Anticipatory Grief

We are all going to experience it but not many of us write about it, let alone talk about it, but as you know, they broke the mould when they made me. The two that broke that mould, 'Mam a Dad' are still alive but for how much longer?

Dad turned 101 two weeks ago and Mam will be 92 in two weeks time. Both have lived longer than the average UK life expectancy, 79.2 for men and 82.9 for women so I should be celebrating their longevity but I am grieving their loss even though they are still alive. 

I am perhaps more emotionally invested than most because I have been ostensibly their full time carer for the last five years. I grieve their loss before they die because we have been together forever. The longer he lives and the older I get, the relationship with my father resembles that of Steptoe & Son. 

As evidenced in various blog posts and in a book I have experienced, endured, suffered, enjoyed various periods of mental and emotional illness. If it wasn't for Mam & Dad then I wouldn't be here now. I would have died in a faeces smeared and rubbish infested flat because I have never been able to sustain myself financially. So they have and continue to subsidise me as I try and help them. A 'quid pro quo' situation as Donald Trump would say.

Carer's Allowance is £66.15p a week so allowing for inflation, equal to the 50p pocket money we were given as children as a financial experiment for a few months. We never had a pocket money arrangement and I was told that if I wanted something that I was to ask but I never wanted anything so I didn't ask so I think my father was on to a winner there. 

When we all retire to bed for the evening, I always think that it is going to be their last night on earth and that I am going to find one or both of them dead in bed and then what am I going to do? Get the death certificates, arrange the funerals and then grieve my lost life.

I have anticipatory grief for my parents but also for my remaining life after they have gone. In my early to mid fifties I do not feel the vitality of life required to become a captain of industry and therefore I fear that I will have nothing left to live for once they are gone. I do not relish the prospect of falling in love with a stranger and becoming a step father. 

Since beginning this blog post I have been up and down from the chair to attend to their requests and needs. Even though I moan and groan and mutter and shout I know that I will miss the interruptions when they are gone because they are not interruptions they are reminders of mortality.   

Further Reading 

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/05/runaway.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2018/06/mortality-mental-health.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/10/high-anxiety.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-folks-who-live-on-hill.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2015/01/i-dont-go-to-funerals.html

https://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.com/2018/08/winter-is-best-time-to-die.html