Grief And Anticipatory Grief

M

MrPangolino

Orthodox Inquirer
Hi, first of all sorry in advance is this is not the right section. Feel free to move this post or delete it.
Unfortunately recently my father was diagnosed with cancer. Inoperable, he's starting chemo but demise is a matter of "when", not "if". I am christian, he lost is faith after diagnosis. I believe we're going to meet after our departure from this world, but, not gonna lie, someday it's tough. Just wanted to ask you how do you cope with such a situation if you had any. I have a family myself but even when I am supposed to enjoy, e.g. playing with my son, my mind keeps going there. I cry sometimes, as my father does, but generally I just feel extremely bad. For now I am avoiding benzos but I am thinking about starting since anxiety is killing me and there are days I have pain all over my body because of this situation.
Thank you in advance for the replies.
God bless you
 
Demise in this life is a matter of "when" and not "if" for all of us.

To paraphrase my stepfather, "I'm grateful for what I've had, I have a wife that loves me, I'm proud of the way my children turned out, and there's no point feeling sorry for myself, so I may as well make the best of it".

Part of being a Christian is warring against your thoughts. Since you've got an inclination to anxiety, the devil will tend to try to exacerbate it. Think of your son, if you're so crippled at the inevitable death of your father, what example are you teaching him? That it's best to drown the pain in meds?

I'd advise your father to avoid the pity party that cancer support groups are. My parents went to one, commented that everyone was miserable, and never went to another. If anything, cancer is a blessing because it puts the clock in front of our face, and my stepfather agreed, because it gave him the impetus to start doing the things he wanted to do, but never got around to.
 
You might find the book "On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families" or "On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss" by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross helpful. She popularized the five stages of grief model (denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). It won't fix or solve what you are going through, which is incredibly painful, but it may provide some perspective by offering stories of others who also experienced loss.
 
When my father died, he left this life on bad terms. All the trauma of his early life left him vulnerable to being bitter and the stroke he'd had a few years before he died tipped him over the edge. Unfortunately I was not a practicing Christian then and suffered from stoney insensibility and my own anger at my dad, consequently I was unable to be there for him.

A few years later and I'm sitting in a church in Krakow, Poland next to a a picture of Padre Pio when the floodgates opened and I was able to grieve and pray to Jesus to have mercy for my poor old dad. I regularly pray for him now and that gives me hope.

I can offer no advice other than to pray constantly for your dad to soften and allow Jesus in.
 
Vas Incrementum said:
When my father died, he left this life on bad terms. All the trauma of his early life left him vulnerable to being bitter and the stroke he'd had a few years before he died tipped him over the edge. Unfortunately I was not a practicing Christian then and suffered from stoney insensibility and my own anger at my dad, consequently I was unable to be there for him.

A few years later and I'm sitting in a church in Krakow, Poland next to a a picture of Padre Pio when the floodgates opened and I was able to grieve and pray to Jesus to have mercy for my poor old dad. I regularly pray for him now and that gives me hope.

I can offer no advice other than to pray constantly for your dad to soften and allow Jesus in.
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This is an interesting "coincidence". I also found faith in Krakow (I'm italian living in Poland, now I moved from Krakow though). That's also why I related a lot to Roosh in hist first steps towards God.

I'm trying to spend as much time as possible with my father, juggling between the two countries is not that easy. Differently than you, I only feel love towards him despite we had our contrasts during youth, but who hasn't?

Prayer helps indeed, as well as realizing we are all going to share his faith one day, probably sooner than we think.

Thank you for your insight
 
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