to watch one parent fight so hard for more time while the other continued doing things that could take that time away.
After he died, that left me with anger alongside the grief. Part of me understood his addiction. Another part of me still wanted to ask:
Why didn't you fight harder to stay? You promised you'd always be there for me.
For most of my life, my mom was the parent we expected to lose first.
My parents divorced when I was 23, but I think that assumption shaped more of my life than I realized.
With my mom, there have been so many moments that felt like they might be the last.
The last Christmas. The last birthday. The last holiday.
A treatment stops working. You wonder how much time is left. Then another treatment works.
You exhale. Life continues.
And eventually, it happens again.
Living like that for years changes the choices you make. You choose that person over other plans because: What if this really is the last time?
I've postponed things, stayed close, changed plans and taken my mom on holidays partly because I wanted to, but also because of guilt.
What if I don't do this and regret it when she's gone?
Meanwhile, I assumed I had more time with my dad.
Shortly before he died, he suddenly became very insistent that the two of us go on holiday together. We had never done that before.
So we went.
Sometimes I wonder whether he already knew something was wrong and didn't tell us. I'll probably never know.
It became our first holiday together. And our last.
My mom, the parent I had spent years psychologically preparing myself to lose, is still here (luckily).
And that has left me with a question I can't quite shake:
What does it do to you when you spend years preparing to lose one parent, organizing parts of your life around that possibility, and then the other parent dies first?
My dad's death was fast. There wasn't enough time.
With my mom, I've sometimes felt like I've been preparing for her death for years. But I'm beginning to think you can't actually prepare.
Anticipatory grief isn't necessarily acceptance. Sometimes it's repeatedly grieving something that hasn't happened yet.
This might be our last Christmas.
Then it isn't.
Maybe this treatment was the last option.
Then another one works.
And you start again.
There is another feeling that's harder to admit.
After years of hospitals, treatments, fear, advocating, changing plans and waiting for the next crisis, I've sometimes thought:
I just want this to finally be over.
While at exactly the same time desperately not wanting my mom to die.
And my dad's death was a painful reminder of what "over" actually means.
I've come to realize that those feelings can coexist. You can love someone enormously and still be exhausted, angry, resentful or numb.
Since my dad died, I've also wondered how many decisions I made based on who I thought I was going to lose first.
How often did I choose my mom because I thought there would be more time with my dad?
How much did I keep my own life flexible because I needed to be available?
And how much time did I assume I still had with the "healthy" parent?
Part of my therapy involves writing about all of this. Somewhere along the way, I started wondering whether I might eventually turn some of it into a book, both to process my own experience and hopefully help other people feel less alone.
But right now, I mostly want to hear from people who understand some part of this.
If you've lost a parent, especially after years of illness or while another parent was chronically ill, I'd love to know:
- Did anticipatory grief actually make the eventual loss any easier?
- Did "this might be the last Christmas/birthday/holiday" affect the choices you made?
- Did you ever feel guilty about wanting your own life back?
- If addiction or someone's own behavior contributed to their illness, did anger become part of your grief?
- If one parent seemed much sicker, did you assume you'd lose them first? Did that change how much time you gave the other parent?
- What do you wish someone had told you about grief before you experienced it?
You don't have to answer everything. Even if just one part of this feels familiar, I'd really appreciate hearing your experience.
I'm not looking for a particular answer. If your experience was completely different from mine, I'd like to hear that too.
I think what I've been looking for, more than anything, is simply that moment of realizing:
Oh. Other people have had these thoughts too.