anyone is grieving for a parent

[2shoes]

I know there is an existing thread where lots of lovely people have supported each other through what is a horrid time, but as I come up to the 2nd Christmas without my dear old Dad and SM, I would like to somehow move on and I suppose help others through this as well as helping myself.
(hope that doesn't sound crap)
so a bit of background
My mum died when I was 18 after years of ill health.
so I got a SM.
we weren't close close but got on well.
she became ill and died a 1 1/2 years ago, then my darling Dad got ill.
he died 6 months(or there abouts later)
I miss him every day.
and thank the lovely Mumsnetters who have helped me through this.
but i can't post on the old thread,
it takes me right back there, so I am hopig a new thread, will get us all talking and allow new posters to join in.........

I lost both my parents in 2011 - they were 88. Dad died in June after being ill for ten years (stroke). Mum looked after him devotedly all that time then she got cancer October 2010. I looked after both of them, she recovered, we both cared for dad, then he finally slipped away when we weren't looking. The sense of relief and release was clear - he had been imprisoned inside a shutting-down body until he was a skeleton.
I thought how great that mum and I could now travel and have fun - we were planning a sort of pub crawl of all the tea shops in the area and we had started rating them.
Then out of the blue, her cancer returned and within ten days she had gone. We were all there when she died peacefully in her own bed,
That was seven weeks ago and the grief is getting worse. The first days and weeks I was buoyed up - my adrenalin, her bliss. But now it is the little things - I saw a new fabric shop in town and I was so excited that I could tell her about it...I passed a shelf in the supermarket selling her favourite oven-bottom muffins...I saw Edinburgh castle which she loved. Her picture disappeared off my computer desktop and I cried for two hours. It's the little things. The number of times I find myself phrasing something that's happened in my head ready to tell her.
And I've just turned 60. It is never too old to be a newly orphaned girl without her anchors.

I was surprised at how painful it was to lose my mum. Before it happened, I think I thought oh it's natural for elderly parents to die at some point, it's not like I'm a child any more, etc, etc, but I had a rude awakening. I can't imagine how it must be to lose both parents so close together. Some days I am desperate to have her back, and I also spend a lot of time wondering where she is. It's hard when someone just disappears from life.

Daisymclines and leaky I am sorry that you have both joined this thread,but i hope somehow it will help you. For me this is the most awful time of my life,one i think i had been dreading forever. I could never imagine being without my mum,but now i am and i miss her terribly.

Not been able to read all the posts but was going to start a similar thread. My dd2 is 4 weeks old and my mum passed away 6 days before she was born. I feel terrible and have no idea how i am going to get through this. Does help to have found this thread and know i'm not alone but life is pretty tough right now. Any tips on how to cope?

donotunderstand i am very sorry that you have had to join this thread.My sister is in a similar position as she is due to have twins in feb.My mum died in Oct and in her knitting bag we found several little baby coats which were unfinished.It is heart breaking.All i can advise is that to take each day as it comes.It has been for us the worst time ever and to be honest the last ten weeks seem like a blur.We are continuing to get through each day somehow.Me and my siblings are all very close and apart from my sister all live locally.They being around has helped a lot.Plus one of my brothers is executor of mums will as i am and we have had a lot to do.But ten weeks on i do not now end up in a helpless heap every day , i still have the moments when i think " oh ill phone mum and ask her " then i remember with sickening feelings.We are in the process of clearing her house and as i have stated in previous posts i cannot throw anything away just yet. So my advice to you is just to take each day as it comes you will have good and bad days and if you feel like crying then do so. Our lives have been altered forever , we will never ever forget our mums but we can continue to live our lives even though life is now different.Parents are never entirely gone as we are here because of them. Congratulations on the birth of your new baby.tell her about her lovely grandmother when she is older and continue to keep your mums memory alive.Take care of yourself.

