Support For Anyone Coping With The Loss Of A Parent

[Mummylin]

Here we are on a new thread for a new year.
Hopefully we can bring some comfort to those who are mourning their Mum / Dad.

@MegaBat - it’s the waiting and the disbelief that this is really happening that keeps me awake. I am with you on wanting definitive answers! We just lurch from one day to the next. Thinking of you.

I'm still not quite convinced mum has gone. It's been so odd not going to visit her after all this time and everything is suspended. We were waiting for this for 12 weeks and now it's come, it doesn't feel at all right. I have the added problem of a sister who doesn't speak to me and who didn't speak to mum for the past seven years but made some half hearted attempts to see her recently. I had to do absolutely everything around this and I know that if she dares turn up at the funeral I will lose the plot. I so don't want to, but when I think of poor mum, old, ill and fragile for the last 2 or 3 years just wishing she would get a call or a visit, I want to explode. My emotions are all over the place right now.

lepetit you are going through loads. My ma died in November and I don’t yet understand she’s gone at all. So sorry about your sister. So many families have this - I have an estranged sibling who my ma asked not to be told until after her funeral. difficult. Good luck for the funeral

@Nankles well, I can say hand on heart I am right with you here and I appreciate how you feel as I feel it too. It's like I'm stood on a beach and in the distance I can see, I dunno, a tsunami. It's coming. And I can't get off the beach. It's going to hit me and I can't escape. That's what it feels like for me.

@Lepetitpiggy so sorry x

@HeronLanyon hope you're ok

Megabat your post was mine 2 years ago, you'll find a new normal and won't always be in floods of tears though it's difficult to imagine that you'll ever stop crying right now. The fear of my mum dying was absolutely the worst feeling. You're with her, she knows how much she's adored and you are doing everything you can at this time. My heart goes out to you.

So this morning I am due to collect the death certificate from the doctor who registered it. And of course, our car, which is nearing the end of its mechanical life, has decided to not play! I've asked eldest dd to get it for me, bless her, she has been amazing though all this and is completely devastated as she was incredibly close to her granny. Its all still a bit odd - waking up with that second of thinking I must get up and go and see her...
I'm stressing about the funeral too. if my vile sister does turn up, what will I do? I'm half tempted to just say it's a private family funeral and just have me, dh and the children there - to be honest there are very few left - a couple of cousins who seem to want me to calm down and forgive my bitch sister and two very old, but lovely, aunts. She didn't want a fuss, so I have to make a decision soon.

lepetitpiggy your funeral decision is difficult. Try to fast forward (very difficult) to say next year, you thinking back in the funeral. All you can do now is what she would have wanted as best you can and also what you will feel was the right send off for her.
We were lucky in that we had a chat with my ma a few years ago about everything. We knew she wanted the smallest simplest funeral imaginable. Followed later by the biggest memorial party for all of her friends. Both worked well. Vicar said it had been his favourite funeral last year as was so small (just siblings and partners) we were all completely ourselves and even had a bit of a laugh about things. His reading was irreverent in the right way with some jokes - notnsure we could have done that with non family there. Felt intimate and uplifting.
In absence of her clear wishes all you can do is do what feels best.

If your sister does attend that won’t change the fact that she has been ‘crap/difficult/absent’ recently. No one will think that. It might be thought how proper of the rest of the family to acknowledge her/put the crap to one side and allow her to mourn her mum and perhaps start to understand how crap she has been. It’s a big thing not to go to your mums funeral. If she comes or is invited you just need to have your head in a place where you don’t blame or confront her. Just know the truth deep inside (everyone else will too). If it were me I would have dp or close friend on ‘sister watch’ to avoid getting stuck talking to her etc. It’s a tough call but could be right ???
Good luck.

It's my birthday today and I'm struggling. I'd normally have booked the day off work, gone for a lovely long walk with our dog this morning and then spent a couple of hours in the afternoon with my dad, but I can't do either :( We're going out for a meal this evening but I've got all day stuck at home working, with a load of builders hammering upstairs. Uff.

