My Dad is Drowning in Guilt
Hi everyone. This is my first post ever.
Im a huge fan of AIOR and AITA. But I need real advice and I can't look for it from my family.
I (44F) lost my mom (65F) on May 4th of this year (2026). This was a very sudden and heart breaking event. My mom wasnt sick but came down with Pneumonia and was gone within a week. The hard part was that it wasn't the cause of her death. My mom had Rheumatoid arthritis and apparently the medication coupled with the arthritis itself attacked her lungs and had harden them. The Pneumonia was just the straw that broke the camels back. We are at a lost of word. My dad (66M) is lost. I never thought much about their age and the time line of their relationship till we were writing her obituary. My mom and dad have been together since mom was 15. They married a day after her graduation from high school. Everything my dad knows is with her. I mean everything. My dad has always been a beer drinker but sense my mom has gone he has been drinking way more then I had ever seen before. He still gets up, cleans his home, does his laundry, eats, and bathes. But today I stopped in to see him and he was so grief stricken that I just dont know what to do. My dad is a guy guy if that makes any sense. He has never been the one to cry or let his emotions to over take him. I have never seen him cry so much as I have the last couple of months. I just dont know what to do. I miss her and I wish I can see her again, but my dad is drowning in the "what ifs". What can I do to help him? What can I say? None of what happened to my mom could have been seen till it was too late, it wasnt his fault she died. Im just scared. Please help!