My mother died on the 18th December. Only one week before, I had nagged her for being too thin and not eating. I was grumpy and she said that I made her stressed. I said that I was only grumpy because she was underweight and that it could compromise her health. I knew she had lung cancer, but the oncologist gave her months not weeks. The deterioration was rapid and my beautiful mother was dead within the week. My brother and I were both there. I am consumed by guilt. I want her back. One last cuddle. She loved Sea Bass. I cannot look at Sea Bass without filling up. I wear her jacket. It smells of her. The grief is constant. I am writing this because I need to. I have read many of the other messages and it is good to know that I am not alone. I am particularly sorry for those of you who have very young children or a new born child. My brother has toddlers and he is anguished that they will not remember grandma. Now I have no mother and no father. I am a mother, but I want a mother.

Hello everyone, I'm sorry I've not been here for you all recently. I have been in counselling (not just for Dad, but including him iyswim).

I hope you are all doing well and I wish you all a better 2012.

Fifitat, I am sorry for your loss. Please, try not to feel guilty, there was really nothing you could have done and nagging your lovely Mum was out of love and compassion, not disdain.

Cancer sufferers find eating difficult in the main ~ I know my Dad did...he faded away in the physical sense and it was very painful to watch and the guilt I felt/feel was not because of anything I said to him, but because I couldn't take the disease away from him, cure him so that we could 'keep him' :(
I know what your brother is feeling with regard to his young children as my own Dd was under 20 months when Dad went and at this time, she does remember him (she's just turned 5), but in no detail... It is, I would say in my opinion, important to talk about their Grandma to the younger children (and older ones), to keep their memories going.
I asked my Dd about 18 months ago iirc, if she missed Grandad and she said no, which made me really sad, but she does remember him which I think is more important for young children and at least she is not grieving for him; she can remember him and talk about him without crying or feeling sad that he's not there and that is worth a mint to me.
Do keep chatting on here; you've probably realised that there are lovely people on this thread and usually someone is here to chat in return.

All the best.x

Fifitat my mother also went down hill very fast and i was told we might loose her on the Saturday and she passed away on the tuesday. It does seem hard not having had the time to understand what is happening i am so sorry for your loss.

I seem to miss her more by the day as the list of things i want to talk to her about grows in my head. I was with her when she passed away but the last couple of days she was alive she was in so much pain and suffered more than i will ever know.

Don't know about anyone else on here but having two young children it is really hard to find the head space to start to process what has happens and it just comes out in messy waves when i am reminded of her or some times it just spills out for no reason. Even now i am writing this on my phone after dd2's feed while trying to wind her. Good job us women can multi task!

It is good to have some where to share this stuff, dd1 is awake... hope to be back soon x

my mum died a week ago today, she was 88 and frail and had become increasingly a worry to me as I balanced her desire to stay independently in her own home and my concern about how to achieve that. She was in hospital for a few short days and peacefully slipped away which I know is a 'blessing' but I feel very empty. I miss her terribly but haven't had the huge outpouring of grief that I expected, I have no idea if this is normal or not.

mungojenny there is no " normal " grief is different for so many people.It may be that you are still in shock,its only a few days for you.Looking back i too surprised myself in a way,although i had huge outpourings of tears at times ,i managed to function and do all that was required.I think it helped that my house was the meeting place for all the family ,so i was constantly busy, in fact one day soon after mum died the hospital chaplain came here to see what we wanted for the service,i opened the front door and there was a massive man there .i am only 5ft 2 ,he is nearly 7ft and just as wide.he stood by me in my lounge and put his arms on my shoulders,we all had a little chuckle because it must of looked so funny.I think it takes a while to realise that the person we have lost is not coming back , i still cannot believe i wont see my mum again.I miss her so much for so many reasons.

mummylin you are so right there is no normal for the grief process. I've had a fairly okay one today but then was just sat here after feeding dd2 and burst into tears but I have no idea why! Other days I feel numb all the time and don't seem to experience any emotions at all. A week is a really short time and even though it is five weeks since my mum passed away it still doesn't feel real to me and every time my phone rings I expect it to be her.

I was wondering what experiences other people have of coumselling? I know you are supposed to wait a while but are cruse any good? I tried to contact their help line on several occasions but always got an answer phone.

I think missing people and the huge space they leave in your life is the hardest part of all this.

sorry just re read my post should have been counselling not coumselling!

