What To Do When the 'Wrong' Parent Dies (And You Feel Guilty for Thinking It)

My Mum will hate me for writing this. It's possible she already does.

Dad died at the end of 2021 from cancer and COVID, and it's one of the hardest experiences of my life. I had no idea back then it would split my family apart.

We don't talk about grief enough. We don't talk about resenting the ones that lived at all. That's 100% taboo.

I must be a monster.

How could I even think such things? The truth is, I do. I'm not proud of myself. I sometimes loathe this part of me. But I need to give it space to breathe or it'll eat me alive. Perhaps you need to air it out too.

If you require it, this is permission to do so.

Why Grief Makes Your Weird, Intrusive Thoughts the Only Thoughts

I've always had intrusive thoughts. You know the ones: go on, touch that hot hob, how painful is a boiling kettle, really? Thankfully, I keep 99.9% of these in check, being a sensible person going about my business in life.

During complex and prolonged grief though, all bets were off.

There were so many questions floating around in my head during those early bereavement months:

• Is my grief the same as someone who loses their dad as a child?

• Is my grief different to someone who loses a parent when they're both old?

• Is my grief different to someone who loses a parent they hate?

• When will I know the grief has lifted?

• Am I a bad person if I enjoy myself when Dad's still dead?

I shut myself away for months as grief took hold of my life and half-existence.

I didn't want to live anymore. It all seemed so pointless. What's the point of going on if he won't be there to see it with me?

Drifting. Devastated. Done.

Whilst I was losing my mind, Mum insisted I was still on rescue duties.

She still struggles to cope now that Dad has gone. I don't know how hard she's got it. She never had to fend for herself like this.

Of course. Silly me.

When the Parent Who Lived Wasn't the One You Needed

Mum has had a difficult life.

She was sent from her home, parents, and their farm in the Bangladeshi countryside to the capital Dhaka at 7, to live with her oldest brother and his family. She never felt wanted or accepted.

At 18, she was married to my Dad after meeting him twice, and neither wanted that by most accounts. When I was 5, she had an accident on the stairs that damaged her spine and she was never the same.

Our family was never the same.

She fell into a victim-and-chronic-pain-and-depression narrative that became her well-worn identity ever since. I never felt she was there for me after that. My needs became secondary.

I knew she loved me as she's told me as much. Just not enough to get past whatever was troubling her, so that took over. Consumed in her own pain, suffering, and resentment at a hopeful, healthy life stolen away.

I'm painfully aware she's never felt settled, stable, or secure. I have compassion for that loss and insecurity. That doesn't mean I don't deserve stability and security too. Duality exists here where these opposing concepts can and do co-exist.

Through years of therapy, I eventually realised, and tentatively accepted, Mum wasn't the mum I wanted or needed her to be. She didn't have it in her. I grieved that loss starting many years ago and am reminded of it often.

It's strange stepping back from someone who's still here, when deep down you don't really want to.

The Confusing Grief Of A Living Relationship You've Already Mourned

The confusing thing about grieving a relationship with someone who still exists is that your mind has moved on, but theirs hasn't.

They don't understand:

• Why you're not responding as upset as they are

• Why you're not as hurt and rejected when you step away

• Why you're not bawling when they cry in front of you

• Why they never noticed when you did the same things as a child

In the end, you lose hope they'll ever notice. You know they won't.

So, you grieve, and make your peace with it, however fragile that is. You look like a heartless, ice-cold person, but it helps you survive.

When Being Close To One Parent Works Against You

My friends and family recognised how close I was to Dad, and how much I adored him. We were in touch every day, sending WhatsApp messages to each other.

Pictures of cats, flowers, birds, urban foxes, and other random things we enjoyed. He'd assigned me his next-of-kin for treatment decisions ahead of Mum and older brother. Even when he was so sick, he knew I'd handle it better than either of them. The nurses confirmed as much after the change was made.

I'd relay snippets of the doctor discussions to the family, knowing they wouldn't understand or feel settled with the details.

