I don't feel like I'm grieving?

[MortyFide]

My mum, who I loved very much and had a close relationship with, died a month ago. She was 82, was in care with Alzheimer's (which I know she would have loathed and considered to be the height of indignity, had she been really aware of it) and had been deteriorating in the last six months.

Her final month was horrid but fast - she went down with a UTI and sepsis, which was what ultimately saw her off. But she'd had a good life, she was the best mum and the kindest person, she was totally ready for it to be over so I'm kind of happy for her. She's with her siblings and back with my stepdad now.

I have cried on and off, for the mum I used to know - but they call Alzheimer's the long goodbye don't they, because you grieve for the original person after they become somebody different. I think I've been slowly saying goodbye for almost a year, since her first fall at home brought about the beginning of the end and her personality changed more significantly.

There have been moments when the realisation strikes that I'm never going to see her face, kiss her hair, talk politics or hear her laugh again. But I keep kind of pushing that away, because it feels overwhelming. I have otherwise been very practical, making all the funeral arrangements, battling with a rude executor, doing everything alone because my only brother lives abroad (although he was very supportive remotely). I was tearful at the funeral but I got through a poem and didn't break down.

I saw her when she was still able to open her eyes and I told her all the things you want to tell a dying parent. I saw her again in her last stages when only her lungs were still functioning, and I told her how much I loved her. And I saw her body after she had gone, and I chatted to her.

Her ashes are with me now, and I have many photos of her around me. I still talk to her most days. But although of course I feel sad and I'll miss her terribly, I haven't had that awful, gut wrenching, raw feeling of grief that I've experienced with other deaths. The grief where you start crying and think you'll never stop, the pain is so great.

I'm terrified that I must be cold and unfeeling, and that I'm just relieved that it's all over - what kind of a daughter isn't wracked with grief for a mother they adored? Or has it just not come yet? Is this normal?

Sorry for your loss. Therevis nothing wrong with you, when someone has been long suffering, it's normal to feel a sense of relief for them. The pain will come and go over the years. You will have moments of griwf and moments when you can forget all about the grief and think of the good memories. Again, sorry for your loss. And don't be so hard on yourself.

Sorry for your loss. I understand where you are coming from my DF passed 2 years ago, he was my best friend and Rick through everything, he had asbestos, COPD, ephasimia so was very unwell and went into hospital, 21 days in ICU before he died. I cried at the time and on and off for a few days later but stayed busy with the arrangements for the funeral and will etc I still have moments where it hits me but I never did the whole weeping and wailing, red eyes etc that everyone seems to do on tv/movies etc. But tbh I'm not a crier when i am sad (angry is a different story). So i would say you are completely normal.

Thanks @JustC - that's helpful! Some days I wake up and get on with things as normal, then I think of mum and suddenly remember that she's actually died. I feel a bit numb, or like I dreamt it all if you see what I mean? It's not real, even though I touched her body and there's been a funeral.

My father died a couple of years ago and I know exactly what you mean. He didn't have dementia but he had been physically ill and was a shadow of the man I knew. I had been helping nurse him for many months. The day he died, my husband told me that I looked like a weight had lifted from my shoulders.

I loved him, he was a loving father, our relationship was good. But even after all this time I have never experienced the gut wrenching misery that I expected. I have sad moments obviously, occasionally something will bring back a memory and make me weepy. But that's it.

I miss him every day and think and talk about him all the time. But it all just seems very matter of fact to me. I can't explain it but it's not how I thought it would be.

Sorry @Cooper88, cross posted. Thank you, yes I'm not a great crier really either. But when my stepdad died, even though we'd had a sometimes difficult relationship, I got into a very emotional state after he died and spent one night wondering if I'd ever stop crying. That happened on and off for a year and I was very low with it for ages.

As for when my dog died, well bloody hell. That was a physical pain, I still struggle with her loss and she's been gone 7 months. This is why I feel like there must be something wrong with me, that I don't feel that pain for mum. Maybe it's because she was so keen for it to be over that I'm glad she got what she wanted and isn't suffering anymore.

