If your parents are gone, what questions do you wish you could ask them?

I am not understanding this.

If my parents were not present. What questions would I ask them?

How can I ask when they were not there…

If your parents have passed away. Are deceased. Are dead. Are there any lingering questions you wish you could ask them?

If your parents are living, this question does not apply to you.

One that springs to my mind right away is:

Why did you love my mother so much?

I would ask my father:

. . .to tell me as much as he knows about his side of the family, ancestry.
. . .if he now believes that he had OCD.
. . .how he could hurt me if he loved me.

I would ask my father:

.. why he was so emotionally distant and withdrawn,

…why he perceived his son to have more value than his daughters, and

…why he shot himself, silently and secretly and isolated.

Well why not ask them when they are alive?

I would just ask my mother, “Why?”. She’d know what I meant.

My father killed himself, too, @gailcalled. I don’t think I’d ask him why though. I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. Other than that, I guess I’d like to know more about his young adult life, which I don’t really know that much about.

(Also, @bluedoggiant, your comment was a pretty insensitive and ridiculous thing to say, especially right after someone whose parent committed suicide…)

My mother is still here – thank goodness! My father passed away in January.

On the lighter note of this question – over the weekend, I was at my mother’s house and the hall bathroom toilet overflowed. I have an Aunt that has down’s syndrome and tends to over stuff the toilet, at times. After I turned off the water valve, I started on the hunt for the plunger, while gathering things to clean up the mess. I couldn’t find that damn thing anywhere! I looked everywhere. My husband was looking and couldn’t find it either. I was so annoyed, I stopped in the middle of the hallway and yelled out, “Dad! Where in the hell did you put the plunger! Normal people keep it close to a bathroom! Where is it?”

In unison, my husband and daughter just started laughing , my mother walked in – they explained it to her, she laughed too.

The plunger was in the garage…very far away from the bathrooms.

I can say that he didn’t leave me with questions. Wonderful memories, but no questions – at least not right now.

****

My ‘biological’ father – not the dad I was talking about above he raised me, my step dad raised me, I would ask him if he truly loved my sister and I. I’ve heard so many mixed stories about him. I hear he loved both of us and then someone tells me he loved me, not my sister. I just want to know that he loved both of us. For my mother, I would ask him why he treated her so poorly. Her biggest crime, she loved him. In return, he treated her poorly. I just want to know why. my biological father was murdered when I was a young child, I have very few memories of him, just a lot of stories and some very ugly stories.

I’d like to ask my step-dad some “housekeeping” rules like “if you wrote a damn Will where do you hide it?!” or “why didn’t you write a will?”. I know he died suddenly, but still…as soon as i’m old enough to actually have possessions that matter I will do that!

But really, I always think of things he would know the answer to, just simple questions, or things i’d like to ask him about living in Antarctica for a year…things I guess I wish I had really bothered to listen to when I had the chance.

My father died when I was 10. I feel so blessed because he knew he was dieing my whole life and felt it his mission to tell me everything he possibly he could. he was a poet and he wrote poetry and he taught me so much. It is weird to me that my husband is older than my father was when he died and that in 2 years I will be the age my father was when he died. I am so thankful that he didn’t leave a word unsaid.