My mum is dying of COVID, I am destroyed

[Bereftmypoormum]

My darling mum is only 70 and was in good health. She caught the virus in December and has been hospitalised for 5 weeks. She needed pressurised oxygen at the beginning but was then stepped down and they were preparing for discharge in the new year. At that time she still had a lot of COVID lung damage. She then got a secondary bacterial pneumonia and has been ventilated for a few days. She’s not responding, now other organs are failing and it is likely they will withdraw treatment today.

I feel so unbearably sad for her. To have this happen, to be without us all these weeks as we weren’t allowed to visit on the COVID ward. To be getting ready to go home then another week of slow deterioration and then a sepsis. And now she’s going to die.

I saw her the last few days, she’s starting to look like she’s dying, it’s like torture.

Poor teen DD is terribly upset, mum was like a third parent to her. We were so close, I keep seeing mum in her house, or walking around the town with me, our favourite coffee shops, and then think I’ll never be able to do any of that with her again. She was the person I’d call with good or bad news, my true friend. DH and DD are wonderful but how will I cope without her?

I'm so sorry to read this

This is very sad,I hope you will be okfor your mother

So sorry op but very glad you were able to be with her.

I'm so sorry 💐

I’m so sorry. Thinking of you 💐

so sorry op

I'm so sorry OP, I just wanted to reach out as my beautiful nanna died 2 days ago of COVID, she was a mum to me, brought me up and lived with us for the last 6 years so we were very close. She went into hospital with something unrelated, got covid and died 10 days later. The grief is unbareable, I cant image life without her but I'm also excepting that this is a normal reaction. My DD 17 also saw my nanna which upset her terribly but she wanted to say her goodbye in her own way. Im sending you a virtual hug and if you want to chat please reach out. Take care of yourself

I’m so sorry. I don’t think there can be anything anyone can say that can help. I wish that there was. It’s just very very sad.
💐💐

So sorry for you're loss

So sorry to hear about your mum. Take care

Ah op just read your latest post. I'm so so sorry for your loss.

Thank you for all the support and to those of you who shared your stories. So many of us experiencing grief.

Had a weird day today, woke up and it hit me like a train. Howled and sobbed. I called the bereavement office about her effects and death cert. DD very sad today and was hard to listen to her despair and raw grief.

My mind has been taken up with worrying about arranging funeral, dying intestate, when to tell the council:about the little house she’s lived in since she was a small child. The fear they’ll tell me to clear it in two weeks and we won’t have even had the funeral. Then worrying about work and all the pressure my being away is piling onto colleagues (who have been lovely). My concentration and stress is so awful I can’t imagine how I’ll be able to work in the same area again.

It also feels less real this evening. I can no longer visualise or hear her. I feel a bit out of body. Can’t cry.

I'm so sorry OP. She'll come to you again in your memories. My grandfather died in 2014, but a few months ago I would have swore blind that he was sat with me in the car. It was actually the smell of the hand sanitiser I'd just used but my word it triggered such a strong response. Smelt just like him and his warmth and humour and love came sweeping back too. His crooked smile and oddly flat thumb nails and his walking stick with the top smoothed out from swinging it in his hand... I'm not sad anymore. I miss him terribly but I treasure him too. The rawness a pain will fade, but the love you'll feel forever.

So sorry

The fact that life goes on is just awful! I've been there when you just need the world to stop for a moment. Please just take care of yourself right now.
And just a heads up- there will be moments where you feel absolutely fine, like your getting back to your normal self and then you will hear a song or quote, hear a song, watch a movie and a flood of emotions will come back up!! I just want you to be prepared in a way because I never was!

I'm so sorry. Not being able to visualise or hear her is just your brain protecting you in the short term. You will remember her accurately and wonderfully again.

I’m so sorry bereft. Sending love.

Oh Bereft, I’m so so sorry.

I thought I’d respond to your latest post about not being able to visualise her. This is temporary, while you go through the worst of the grief. In the coming days, weeks and months you will be able to think of her clearly again.

You will never stop loving her, and some people say that is what grief is-love with nowhere to go. I found that it helped me to separate the love I had for my lost one from the feeling of loss. This let me feel the love and direct to them, even back through the past, so it didn’t feel like it was ‘stuck’ inside me with nowhere to go, it was radiating out from me in the same way it always had, the only difference was that it was directed to someone who lived inside me now, always with me in my memories and in the way I acted out the little quirks I’d picked up from them, and the way I carried myself because of the confidence they instilled in me and the love they gave me.

I think sometimes when people are grieving they can try and unsuccessfully and painfully put a stopper in this feeling of love because they think there’s nowhere for it to go but in reality it’s going to the same place it always did, your mum, wherever she may be. She’s as real as ever in the sense that she existed, she loved you, and she helped you become the person you are today. You can still powerfully love someone who isn’t physically here.

You have such a difficult time coming up but I promise it will get easier. It will still hurt, but it will hurt less often. You’ll never stop loving her, but in time that will start to become a joyous feeling rather than a debilitatingly painful one, even if that sounds unimaginable now. You’ll be able to remember all the great times you had with your mum without the excruciating pain you’re feeling now, I promise. I also suggest Googling the ‘ball and box’ grief analogy.

All my love and best wishes to you and your daughter xxx

I'm so very sorry that you've lost your lovely Mum, it's unbearably painful I know.

On a practical note, about her house, you mention council, I think you can probably pay a couple of weeks rent to get extra time to deal with it all, if you can afford that.

It’s hit me so hard this morning I feel like I’ve been punched. Oh mum I’m never going to see you again and I need you. It’s so unfair, you had more to do, you were well. It’s so painful sitting in the dark, DH had to go to work, DD asleep. I feel so alone and I just want my mum..

I'm so sorry OP for you and your teenage DD

There are no words. Your mum will know that you have been there for her and how much she is loved by you and your family.

I'm sending virtual hugs to you and having a little cry too. It's so sad. This terrible virus has robbed you and your family of more precious moments 💐

There are no words that can be said that will comfort you right now.

I hope you don't mind me saying this - your love and devotion to your Mum shines through in your posts. She must have been a truly special lady.

I hope you and your DD manage the coming weeks and months ok.

Take care x