I haven't lost a parent, but this is how I felt when my paternal grandmother. She was more than a second mum, she practically raised us, as wel lived with thwm and both parents worked 8-5. She was bedridden for a long time. So, yes part of you feels relieved they are done suffering, part of you is numb because your brain was already preparing for it. Grief doesn't have to be debilitating, we all do it differently. Hugs

You are grieving; you're doing it in your own way. There isn't anything wrong with you - the only grieving most of us see is on television or film and not real.

That's EXACTLY what I feel @isabellerossignol! So well described. I didn't nurse mum (cleaned her up a few times after falls), but I had POA and had to coordinate all the arrangements for home carers at first, put up cameras to monitor her movements when she got more unstable and was constantly falling, liaised with paramedics and police and adult social care with every disaster until she eventually went into full time care.

And even then I had financial worries because the care fees ate up her cash before her property sold, so there was always a big underlying worry over something.

But I still expected a wall of misery when she passed away, and although I'm sad and weepy on occasion, that wave just hasn't arrived. To be fair, mum always said she didn't want any weeping and wailing!

Mortyfide
I’m right with you sweetheart.
My mum was 88 and she began her journey at 80

I’ll be honest, I used to sit beside her bed in the care home and pray for dad to come and get her.
Eventually, after a few more torturous years, he did.

I felt such relief when we were both out of such pain and Indignity, I had a lovely mum and I’m an only child.
I sailed through her funeral, didn’t shed a tear
Then it hit 6 months later and I cried for my lovely mum

Still do.
She’s the one who always had my back..and I miss her so much
The lockdown days would never have kept us apart.

That was 3.5 years ago.
I had to sell our family home, it looked nice, but structurally needed a lot doing and I bought a lovely caravan .
This seems a more fitting place to remember her.
I’m crying now, just thinking of her.

Please don’t feel guilty.

Sorry not RTFT but could you have already grieved when she first got diagnosed? Sorry for your loss xx

Thank you @Dowser, and @Knittedfairies.

I sometimes wildly think, mum was the only one who ever really stood up for me, and the only parent that wanted me. She could be cutting and critical, but that was her way and she was mortified if she ever hurt my feelings.

Oh gosh I can't think of the very few times we bickered, that hurts too much because I can't give her a hug and say it's ok!

Fishfingers yes quite possibly - although again, it was all about the practical stuff at the time. I remember crying at the doctors surgery much later when she couldn't hide (or lie) about her memory dysfunction and limited mobility any more and the GP asked me if I thought she would be safer in hospital. I cried because she didn't know who the prime minister was.

That's a different, slow burning type of grief I suppose.

I think when people are ill for a long time, you do a lot of grieving before they die. That doesn't mean that you don't grieve, but a lot of the intense shock, denial etc is not there, as you have been processing that for ages.

It is so normal to feel a sense of relief when an ill person dies, both for them, that they are not out or pain and distress and for yourself, becuase you have been in that limbo ever since they got diagnosed.

Once some of the immediate has passed, then there comes space to grieve the person you knew, and to miss them as they were,

My mum died at the end of April, with dementia, just a month after my dad died. I haven't had gut wrenching grief for either of them either.
I think I'd mourned for mum as the person who she was died bit by bit iyswim - the day she didn't know my name, the day she didn't recognise me and so on.
Dad, I was just so relieved he was out of pain and that he didn't have to see mum go into care, and hadn't had time to worry at the end.

And it is like a weight has lifted from me. The last 10 years, and especially the last 5 I have been constantly worried about them. Every time the phone went I'd be thinking what had happened now, and there was always something to feel guilty about.

That makes sense @steppemum.

You're right about the guilt and fear @CMOTDibbler - the cameras set off motion alerts on my phone and watch, my God my stomach would flip whenever they were triggered, especially at 2 and 4am. Never have I been so glad to remove an app when that bit was over with.

I blindly accepted it when mum didn't recognise me. Again I expected that to be so much more painful, but there's just numb acceptance that you don't exist in there anymore.

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s two years since I lost my mum, and I still haven’t fully accepted it. That feeling of it being a dream is still very much with me.

I don’t think there’s a wrong way to grieve, unless you’re deliberately suppressing your feelings, which it doesn’t sound like you are. I love thinking about my mum, and mostly those thoughts bring comfort. The time it hits me is when I want to tell her something and I can’t.