I know. DH and eldest dd are all saying that I have to ignore her and allow her to feel how she has been. The problem I have is that I want to say a eulogy which she will disagree with - she has this attitude that absolutely everything that went wrong in her life is my mothers fault - she wasn't a cake baking, fabulous mother but I understand a lot more now than the sister ever bothered to try to about why, so I feel I am in a position to say appropriate things that I know she will be unpleasant about. Its really difficult having to think about all this on top of all the practical stuff!

spiderlight happy birthday
Its sad when it's not the same, my first birthday without my dad fell on fathers day which was abit shit! I spent the morning crying as I always visited dad bright and early on fathers day with a bag of goodies.
Are u able to escape to the shop and buy something nice to eat for lunch? I feel for you, I hope you can enjoy your meal tonight.

I have lovely soup left over from last night so I can have that for lunch, and I have cracked open the biscuits we bought for the builders.

DH and DS have both very carefully not said 'Happy birthday' to me, which is thoughtful but also a bit odd.

lepetitpiggy snap ! We wrote vicar’s eulogy as he didn’t know her then helped for memorial eulogies and I spoke also. My sibling didn’t really like my ma very much and the other was absent at mas request and then there was me for whom she was a ‘best friend’. My sibling and I agreed what would be said about absent sibling (‘not able to be there’) and then I checked with sibling about what planning to say where I thought might cause upset.

I guess you can’t really do that. Are you able to leave some things unsaid which would identify the crap ness of your sister ? Do they need to be said when everyone will know (or the people for whom it is important the truth is known)? Rather than outright ‘mum was loving and caring’ if you think your sister will disrupt by saying ‘no she fng wasn’t to me’ (!?) ‘mum was often loving and caring’ or ‘mum was so often loving and caring’ type wording??
Is it possible to contact your sister to say obviously her relationship with your ma was difficult but that this is a funeral and you will be saying lovely things about her ??? I slightly had to do that with my sibling although there had been some reconciliation recently.
Bloody hell ‘nowt as queer as families, eh?’
Good luck.

Bloody right! I have no wish to contact her as she has deliberately and carefully not contacted me since it all happened. She did visit her once the nursing home and spent most of the 20 minutes there telling the manager what a dreadful life she'd had.
I am planning to say that mum had a difficult life - as she really did - which made her sometimes a difficult person but she loved her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, kind of thing, with a few stories thrown in.

Arghhhhh!!

@QueenOfIce thank you, that's kind. She's still here and I'm run ragged but meh. Wouldn't have it any other way. How are you feeling now? In very sorry for what you've been through. Could you cope ok afterwards?

Spiderlight I hope your day is as good as it can be.

The bad weather/ice has cleared here so much easier to get around which has brightened my mood, and tomorrow I start a new volunteering job for 2 days a week so I’m hoping some routine will help too. Feeling better today and looking forward to it

Thinking of all the new posters at this very sad time of their lives. It is hard to adjust, and in the beginning it seems that life will never be good again. It will, but it won't be the same obviously , but in time it becomes easier to cope and it also becomes easier to accept what has happened. Try not to look too far forward for now, just get through day by day. It will get easier, but it takes a while. Remember " the price we pay for love is grief " and I think that is true. 💐

Lovely words Mummylin.
I hope you have as lovely a day as you can Spider. Petitpiggy, it's hard isn't it? I found seeing the death certificate was very tough as it formalised everything. I went to get her final things from the nursing home today and was very tearful thinking back to a week ago when she was still there. I shared some hugs and tears with the staff who were wonderful throughout her time there. I kept on looking at her bed, remembering her there and wanting to kiss her. I have a sibling who has shown very little support throughout. I know that they are going to make things very hard. When I mentioned it to a friend this morning she said something lovely along the lines of 'Go towards the light (positivity) and leave the shadows (negativity) behind.
This weather is really making things seem much sadder too.
Sending hugs to you all.

