I hope people don't mind if I update this thread, but I think I need to just talk. Maybe I should ask to have this moved now.
My mum's funeral was last week. It was the hardest day of my life. I also lost my dad and my brother in the last few years (also prematurely and unexpectedly), so my grief is both new and refreshed. It barely felt like any time since we were at the cemetery burying my brother, and then I was back to bury my mum too. I'm not sure how I've had it in me to arrange three funerals in four years.
My five month old daughter is keeping me going. She still wakes up every day at 6am looking for milk regardless of anything else going on. So I've had to pick myself up and dust myself off pretty damn quickly. Up until last week, I was adamant that she would be an only child - we had two years of infertility and IVF to have her, then had a very grumpy colicky and refluxy baby who's only now really getting over the worst of it. But, without her uncle, grandad and now grandma, it feels more important that she have a sibling. Can I go through IVF again?
So, I'm packing up my Mum's house - the former family home - and it just hurts. Everything smells like her and everywhere I look there are memories...only now I have no one to say to 'remember that time when we...' because I'm the only one left. I'm 36 - how can I be the only one left?
I leave here in a few days to travel back down south where my husband, daughter and I live. My friend is moving in to my mum's house with her three year old daughter. I very much hope this will be a happy family home again.
My mum left us a little nest egg. I was shocked at the amount when we had to inform the bank of her death. I don't even want any of it. It can't bring my mum back. I'd swap all of it to have just five more minutes with her.
I know I'm going to be ok. Bitter experience has taught me that I will recover from this, but it's getting from here to that point that scares me.