Hello
My name is Sarah and I lost my dad two weeks ago to early onset vascular dementia.
He and I had a pretty rocky relationship for most of my teen and young adult life. We fought, he would say mean hateful things and would be physically abusive, I told him I hated him, and we honestly didn’t get along. For a long time my dad was just a source for money or things I needed. He would pick me up when I ran out of gas, he co-signed for my car etc. Most of the time I didn’t reach out personally unless I needed something. My parents split but never divorced my senior year of HS and my dad blamed me for my mother leaving, he told me this to my face. However, we also functioned better as a separated family most of the time, and would even go to dinner together pretty much every night after a year of them being separated. That’s how we functioned. We would still fight and he would still occasionally say nasty things but it was a new “normal.”
In 2016 my dads work called my mom and said he was acting funny, but he wouldn’t go to the hospital (he was stubborn) so after a few hours we managed to force him but once we got there the damage had been done. He had had multiple strokes and was having issues talking, walking etc. Fast forward a bit, we tried to keep him at home, but as his memory started to go he wouldn’t understand why he couldn’t go back to his house (it was forclosed on because he wasn’t paying bills, my mom didn’t know because they had mostly separate finances) so he would try to escape. After about a year of trying home health care along with family care we decided the safest place for him was a dementia care unit. After three years of fighting he finally lost his battle to pneumonia (we had 5-10 scares where I was sure that was it, collapsed lungs, renal failure, dyferticulatis etc) so when it finally happened it was a relief and also slightly a shock because he had always come back to his baseline.
my issue now is, I always kind of felt torn towards him and the dementia, because he lost his memories of how bad our relationship was. He didn’t remember all the mean and horrible things, but I always did. He got a clean slate and I basically had to forgive him and go see him because he was sick and didn’t understand. He never lost the memory of who we were, and wasn’t awful health wise (he could talk eat fine, with the exception of his last day, he was awful and breathing heavy and not responding or moving)
The day he died I drove 5 hours from Atlanta to be there, I made it at 3pm and he passed away at like5:45. I chose to tell him I forgave him, and that I was sorry for saying he couldn’t walk me down the isle at my wedding. I just have such awful back and fourth emotions where I try to remember him and all I can see is either the bad stuff or the times where I kind of put on a show and made jokes to make him laugh because a lot of times he would get really sad and cry when we would leave. I’m so hurt, and I honestly have cried every day. We never had closeure because he lost his memory before we ever talked about it. It’s just bizarre to think I’m 29 and like, now he actually won’t walk me down the isle.
people tell me at work they understand hoW I feel. However they are in their 60s-70s and lived a whole life with their parent. I struggle telling people about how I’m feeling because we had such a messed up Relationship and I’m so young.Even with us disagreeing, he would always help me. I was in a bad wreck in October and if he was well he would have been there, he would have helped me get a new car, he would have helped me move. Like it’s just weird.
Anyway, If you’ve read this far I appreciate it.
My name is Sarah and I lost my dad two weeks ago to early onset vascular dementia.
He and I had a pretty rocky relationship for most of my teen and young adult life. We fought, he would say mean hateful things and would be physically abusive, I told him I hated him, and we honestly didn’t get along. For a long time my dad was just a source for money or things I needed. He would pick me up when I ran out of gas, he co-signed for my car etc. Most of the time I didn’t reach out personally unless I needed something. My parents split but never divorced my senior year of HS and my dad blamed me for my mother leaving, he told me this to my face. However, we also functioned better as a separated family most of the time, and would even go to dinner together pretty much every night after a year of them being separated. That’s how we functioned. We would still fight and he would still occasionally say nasty things but it was a new “normal.”
In 2016 my dads work called my mom and said he was acting funny, but he wouldn’t go to the hospital (he was stubborn) so after a few hours we managed to force him but once we got there the damage had been done. He had had multiple strokes and was having issues talking, walking etc. Fast forward a bit, we tried to keep him at home, but as his memory started to go he wouldn’t understand why he couldn’t go back to his house (it was forclosed on because he wasn’t paying bills, my mom didn’t know because they had mostly separate finances) so he would try to escape. After about a year of trying home health care along with family care we decided the safest place for him was a dementia care unit. After three years of fighting he finally lost his battle to pneumonia (we had 5-10 scares where I was sure that was it, collapsed lungs, renal failure, dyferticulatis etc) so when it finally happened it was a relief and also slightly a shock because he had always come back to his baseline.
my issue now is, I always kind of felt torn towards him and the dementia, because he lost his memories of how bad our relationship was. He didn’t remember all the mean and horrible things, but I always did. He got a clean slate and I basically had to forgive him and go see him because he was sick and didn’t understand. He never lost the memory of who we were, and wasn’t awful health wise (he could talk eat fine, with the exception of his last day, he was awful and breathing heavy and not responding or moving)
The day he died I drove 5 hours from Atlanta to be there, I made it at 3pm and he passed away at like5:45. I chose to tell him I forgave him, and that I was sorry for saying he couldn’t walk me down the isle at my wedding. I just have such awful back and fourth emotions where I try to remember him and all I can see is either the bad stuff or the times where I kind of put on a show and made jokes to make him laugh because a lot of times he would get really sad and cry when we would leave. I’m so hurt, and I honestly have cried every day. We never had closeure because he lost his memory before we ever talked about it. It’s just bizarre to think I’m 29 and like, now he actually won’t walk me down the isle.
people tell me at work they understand hoW I feel. However they are in their 60s-70s and lived a whole life with their parent. I struggle telling people about how I’m feeling because we had such a messed up Relationship and I’m so young.Even with us disagreeing, he would always help me. I was in a bad wreck in October and if he was well he would have been there, he would have helped me get a new car, he would have helped me move. Like it’s just weird.
Anyway, If you’ve read this far I appreciate it.
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