Support thread for anyone who has lost a parent ( 5 )

[mummylin2495]

Here we are , our new home

[t875]

Tell us about your day when your free linn! My thoughts have been with you x

[mummylin2495]

Day started at about 8.30 with dh waking me up insisting I open my gifts from him before he went to work! So he had bought me a pandora bracelet and a Heart charm, a jumper, some jeans and a couple of books. Next thing was about 9.15 when I recieved a beautiful bouquet from my friend and her dh ( ( th one who is in turmoil at the moment ) ten minutes after that a friend arrived and gave me a lovely purse. Then I opened other gifts I had been already given. Next friend arrived ( onenwhosent bouquet ) came and off we went to have hair done. Whilst at hairdressers I recieved a bouquet from my dd. then one f my brothers arrived an gave me his gifts ( solar butterfly ) and a voucher for garden center. Got home about 3 and another brother and sis in law had left me yet another huge bunch of flowers, a voucher fr Argos, a cake and some liquorice.
Only been In a few minutes and my third brother arrived and gave me another charm for bracelet that says special sister. 5 mins later my aunt and uncle arrived with some beautiful yellow roses and some perfume. She was followed in literally two mins later by my sister an the twins. I forgot to mention that when I got home at three my friend and her dh came in for a cuppa. So I had all those people this aft. Then we decided to go for pub dinner . Got back from there at 7.30 ish and my dd and two gd,s arrived. Both gd,s bought me flowers and my dd had bought me another charm with mum on it written in different languages. Oh and she bought her big staffie ! Then my ds and his wife arrived and they have bought me some earrings, and the biggest glitter light I have ever seen, it's over 2 ft tall. God knows where I will put it, he is also going to take me out for dinner next Thursday. Then one of my gd,s boyfriends arrived and bought me a very saucy card !
My final visitors left about ten minutes ago. I am exhausted but have had such lovely gifts. My flowers are beautiful and I have so many s. one of my fav things is a little frame with this verse on it from my gd who is 16

Special Nan

Your someone who will always give
Your love and sound advice
If I need help from you
I never have to ask you twice
So thankyou nan, for all the love
You've given selflessly
I'd just like to let you know
You mean the world to me !!

I thinks it's lovely and will take pride of place on my mantelpiece when I take my cards down.
This trip to the hairdresser was very fraught as it was with the friend who has just lost someone to suicide, she was very very emotional and was hard to console her, luckily our hairdresser works from home and no- one else was there. My sister has been in all of our thoughts all day.
Oh and my aunt and uncle bought me a photo of my grandad, my mum , and her brother and sister.
Now you know all of my day !! And the twins ate nearly all my grapes and what they didnt eat one of them picked them off one by one and put them in her little shopping bag to take home !

[Badvoc]

That sound lovely :)
Yes MRI is tomorrow. Off to gp this morning - think I have an ear infection.

[supermariossister]

that sounds lovely Linn and full of people who love you just how it should be. good luck for mri badvoc and at the doctors too, meant what I said yesterday I am always around message if your feeling rubbish even if we just send screaming back and too .

[DowntonTrout]

I've been feeling a bit strange since the funeral.

I can't get my head around mum being cremated. It was what she wanted but it's like she's been wiped off the earth. There is no physical presence, just a box with ashes in. I don't know why I feel like that except perhaps that my dad was buried, there is a grave and that is where he is. Maybe I will feel better when mums ashes are finally placed in the grave with her parents, but still, it's not a body is it? Sorry if that sounds really gruesome. I do feel quite horrified by the thought of cremation. After this, I realise, it's not what I want- if I have the choice.

I had a long chat with my DBro and DSIS after the funeral. It's just us now really, only a couple of elderly distant relatives. Neither of them are married or have children and I kind of feel responsible for them. Silly as I am, by far, the youngest and they are both in their 50s. It just brings home what we will have ahead of us and having been through what we have, watching mum die over the last few weeks, it makes me very fearful.

[Badvoc]

DT - we had dad cremated then interred with a headstone as mum wishes to be with him when her time comes. It's a pretty sobering experience isn't it?
When I picked dads ashes up they out he casket in a green hessian bag...for some reason this made me giggle. The ridiculousness of it.
Mum chose a book type headstone so whenever we go I can't help but imagine when mums name will be alongside my dads :(
My experiences over the last few months have pretty much destroyed any faith I had tbh so I don't care what they do with me. I may specify a humanist funeral, I may not. IMHO funerals are for the living not the dead.
I understand the fearfulness.
My aunt is dying. The "care" she has recieved up to now makes me very worried about the future, both for my mum and for my family.

[t875]

I know what you mean down I felt the same about my mum my dad has the box of ashes and even up to last week I won't walk past the box without kidding my fingers and placing on the box and say 'love you mum'

I really struggled with the whole fact of my mum gone for months I couldn't accept that concept and not that I accept it now but she isn't in my life anymore ( not physically) I know she is spiritually but I have accepted that. Iykwim. I hate it and would want her back in a heart beat.
But just wanted to say I know what you mean. But she's not gone down she will always be with you and your be very surprised how much you are like her.
Maybe get a special candle or a plant you think she'd like for the time being.

Have you got plans for her ashes?
Hugs to you x

lin wow you sure done well for gifts and company. Glad you had a good day! Have another bunch

Ssd and biscuits as always thinking of you and sending you guys big hugs! X

Badvoc good luck for your MRI.
Super, mouse, fod, I'm not, and anyone else I've missed thinking of you all.