So far i have had three dreams about my mum,one of them was last night and it left me feeling very odd all day today.Another one was that she came and told me she was back but could only stay four days.All very strange.I have never dreamed about the dead before , not even when we lost our sister.I seem to be ok most of the time,then i suddenly see an advert for some music and then i think " oh mum would love that " and so i get upset again.I dont know anything about cruse so cant advise about it.But i have heard they are good.I think all of the emotions are pretty normal.I think its best to cry rather than bottle it up ,i did that when my sister died because my mum was staying with me, then ten months later i had to have a lot of time off work and was put on anti depressants .I dont want to get like that again so will just go with the flow with my tears.

My sister has been dreaming about our mum lots but with the small amount of sleep i am getting it hasn't happened to me as yet. She also finds her dreams effect her all day. Am trying to let it all out but dd1 is becoming all too aware of how often i am crying and being quite upset by it. Have a history of depression so need to be very careful but have an amazing gp who is keeping a close eye on me. Hope you have a better night tonight mummylin x

fifitat please try not to feel guilty, we all wish we had done things differently .... personally after my Dad had died I said to my Mom that I could not be any more heartbroken (this was Jan 2000) sadly my grief was doulbled when she died a few months later.

It is my Dads birthday today, he would have been 86. Missing him of course.

Mungojenny I'm sorry that you have joined our thread, but you are very welcome. Be kind to yourself. Don't forget to eat and try to rest when you can.

Can I come on here and have a moan? Because I don't feel I can whinge at dh any more. It's not fair on him.

Today I don't want to cope. I know I can. But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.

14 weeks ago mum was diagnosed with end stage heart failure. That was the week ds was born. He was 5 weeks when she died. He had a difficult birth and had some time in neo-natal and a follow up brain mri to check for brain damage. We got the results of his scan at 10 weeks which came back all clear which was wonderful. I was thrilled and thought we'd really turned a corner. The following week we had one of those 6am calls from a&e to say they had my dad. He'd had a fall but were transferring him to his regional hospital to the neurology unit for monitoring.
He spent all of Christmas in hospital. We're an hour and a half away and couldn't take children onto the ward because of infection so we bounced up and down on the days dd was in nursery or we dragged both children down to sit in the hospital canteen and have a sticky bun whilst I dashed up onto the ward to see him.

He came out last week and is physically OK but emotionally very fragile.

I have coped with all of this. And a cat with liver disease. And I want some time off from my life.

I know I've not come to terms with the birth I didn't get, but don't for a second regret the beautiful boy who came from it. I've not really come to terms with the fact that mum has gone. I have no idea how on earth to reconcile the guilt I feel about my dad with managing my children and I really want to ask my mum's advice. DS has reflux so I can't eat dairy and therefore a bloody big piece of chocolate cake is off the agenda too.

I've been coping so well for the last 14 weeks that I don't now know how to ask for permission to deal with all of this or indeed how I can with two small children since I think that everyone feels that I'm over it and sorted and fine.

Right now we have friends coming to stay tomorrow so I have a house to clean, I feel that I'm supposed to be cooking supper, preparing foodfor tomorrow and I'm sitting here on mumsnet and doing a sudoko and feeling guilty and I'm not sure how to reslove any of this. I'm supposed to be a grown up ffs. I should be able to manage this. Instead its managing me.

golemmings you have described exactly how I am feeling in your post and you are not moaning but sharing what is happening to try and deal with it. I had an okay labour with dd2 but then lost lots of blood and had to go to theatre so missed out on the first feed skin to skin etc.

None of this is about being grown up or fine, 14 weeks is a very short period of time and you have had to deal with so so much. I know what you mean about wanting some time off from life, I feel like I'm in a strange bubble and have no idea what's going on outside of my head but would so so like a break from it all.

You have a lot on your plate with such young children and your dad having been unwell as well.

We're also having the pleasure of reflux but are still at the medication experimentation stage not the dairy free bit but my neighbour has been through it and baked some yummy cakes with vegan marge. Wish i could sit down with you for a cuppa as there don't seem to be many people i can relate to right now but you are one of them!

aristocat - hope you have managed your dads birthday today, must have been hard.

