by Dee Schneider

Created on: September 25, 2008

My dad died when I was 6.

I am now 31. I am not sure that I can quantify what losing a parent so young means.
What I do know, is that you never get over it. I have certainly learnt to accept it though.

Dad died after a two year battle with bowel cancer.

The funny thing is, I don't feel grief that is centred around the time of his death. From memory, it was all just a bit strange and slightly sad.

I can laugh about stories that my mother tells me relating to this time. Stories that encompass the innocence and confusion of a child thrust into an incomprehensible adult world.
She told me of my inquisitive nature, and the depth at which I seemed to try and process this event - apparently when trying to make sense of what cremation was, I once asked her "Mummy, when daddy dies, if he has to get burnt - how are we going to fit him in the oven?"

The main grief that I feel, is for now. For now, for my youth, for all the times in my life that he missed, and for my children.
He wasn't there to see me play soccer (his favourite sport), he wasn't there to protect us from the pervert down the street. He missed my wedding, and the birth of all my children.

Now that I am a parent myself, I also have a much clearer understanding of what my mother may have experienced. Up until now, my father dying affected me in the capacity of losing a parent. Now, my grief has broadened. I now feel intense saddness when I think of mum losing her husband. I also suffer with thoughts of how my or my husbands death would impact our children.

So, you see grief never goes away - it changes. It ebbs and flows throughout our life, and takes different forms as we experience new things.

Another huge part of losing a parent as a young child, is not just that you lose the parent who dies. I think you also lose the living parent. You lose the remaining parent to grief. At least for a while. The parent who is left to pick up the pieces has an incredible task ahead of them. How do you continue raising children, and keep your family together when you are experiencing intense grief? I don't know. I don't want to know.

Not only do you lose essentially both parents, but the dynamics of the family change.
In my case, my eldest sibbling took on the role of parent. Unfortunately for myself and my younger sibbling, the eldest was not kind, nor caring, nor nurturing. She was controlling, mean and seemed to delight in humiliating us. This experience in itself shaped me.
So you see, my grief is also for the alternate life I would have had if my dad had not died.

In hindsight, I have much respect for both my mum and dad, as they did not keep the truth from us. Through most of dads illness, we were included in what was happening. When he died, we were expecting it. We went to the funeral and were allowed our feelings. I believe that children need to be honoured at a time like this and allowed to be a part of what the family is experiencing.
Everyone will have their own unique experience of grief. However, I believe universally, the death of a parent will change a young child forever, in so many different ways.

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