For Anyone Needing Support After Losing A Parent. Very Supportive Thread

[Mummylin]

Luckily I was keeping my eye on the thread so it would of been ok. Hopefully this new thread will once again bring comfort to newly bereaved.
To the newest posters, I wish you all the best in the coming weeks / months.
And to the longer term posters, thankyou for being such a support to each other. 💐

Hi, I hope you don’t mind me joining.

My mum passed away 5 weeks ago and I am devastated. I just feel so bereft. It seems to hit me in waves. If I’m busy with my girls I can cope better - I still think about her a lot and find myself saying “love you mum” under my breath or in my head.

But I manage. Then it hits me all over again? As though it’s the first time I’ve realised that she isn’t coming back.

We had an awful year leading up to her death. She had vascular dementia and we tried to move her to a care home but she became so distressed that she had to go to hospital. After that she was in and out of various care homes and hospital. We finally got her into her final home in April and we were so excited for the future - restrictions were lifting, we were allowed to visit. We planned days out etc. But she stopped eating, became incontinent, lost her mobility all within 3 weeks. I feel she gave up. She then died just 5 weeks after moving - she died of sepsis following pneumonia.

I was with her every day. I used to go to her care home to help her eat and I just loved seeing her. It was hard - I have two kids and work full time. But I wasn’t resentful. I was desperate to keep her and feel quite selfish thinking that I really pushed her to eat when she probably didn’t really want it 😔

I wasn’t read to let her go. I wanted time with her to make some more happy memories after such a shitty year. I just want my mum back.

I’m so sorry you are all going through similar.

We’ve had her funeral, emptied her house, picked her headstone, cancelled most things that she paid for etc. All that’s left to do is pay some final bills in the next week. Then that’s it.

I miss phoning to find out how she is. I miss seeing her and doing things for her. Our life revolves around her in the last 2 -3 years - she would have hated that. She really would have - but now it’s so empty. Obviously I’m a busy mum so I don’t mean my life is empty but there is that huge huge void.

My dad died on Monday. I don't think it has really sunk in properly yet. I feel like I am walking about in a trance most of the time

My mum died on Friday morning. Totally out of the blue and almost instantly. She was pretty young. I spoke to her Wednesday. A totally normal conversation about the mundanities of life where she said she jad't been feeling well, but because I'm a busy working mum to three and they were all islaoting at home, I was stressed. I don't think I really listened to her. And now she's gone. After she died I went back with my step dad to her home. My childhood home. And the vomit was still there on the carpet. Her handbag on the table. A certificate she had earned the day before on the side. A life totally interrupted and left as if to be picked up at any moment. But do devastatingly left aside. Those interruptions are destroying me. Where do I go from here? I have three kids aged 8 and under. My husband works away running his own business and it's the worst time for him. The holidays was always. A juggle for me and my own work and now this. I'm also feeling ill with a cold that has just come on. How do I get up every day and just keep going when even before this horror I was only just hanging on? It's horrific. I keep thinking back to all the things in her life just waiting for her to come back and she just won't. It's too much to bear

@bangwhistle @clpsmum @harverina I am so sorry for your losses.
I can totally relate to the trance like feeling. @bangwhistle I also went to the place my mum suddenly died and saw the handbag and phone just lying there. It sounds like we may have similar stories there. My mum died of a heart aneurysm - my kids are 4 and 2.
I'm 6 weeks in and can only say I just did 30 minutes at a time. I now do one day at a time.
I'm thinking of you all.

@bangwhistle
Am sorry to hear what has happened to your lovely mum. My advice to you would be if you can take time off work then do it. I had 4 1/2 months off and currently returning on a phased return but I have realised that I can't go back to my old job for now I work with elderly people and people at the end of their lives. I thought that going back I would feel that am helping other people to give me a sense of purpose but it hasn't worked like that I just want to avoid it all. Luckily I have a great manager who is trying to get me another position for 6 months but a huge pay drop however am going to take it if it means that I can stay in work and not have as much emotional stress. Speak with your GP tell them what has happened and ask how they can support you. You can't do it all and if you can take work out of the equation then you can just focus on grieving the loss of your mum and your children.

Use Cruse Bereavement they have a helpline number and were a lifeline for me. Talk about your mum to anyone who will listen I used to phone friends and family everyday more than once for emotional support. Do you have someone you are particularly close with that you can lean on? I have my aunt my mum's sister. I don't see her much but she will make time for me if I need her. Also you need someone who is less emotionally attached my work colleagues were amazing and listened for many hours with me crying down the phone to them.
My mum died on 5th March after 11 days fighting a bad leg infection mum developed sepsis in hospital and passed away with kidney failure aged 66.
@harverina my mum was also in a care home but I have a different experience. The doors were closed and I could only see mum once per week at a scheduled visit behind a plastic screen I couldn't touch her. I finally got to hug her on my 43rd birthday when I begged the charge nurse in the hospital to let me see her. I was there with her for the last 9 days of her life fighting for them to do everything they could to save her but they could only do so much because of mum's weight and underlying medical conditions. Put simply she became very unwell in the care home and they were too slow getting her the medical help she needed. The GP is also responsible for this but i have lodged various complaints am not letting mum go just yet and am not letting them forget her.