Donot, I'm not sure I'm really pleased that there is somebody else in my little boat or just sorry that you're in the same shitty space because I'd not wish it on anybody. It must be even harder that your mum didn't get to meet her granddaughter.

Re reflux I started with dairy free; ds was diagnosed by a cranial osteopath at 3 weeks and the second GP I saw confirmed it but refused to medicate. I stopped eating dairy because I felt so helpless and hated seeing him in so much pain. He improved within 24 hours so I stuck with it. We now have gaviscon which clears up the remaining acid but the no dairy has made a huge difference.

I think one of the reasons that today was so hard, actually was getting very little sleep last night. I tried some goats cheese yesterday to see how he would cope with it. He was miserable and in pain from midnight till 3 so I was walking around the house with him and I'm really tired today. I think that makes everything a bit harder to cope with. Speaking of which, I probably ought to go to bed before I have another night with little sleep.

Night all. Thinking of you

How is your Dad golemmings? I hope he is Ok. He must be going through it too and really missing your Mum :( . Is he getting to see his newest Grandchild much? they are often the medicine that cures much...
Do try not to feel guilty about anything as it achieves nothing positive at all and will make you feel even more miserable inside.

I hope you have a good weekend despite the way you feel :)

Much love to all of you on this thread.x

How is everyone doing? I had a shocking day on Saturday but yesterday was a little better. Keep hearing her voice in my head and even when dd2 will allow me to sleep i struggle as things keep going through my head.

Hope everyone's ok as they can be x

I am still struggling to sort out my mums house.There is so much there and everytime i go there i end up bringing loads of stuff home.We had a very upsetting time last week as the estate agents had been round and taken photos of the inside of mums place ,knowing that we are sorting out her stuff .They took pics of each room and of course in the pictures was all the stuff we have piled up and even some of mums things we havent even packed up yet,but the worse thing is they then put the pictures on the internet.It looked awful with all the boxes of stuff everywhere and we were very upset and demanded they took them down.Also stated on the internet that it was vacant property and they held a key.To me that was an open invite for someone to break in.Anyway after lots of irate phone calls they have now been removed and they are not allowed to take any more photos without mine and my brothers permission.We realise that they do have to have the photos but they can wait until my mums things have been removed.There is not too much more to empty and the british heart foundation will be taking most of the furniture,but i wont want to be there for that.I know i will cry.My mum would be proud of me for taking so much stuff home !!!! She seemed to collect everything in sight Now i have most of her things at home i can go through it at my leisure and make sure that all my siblings have mementos [ lots ] of our lovely mum.The trouble is i dont want to throw any of her things away.Tomorrow i have the hospice people coming to mums as there is a lot of things they can sell in their shop to raise money for the hospice which is for terminally ill children.I think we must have counted about 20 toiletry sets still unopened all stored in her cupboards! And many of xmas gifts we had given her in the past still unopened and stored under one of her beds.Mum certainly liked to store stuff,bless her.In her knitting bag were a few nearly finished baby coats [ my sister having twins in 3 and a half weeks ] and my friend has kindly taken them home to finish them off.also was a jumper intended for her sister for xmas which mum had finished but not sewn up,i have now done that and my aunt is coming for it today.That will now become a treasure for her.Sorry if i have rattled on too much but i like to talk !!

Donot it will get easier, but there is no time scale unfortunately...

Mummylin I really feel for you...I had to go through everything with my Mum after Dad died and it was very hard...the tiniest piece of paper with Dads handwriting on...
I'm so glad that you have someone to finish the baby things off ~ I almost offered myself! and yes, all these lovingly made things will be real treasure.

It is all so hard, but I wish you all love and peace in your hearts.

solo that is what i am doing every scrap of papet mum wrote on i have bought home with me ! i cant bear to throw them away,so im not going to.to me they are a link to my mum.

Thanks solo, it's the images i'm struggling with the most as she really really suffered and it's horrible my last images of her are either being bright yellow and struggling to breath or her in a coffin. I'm sure these will fade in time but they're very real right now.

Sorting out houses must be so hard. I was upset when my dad changed the answer phone message as it was the only recording of her voice we had but know it had to be done. I still have lots of letters she sent me and haven't deleted any text messages which helps.

Thinking of you all lots x