X

[t875]

After re reading what I put. I don't want to look like I'm saying I'm I've accepted my mums passing. It still is a shock to me but I guess as times gone on I have had to get used to the adjustment in my life without her. I hate it but I trudge one like she would want me too x

[DowntonTrout]

I know what you mean t875

It's 3.5 years since I lost my dad. Much as it's a cliche, life goes on doesn't it? Some days it still breaks my heart but those days are fewer and fewer. Sometimes I wish with all my heart that I could tell him something important and the things he will never know make me very sad. But life goes on.

Obviously it's much more fresh with mum. But it's different. I feel I "lost" her a long time ago, due to the Alzheimer's. I'm not saying it's any less upsetting, the period she was actively dying was harrowing, but I have found it easier to come to terms with her actual death, if that makes sense. I do look around though and everyone else is carrying on, things for them are back to normal, sometimes I want to blurt out, to anyone, that my mum died three weeks ago. Life isn't back to normal for me, I'm grieving.

[mummylin2495]

I too don't like to think of cremation, but this is what my mum chose although her casket is buried in a full size grave next to my sister. This is where myself and my dh will go but I don't want to be cremated. It fills me with horror. But I still think of it as my mum buried there.

[Badvoc]

Dad wanted a Viking funeral :)
I remember a very drunken conversation where we figured it could done at be the local river and with a nicked shopping trolley :)
God, I miss him.

[mummylin2495]

I never ever got on with my Fil. He was a right miserable b-d and dh wasn't that keen himself. When he died we thought we could take him down town like in the Bernie films and just drop him off the end of the pier

[Badvoc]

My aunt has specified she wants a whicker coffin.
It's only to keep the costs down, bless her.
I wouldn't want to be buried at sea.
I am not enamoured of the sea or anything in it :)

[DowntonTrout]

Mum had a seagrass coffin. It was really beautiful. We were advised against wicker- apparently it creaks when lifted ( think of the old style wicker washing baskets, creak creak, )

It didn't keep costs down though. £675!

[Badvoc]

Blimey I never thought of the creaking issues!
I think she thinks it will be a lot cheaper :( not sure that is the case in reality.
Even the simplest funeral seems to cost ££££

[DowntonTrout]

The seagrass was lovely. Soft and silent.

For anyone looking for something more unusual can I suggest taking a look at Fantasy Coffins of Ghana on Google (images). I know this thread isn't meant to be lighthearted but it really gave us a much needed giggle when I was researching coffins.

[Badvoc]

Oh, I have seen them DT. Amazing!
I keep telling dh I am having darth vaders theme from Star Wars played as I enter once I pop off.
I am only half joking
:)
We need to laugh sometimes DT, and I know our loved ones would want us to x

[ssd]

I agree funerals are for the living, when my mum died I felt straight away she was gone to somewhere else, not here on earth.

my sibling rushed here followed eventually by my other sibling.,I wanted to scream at them where have you's been, when mum was alive and needed you, when I needed you....but I didnt, I smiled and held it all in..now it chokes me and they can on, blissfully unaware and still oblivious to everything I feel. But my mum and dad arent oblivious, they are out there somewhere, seeing it all, am sure of that.

[Badvoc]

Ssd...I strongly feel that it's not what you do when someone is gone...it's what you do/have done when that person was alive that counts.
And you have nothing to reproach yourself for on that score x
I saw a quite in another thread and wanted to share it with you all, hope you don't mind?

I wish you were here, but you're not.
You're there.
And there doesn't know how lucky it is.

Love to all x

[supermariossister]

Hi all sorry I haven't spoke for a while properly how are you all and what is happening with everyone now? Badvoc that quote is how I feel exactly, I don't know where she is so "there" sort of summarises it.

I am doing okay, I didn't think that I would return to a normal state of happy again. but I have,its a different kind of happy where I recognise that there will always be someone missing but it is still a form of being happy.

the bloody dog has dug up half my soil from my planter so got to buy some more before I redo it. monster he is.

[ssd]

that quote is true badvoc , thanks. how are you today after the MRI? hope it went the best it could.

super, you sound a teeny bit better, hope your spirits are starting to lift, although I know this takes a long long time

for everyone here xxx

[supermariossister]

I feel okay, better than I did anyway I have chosen to accept that some things will never change so I shouldn't try to change them and others I need to take a step back from for my own sanity been trying to please too many people at the same time. how are things with you?

[mummylin2495]

badvoc I like that quote. Wish I knew where there was though. Hope you are all feeling ok and taking each day as it comes. Today it's my little twin nieces birthdays, they are two ! But at least I can go and visit them now they are here. SM so glad you feel like you can finally move on. I will be glad when that day comes too.

[ssd]

hi sm, I know what you mean, but (and I don't mean to sound negative), sometimes, in my experience, when I think I'm starting to accept things and move on, something whams me in the face and I realize I haven't moved on anywhere.....something like this happened during the week, when I went onto Facebook, which I usually avoid like the plague, anyway I went on and found pictures of my family I hadn't ever seen with loving comments from a sibling who was never there for them......really upset me, was almost shouting at the screen, took me a while to get back on track, I think some things are just too deep to forget, anyway what I'm trying to say, and doing badly! is don't be too surprised if you find yourself back to square one without any warning, I think its all one step forward and two steps back with grief. x

[gaelicsheep]

Hello. Just to say I can properly join you now as sadly my Mum died a couple of evenings ago. She was at home, surrounded by her close family. I can't say it was peaceful exactly, but she is now at peace and I take comfort from that. I also take comfort from having the privilege of caring for her in her final days.

I'm not sure I'm ready to contribute much to the thread right now, but you were so kind before I wanted to update you. xx