@clpsmum the trance thing I think is shock you have the immediate shock when you see that your parent has died then the shock feeling does persistent as it is very difficult for your mind to process what has happened. I was there with mum in hospital but sadly had stepped out the room to allow the nurses to giver her personal care when she took her last breath it was so silent even the nurses didn't realise she has slipped away. I hate that I wasn't holding her hand.

Nearly 5 months on I still cry most days. I think about my mum all of the time. I know that she is gone but I don't want to accept the fact that I will never see her again. I grieve more in private now as I don't want to bother people but am waiting for more counselling from Cruse Bereavement. They also have a lot of information on their website to help you understand what you are feeling.

Seems that we are all in this together.

www.cruse.org.uk/

www.cruse.org.uk/get-help/about-grief/coping-death-parent

@harverina
@clpsmum
@bangwhistle

for all of you. I'm so sorry you find yourselves in this new, alien place but everyone here will support you. We're all helping each other.

harverina what you say about the sudden void is so true. I've had to face up to that after losing my mum (coming up to 10 months ago now, still unbelievable in many ways), and feeling as though my life had been emptied of all meaning and purpose at a single stroke. It's only very recently, with counselling, that I've started to feel like a whole person again.

I'm also having grief counselling which I recommend. It means I can vent stuff I'm can't really say in front of my Dad.

I also try to grieve in private I just feel a burden I feel no one else is hurting like I am in the terms of losing my mum. My dad moved another woman 6 months after she died they had been married for 40 years so that tells me all I need to know. And my 2 sisters weren't anywhere near on the same level as closeness as we were. None of my friends have lost parents so I feel so alone, it's been 15 months since she died there hasn't been a day go by I haven't sobbed and sobbed usually multiple times it is the most exhausting emotion I have ever experienced. I would do ANYTHING to bring her back

@mrssunshinexxx I'm so sorry. Feeling alone in it must be so awful. I also go to cry on my own. I talk to my mum all the time. I have told the universe multiple times that I just would do anything for one last moment with my Mum.

Can I ask any of you who have returned to work since your loss, how you've coped? I have been back at work around a week and today I had an awful day. It's as if my grief is trying to escape through my work mask, if I let it slip. I want to grieve but I also want to work and the two things are fighting each other.
I had an awful headache this afternoon and I had to pull over on the way home because I was sobbing.

I went back to work after a week but only as we still WFH (and I'm only 3 days per week)

I have no idea when I'd have felt ready to go back to the office.

If you need more time @kittlesticks then take it. Get signed off if need be. It's time to be a little selfish and look after yourself

I’m still off 5 weeks on. My mum died on 18 June. I was in work when I got the call to go to the hospital. Sadly I didn’t make it in time. My sister had been with her and left 20 minutes before I got the call. She also went straight back but also didn’t make it in time 😔

I have a sick line for another 4 weeks from today. I can’t face it just now. I work full time in quite a full on job.

@Brillig I’ve been thinking about counselling - I need to look in to it. I’m guessing it’s not available on the nhs.

@Ttc42nearly43
I am so sorry you weren’t able to spend a lot of time with your mum. My mum moved from hospital in April to the care home. We saw her twice weekly in hospital (once per week for my sister and I) before she moved to the care. Restrictions when she moved meant we could still see her once per week each, plus I took my girls down weekly for a garden visit until she really deteriorated. In hospital we could be with her once per day each. I’m so grateful that was able to spend so much time with her.

I was due to visit at 4pm that day and she died at 2.50pm. My sister left the hospital car park at 2.11pm. I got the call at 2.20pm. My sister had visited for her hour slot, kissed her goodbye, told her she loved her and said “harverina will be here at 4” my mum was tired but bright when awake. We didn’t for a second think that would be the last time we would see her alive 😔

@clpsmum and @bangwhistle one of my best friends lost her dad 3 years ago. On the night that mum died she promised me I wouldn’t ever feel like I did that night. My grief scared me. She promised me that with every passing day it would be more - bearable? Not sure if that’s the right word. I struggle to know how to describe it because 5 weeks on I still feel utterly heartbroken and bereft. But that first few days, and first week was utter torture. I was in physical pain. My stomach was in turmoil. It was awful, and I was so taken aback by the depth of my grief and how painful it was.

I promise you that you won’t always feel like that - or at least that’s my experience and that’s what other close friends have told me.

