When one parent dies, we are forced to reckon with the relationship we have with the surviving parent. The parent who lived. Those with a close, loving, healthy relationship with both parents don’t need to worry about this as much. They likely can move into the shelter of the surviving parent’s arms and feel some comfort and support. But that is not the case for all of us. Aging parents are complicated, and there is a new life to navigate after one parent dies. The death of one creates mental and emotional work to do regarding the other one, and whether we want to address that with ourselves sooner or later, it is there waiting.

I didn’t plan for my mother to die. I wasn’t prepared. I also wasn’t ready to confront all of the feelings that surged to the surface regarding my relationship with my father. 

He sat himself in the second row in her funeral. Her ex-husband. The one who brought fear into my childhood, by throwing plates and chairs, or putting his fist through sheet rock. When I was young, I would carefully lay my accomplishments at his feet, hoping for love and acknowledgment. It never came. No amount of A’s, perfect attendance awards, or extracurricular triumphs could make him love me or see me. After too many years of violence and abuse, my mother divorced him when I, her youngest child, was 22 years old. 

Five years after she divorced my father, my mother remarried a man who laughed a lot and didn’t punch holes in the walls. He reliably came home every night, enjoyed her cooking, and held her hand. She was happy. Just before their 12th anniversary, my mom’s husband had an unexpected heart attack and died. His loss shook her, and her grief ultimately led to her own death just over a year later. And there was my father, at her funeral, the one who had once smashed our ceramic apple cookie jar in a rage, sitting on the aisle in the second row, as if he was in the good husband’s chair. At the time I breathed deeply and pushed him down and out of my awareness. I was not going to let him take over the energy that day when I buried my mother. 

For you it might be different. You might have great love with your parent who lives. You might worry about them more, about their health and their living arrangements. One one parent dies, we are forced to confront the realization that we can lose the other parent, too. We will lose them, and we will experience grief again. This is an awful lot to carry on top of already losing one beloved parent. We might inwardly or unconsciously begin to plan for the death of the parent who didn’t die. Your other parent may or may not be open to this conversation. Be prepared for the possibility that things will change with your parent who lived. They may begin to live their own life differently. You may want to be closer to them, or you might push them away. 

For a long time after my mother’s death, I avoided my father. I couldn’t bear to hear him talking about her. Very soon after she died, he went to her house and took her living room lamps, the ones that had an extra light bulb inside the amber glass on the bottom, the same ones she had in my childhood home. He seemed very happy to have “their” lamps back, as if somehow the fact that they were in his possession saved them from being wasted. I couldn’t bear to feel his hand gripping my arm the day after her funeral, when he approached to loudly whisper in my ear, for what was probably the third time at least, that he had her lamps safely wrapped in his car. It is likely with gritted teeth and a tremendous amount of patience that I refrained from screaming My mother is dead. I don’t care about lamps! 

It can be crushing and difficult to think ahead about grieving a less than perfect parent. One who has hurt you. And even knowing this, you might know that losing them will hurt you again. For myself, this grieving in advance is mixed with a lament over why the one who loved me more had to die first. I’m not wishing death upon my father, but it is painful and hard to struggle with grief while navigating life with the more difficult parent who lived, especially without the help or the presence of the parent who was such a positive force in my life.

I mostly text and email my father now. He wants to talk about frivolous things. He complains about the weather. He wrote several paragraphs in response when I mentioned a leaking hot water shut-off valve under my kitchen sink, but he doesn’t ask much about my life or my children in any sort of detail. Too much to type, he says when I ask how he is. I suppose I understand that. He calls me at 2am and leaves a voicemail wondering why I am not awake. He says I never answer the phone. It’s true, I am avoiding this. Talking to him hurts inevitably in some way. 

I feel some sense of relief or even grim satisfaction knowing that he is aging, that he is losing the power to scare me or hurt me. And yet it is also so difficult to watch him grow old, mostly alone and unhappy, and to hear him repeating stories because he doesn’t realize his mind is slowly wearing down. I’m actively grieving the loss of what could have been. Here is a parent, alive and whole, and yet he is not in my life and doesn’t know my children well. I want him to want to be in my life, and I’m already grieving the potential of what could have been, but is lost. My mother, if she was given the chance again today, would never write “too much to type”  and then disappear. 

Losing one parent should be the catalyst to living differently with the other, and yet I know this is so difficult. If you are in this situation, please know that you are not alone. I am with you on this journey. Leave me a comment below if you are willing and able to share.