@MegaBat I'm glad she's still with you, I had no idea what to expect to be honest I knew I'd be devastated but I hadn't experienced a bereavement like this before. It hit me like a train. I was 39 mum was 68 and I felt completely robbed. I cried a lot and my chest hurt, it sounds so over the top but I felt literally heartbroken. It took me about 7 weeks to stop crying everyday at some point. I noticed that like many other posters have described moments would come in waves. Usually in public!

I've just had her 2 yr anniversary and found this one harder than the first. I don't think I will ever not have moments where I don't cry about mum, sometimes it's a few tears sometimes I breakdown. It's normal and my grief has sort of found a place where it's resides in me a little more comfortably.

However you are feeling is normal for you. My brother suppressed his feelings whereas I tried to face it head on because I couldn't face years of feeling so empty and overwhelmed by my grief. In the main I'm doing well mum wanted me to live my best life and I want to honour her memory by doing that. I allow my moments when they come and I accept them for what they are and they subside quicker than they did. My brother and I would talk about the funny moments and between the tears we would laugh which felt good.

Grief is a lonely place I found, I hope you have people around you that will support you as you navigate your way through your own grief. Just remember to be gentle with yourself.

I feel really odd because I haven't been very upset yet and I don't understand why. I was with my mum when she died at new year, the funeral was almost 2 weeks ago and I'm supporting my dad as best I can but I haven't really cried and I feel like that must make me a heartless person.

The last few days I've felt really down, worn out and basically crap with random things like cold sores, swollen glands and mouth ulcers but I've still not got upset. I really must be a horrible person.

@poppym12 you are not a horrible person or heartless of course you aren’t. Sometimes the grief is too much for tears or it’s so unreal you can’t process it. Some people don’t naturally cry lots but the pain is inside. I felt like I should be demonstrating this huge loss but it’s not how I am. I did feel it hugely and personally and I do cry but not in the way you think grief should be portrayed like you see in films etc.
You need to look after yourself and don’t judge how you feel I was so tired for weeks after and numb. Sorry you are here and having to navigate your way through such hard times

Mummylin Thank you for writing those beautiful words, it was exactly what I needed to read tonight.
Sending hugs to everyone going through these terrible times x

thank you bagpuss.

Poppym12. Don’t even think that. Be gentle with yourself and let yourself feel however you feel. My ma died in November. I have not really processed any of it at all yet. I have not had much crying at all - first night I howled but since then not much.
I am thinking it happens differently for us all and personally I can feel my emotions and understanding beginning to shift a bit and I have had some tears just this last week.
And yes the exhaustion is overwhelming sometimes isn’t it ?

Poppym12, I have had bouts of crying and bouts of weird euphoria and even moments when I forget, and it's only been 4 days. It's so strange how the brain processes it all.

I cant believe how well I am sleeping now though - three months of waiting for a call each night must have affected me more than I realised. I had sleeping tablets for a while but now I'm just BAM - out for the count each ight without anything!
Off to the registry office today.
Love to everyone

@poppym12 Your grief is all there - it's just your mind trying to protect you by not overwhelming you with it. I don't know if this will help but when my mum died I was like you - very very numb, couldn't cry and was really worried about it. One night I had a very vivid dream in which I was going down in a dark lift, and when the doors opened I felt this huge, overwhelming, indescribable blast of grief. I was 'allowed' to feel it for just a few seconds, and then the lift doors opened and I was taken up again. I woke up tearful and it felt as if it was my mind telling me that it was only letting me feel as much as I could cope with at that time. I'd grieved for a long time while she was ill and it would have been too much to feel it all while I was trying to keep my dad going.

It was very different when my dad died in December, with a lot more tears and raw grief. You can only feel what you feel. Try not to overthink it xx