During those early days I couldn’t do anything, and I mean anything, without thinking of my mum. She consumed my every thought. In the shower - mum. Drying my hair - mum. Making dinner - mum. Everything.

While I still think about her every single day multiple times, it doesn’t consume me as much as it did. I am able to function better now for sure. It’s always present but not as intense as it was. Planning my mums funeral and also the funeral itself was a good distraction too. We wanted her to be proud of what we organised so I threw myself into the organising.

Thanks all. I had 4 weeks off - I went back about a week after the funeral. Maybe it's too soon.
@harverina I'm so sorry for your loss. It's 6 weeks ago for me.

@kittlesticks

I'm on a 4 week phased return just started week 3 today. It's been tough I feel really unmotivated. Am changing jobs for approx 6 months. My current job is super stressful and am just not strong enough to go back to that just yet. I have cried a bit at work not huge sobbing episodes more a few years spilling out at my desk and just feeling very sad. The sobbing episodes I tend to have alone at home they come randomly sometimes with a trigger like a song or looking at photos and other times without much warning. I remember my mum saying that she thought my job was too much for me and that I should change it she told me that so many times so I will try the change as she suggested and see how it goes.
I hope things get easier for you in regards to being back at work am sure that through time it will but in the meantime if you need to take time out to cry, then that just what's going to have to happen. Let the emotional flood gates open then once you feel a bit more stable get back to your work. I was at a garden party yesterday at my neighbours house and I found myself leaving the party for a bit and coming back to mine for a cry. I didn't want to go back again but I thought come on I need to do this. I need to try to live a bit as I know that this is what my mum would want. Am sure your mum would want that too so please don't be hard on urself if you have plenty of wobbles. I have been in tears in meetings with my boss 2 weeks in a row. At first I felt disappointed with myself that am not stronger but hey this is who I'm now and that just the way it is. You'll get there we all will it's just so bloody hard that it feels like the road is never ending and the longing to see mum goes on forever. Nearly 5 months on its as strong as ever.
I feel that the stronger the bond the harder you grieve and all of us who have chosen to share our stories here and seek comfort in each other we have such a strong bond with our mum or dad that it literally floors you and you get up limping about the place feeling like your heart has broken because it basically has but we all need to keep going. There quite simply is no other choice. I try to carry on for mum and my kids.

I am working part time at the moment but as I work in education it's generally expected that I will be full time in September.
Thanks for your reply @Ttc42nearly43 I completely know what you mean about 'no, I need to do this.' We have a few social things coming up in August and I want to push myself to do them too.
My mum was very social and even tho we never had that final talk as none of us knew this was coming, I know she would have told me to live my life.

Hi all, I lost my dearest dad yesterday to acute pancreatitis after two weeks illness in an ICU unit. Still in shock as he was pretty fit for a 76 year old before it struck suddenly. I’ll read the thread and update more when I can x

Hi everyone. Coming back in to the fold. Some of you know I come in and out. Sometimes I find it so hard I just drift away.
As I'm typing this on my phone, I find it tricky to remember all the names to tag, so I'm sorry about that, but my heart is tugged and fully with you in your pain.
I am so sorry. For all your losses.
The vomit on the floor, the phone...they are hard images to process. My heart goes out to you.
@mrssunshinexxx and @Brillig I know we feel so similar about our mums.
I am finding it dreadfully hard. How on earth did I get through last summer, I keep wondering. This summer feels so void. A massive hole. I don't want to go anywhere with my children! It hurts too much, though I know mum wouldn't want that.
I just walk with them and play at home.
Sigh.
The living each moment at a time seems to be the way for me,too.
And I still talk with my mum, and tell her I miss her and love her.
I...don't know what else to say. There's so much.
I wish I had the comfort of sisters, or aunts, or a mother in law I was close to. I'm sure that would make it easier in some way. Maybe not. I don't know.
I don't know anything anymore!

Lovely to see you back @Spiritwriter. Sorry you're going through a tough patch. This grief business waxes and wanes so strangely, doesn't it? Hugs from me.

I mean lovely to see you, obviously. Not lovely that you feel the need to be here.....

@Brillig I know what you mean. And thanks so much.
Yes, it's strange indeed. I have got to thinking about things differently. Like time. It's never very far away, someone said to me the other week. So true.

@Sparticle I'm so sorry 😞 just an awful time - do come back and say more if and when you feel ready.
@Spiritwriter hello from me, I'm sorry - I lost my mum suddenly just over 6 weeks ago - it feels crazy to even type it.

Sending strength your way @sparticle. It's all a blur in the first few days but do try to look after yourself. Eat and drink, and sleep if you can.

@Sparticle I second what @Brillig says. Go so, so easy on yourself. Love to you. May you all find some peace XXX