You have to follow what your body and mind are doing naturally, I think, and not worry about how you think you should feel.

I think that’s completely natural, we are all different in grief. I was like you when I lost my dad. He was suffering and I knew that death was better than what he had. It’s the natural order of things, losing parents. I miss him but am very philosophical about it, I see bits of him in family members. His illness wasn’t even very long but very dramatic.

So sorry for the loss of your mum; you obviously loved her very much.
My mum died almost a year ago. I had been increasingly taking care of her for the last few years as I’m the only one sine my younger sister died in 2004.
She was in hospital for a week and was so brave, as she always had been. I cried until my eyes were sore during this time but when she actually died I just felt numb and unreal.
Now it’s coming up to a year it’s starting to hit me and I miss her so much. I think feeling numb is your brains way of coping with something too enormous to deal with. I feel if I allow myself to cry for her, my sister and my dad I will never be able to stop.
Sending you the most loving of thoughts

My dgf who I was extremely close to passed away 2 years ago with Alzheimer's.
And we all watched him deteriorate it was horrendous.
He was the sweetest most kind soft man you could ever meet.
Nd he lost everything about himself.
I know how you feel.
Its definitely the long goodbye.
You most definitely are grieving and you've been doing it for months and months when you first started losing her.
I'm so sorry for your loss

My mum died March 31 and apart from a 5 minute wobble last week I've yet to shed a tear. I loved my Mum, but she had a lot of health issues and the last 3 weeks of her life was spent in constant pain. Watching her cry at the slightest touch broke me more than her death. I've no doubt the grief will come and when it does it will hit me like a truck. The tears and pain will come OP don't feel guilty that that time hasn't happened yet.

Bless your heart.

I think there’s a big difference to losing someone suddenly and witnessing the heart-wrenching deterioration that Alzheimers causes. I imagine you’ve already done a huge deal of your grieving a long time ago (such as crying post docs appointment). You knew your Mum wouldn’t have wanted the end of her life as it was, and so I think there’s an enormous amount of .. not relief.. but.. a sort of a positive emotion knowing they are no longer in pain and can rejoin family who’ve passed already.

Please don’t think you are cold or unfeeling - all your posts suggest the very opposite.

Grief is a funny thing and effects everyone differently.

For most people, losing a parent would be the worst thing to happen bar losing a child or partner.

I haven't been through anything like that that (other than early miscarriages) but lost one of my best friends of over 30 years last year at the age of 42, with her leaving very young DC.

Everyone expected me to be in bits at the funeral as we were so close but I was strangely detached. It just didn't seem real. It seemed like I was in a play or some kind of experiment and someone would tell me in a few days that it had all been a joke or a test. I barely cried because it felt so unreal. People were constantly coming to ask me how I was coping and feeling and I didn't know what to say. Very strange feeling.

But when the grief hit it was like nothing i'd ever felt before. And it came in waves and stil does over a year on. I sometimes literally sob for hours at a memory and then the next day think 'FFS, you're being dramatic'. And the guilt at still being alive as I don't have children and she did, children that needed her and will grow up probably never remembering whereas me dying wouldn't lead to that loss for DC has crippled me at times.

Grief is weird and individual and there are stages to go through and sometimes it hits you when you least expect it.

Go easy on yourself. There's no wrong or right way. I am so sorry for your loss

My Ddad died six years ago from Alzhemiers and he was about to enter the last stage of it, which he would have hated. He had to go in a care home but only lasted a week in there as they had an outbreak of norovirus which he caught and deteriorated incredibly quickly and died in hospital. I had two episodes of feeling like I was drowning in grief and it was washing over me, normally when I was alone in the shower. I still think about him but it doesn't overwhelm me.
My DMum has a different form of dementia now and the speed at which dhe is losing her memory is much faster than my DDAD and is much more upsetting for both of us, as she is more aware of it. I think I'm doing my grieving for her now and I hate to think of her dying but her quality of life is decreasing so quickly and I know she doesn't like it.

I meant to add you do not seem uncaring in the slightest, the fact it bothers you that you don't seem to be grieving in the right way shows the opposite. If that makes sense.

Thank you all, you are so kind and giving me much comfort.