I held onto that trauma myself.

My family were hard to manage during and after his swift demise.

They didn't have the daily hour-long discussions with the doctors, learning how COVID was ravaging his system. How his organs were failing. How he became unconscious and they struggled to offer the best treatment options.

I don’t know if I’ll ever really process that experience. It's in a dark, mental box somewhere, along with the "did I make the right choices for him?" whispers that linger in your soul.

After he died, I kept sending those WhatsApp messages to his phone for a while. I couldn't get out of the habit. It felt wrong. I missed him terribly and wished he would reply somehow.

Grief is your brain relearning how to exist without that part of your life in it.

Mary-Frances O'Connor, grief researcher and author of The Grieving Brain, gives a handy analogy: It's as if someone has stolen your dining room table. For a while, your brain still expects it to be there. You go to put a cup on it, but you can't. You move to avoid the corner hitting your hip but it's missing.

You go to send messages to your beloved Dad, but he's gone forever.

The Anger Nobody Talks About

I was the last person in the family to see him alive before he slipped into unconsciousness and ICU finality.

My brother and I got to see Dad after he died the following weekend. We sat with him, bawling our eyes out, and snotty-nosed (getting trapped in layers of paper and plastic mask). All I was saying to him in my head, over and over again, was: "How could you leave me here with these assholes?"

Wow. That's harsh.

Definitely unexpected. Not what you'd want your last thoughts or words to be to a beloved dead parent. Perhaps I realised deep down how everything in my family life seismically shifted from the moment he died.

I was alone. Truly alone now.

I'd lost the one person I was closest to on this planet. The one who showed me real, unconditional love. I'll never have that again. He kept our teetering family balance in check and made me feel like I wasn't just made to fix and rescue others.

He understood the sacrifices I'd made and appreciated them. He was the glue that kept our family together, no matter how tenuously.

Geez, I miss him.

You Have To Feel The Difficult Feelings, Especially With Grief

Recently, a few friends have lost a parent. I'm at that age where it becomes a familiar experience.

We've all felt various versions of the story above. We lost the parent we were closest to, and are left with confusing, emotional baggage we never wanted, or expected, about those who remain.

I've noticed you must let yourself feel the pain and discomfort of grief. Whichever form it takes. And I mean let yourself because you know you're holding that tsunami back because it scares you. If you allow it, will it ever stop?

That's how powerful this force is. It's so fundamental to who we are, at a physical, mental, and spiritual level. But that energy must go somewhere. If not expressed, it festers within. Several of my burnt-out coaching clients lost a parent prior to their symptoms worsening. We immerse ourselves in work, so we don't feel the pain. 

Busy = numb.

Everyone does a form of this, throwing themselves into isolation. You lose touch with the deepest parts of yourself, and zombie your way through life. Only when I allowed the depths of grief to be expressed throughout my entire body, did it loosen its icy grip on me. How can we love someone for decades, and expect their loss to be handled in days or weeks?

That formula doesn't make sense.

You and your nervous system need time to relearn a new reality. It's effortful, necessary, and sad. I found solace in art-journalling and creative expression to make sense of my world. The complexity, the conflicts, the hurt, the good memories, the confusion, the hope. It was all rendered on paper in front of me.

I got perspective and noticed insights I wasn't aware of.

A hidden part of me was seen.

I always recall the late Queen's Wisdom when remembering Dad:

"Grief is the price we pay for love." Queen Elizabeth II

The larger that love, perhaps the larger the grief.

Now, that formula makes sense.

In time, you'll find your form of peace. Trust me, it will come.

Moving Forward After Loss

When the parent you were closest to dies and the difficult one remains, you're not just grieving a death. You're grieving:

• The love you lost

• The family dynamic that's gone

• The relationship with the living parent you never had

• The unconditional acceptance you'll never experience again

If you're ready to stop feeling like a "monster" for your thoughts and start exploring complex grief honestly, work with me here.

Sabrina Ahmed

Burnout & Resilience Coach

Learn more at my About page.