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. 💐

@kittlesticks glad to hear it! It's hard without your mum but know you can go with your gut. We don't always get it right but we can only do our best xx

Just checking in with everyone. How are you all? I know that's a rubbish question. Sending love x

Been reading up.
Sending you all so much love.
Holding you all in my heart.

Thank you to those in this thread. It's good to feel I'm not alone. X

We'll update I've found out my dad has asked his whatever she is to move in with him. She's practically been living there the whole time but it just seems like another step. He disguised it by saying he wanted rid of mums clothes to decorate but I knew what was coming my sisters always try to see the good in him god know why

Oh @mrssunshinexxx I'm so sorry. I'm not surprised you feel the way you do. I understand completely.

[quote kittlesticks]@Ttc42nearly43 your post about looking at photos that were taken before it happened and struggling - even if they aren't in the photo - I'm sort of reassured by what you say because I've been doing the same thing. We have photos around the house just of the kids etc and I've been looking at them just thinking I still had my mum then. I thought I was going mad. [/quote]
@Kittlesticks you definitely are not going mad or if you are then we both are. I keep thinking that am boring people talking about my mum. It seems that mum is all I think about these days she's at the forefront of everything. I look at photos of mum and think no there's no way that you are gone how has this happened? I found an Easter card in mum's room that she made for me prior to going into hospital. I have it next to a picture of mum and my kids on holiday. It's like I look at this picture and think what the hell how is she now gone forever ..... have I missed something and ended up in this parallel universe where my mum is no more ......

@Ttc42nearly43 I agree the alternate universe thing is a very real feeling for me too. It's like I'm the one who has made a mistake and stepped out into the wrong world.

@Openheart01
I'm glad you came here and hope we can offer you some support. We all understand your feeling, as the people here utterly love their parents.
Please be kind to yourself. I know what you mean about feeling zero joy, but some moments will come here and there, if only fleeting.
Maybe you will never be the person you used to be, but that doesn't mean that you will always remain feeling the exact way you do now.
You will feel so very sad.
All of us do.
Everyone here...you will feel sad.
I find that having no expectation of myself is kind. I think to myself, of course I'm sad.
I do chat and connect with my mum daily, and the feeling of her love helps. Sometimes I sob at it. It's okay. We feel how we feel, and it has to be okay. Not the loss, but accepting that we have all of these emotions is okay.
I am not one for toxic positivity. I find it very unhealthy.
Be kind to yourselves, all of you, please, and think what is manageable and acceptable for you in that moment.
Moment to moment. Moment by moment.
I can't even bear to write down the details of my mum and the length, and all of that. It hurts TOO MUCH. So I don't write it. I don't need to.
I found small things helped moment by moment...knitting, reading, yoga, lots of yoga, loving kindness meditation, connecting with nature, drinking herbal teas, taking a grief support herbal medicine, lots and lots of ignatia from the homeopath, reading all of Pema Chodron's books one after another and back again, talking with my dear zen monk, writing my next book, getting on with my work....dare I say it? remote home learning even helped some later on (not at first). Also...as well as doing certain things...important to note are the decisions I make about what I'm NOT going to do. So, I don't shop if I can;t face it. I don't see friends if I don't want to. I see who I see when I want to see them. And it isn't in a cafe, it's in the woods or my back garden.
Basically...personal boundaries. Self kindness. Tending to my broken heart.
And if I can help anyone here, even for a moment, then I am grateful.
I believe and experience life to be so much more than what we realise most often. It is a mystery. And I am committed to looking into that. If I can help anyone, I am here.
Sending you all loving thoughts, and may you find moments of peace, moments of strength, and the every loving presence of your parents' love wrapped around you.

@Spiritwriter absolutely lovely words - I will read over and over. Thank you for writing that. I would like to share more about my mum when I have the strength. I don't right now, and that's ok. X

@kittlesticks I am glad if they can ever bring you any solace. I would hold you close if I could. I do in my heart.
I would love to hear more about your mum when you want to. I love hearing about all the mums here, especially the mums because that is what I am working with personally.
And yes, it's okay. I'm the same, I can't either. Not yet.
I am working on a very painful project to do with this, when the children are at school, and so all the energy writing about it goes into that.
See...I said 'it'. I can't even say the words at times.
And that's okay.
Love to you.

Just want to say that I'm so glad I found this thread last year, when I was in the early days of absolute despair after losing mum.

Love to everyone.

So happy to have found this thread, I lost my dad recently and it's so hard! I am foreign and had to go back to my country which was so complicated and expensive with all the travel restrictions so I couldn't even bring my husband and sons. Funeral was lovely. Came back on Sunday and brought a massive suitcase of memories which I could only check on yesterday and broke down again, miss him so much. Mum has been gone since 2006. Love to you all

That's immensely hard for you @0ntheg0again, I'm so sorry you have all that extra burden on top of losing your dad

@0ntheg0again so sorry you find yourself here but glad you've found the thread. To introduce myself my mum died 8 weeks ago suddenly collapsed with previously undiagnosed heart failure. I have two DCs very young pre school age.

Am wondering when does acceptance come I know there won't be a timeline but when do you actually begin to believe what has happened. 5 months down the road for me am still struggling to digest what has happened to my mum even when am sitting at her graveside it feels like am at someone else's sometimes I think about my mum in the ground and then my mind just knocks that thought away and doesn't let me believe that this is the case.
I don't know what am supposed to do will it get easier with acceptance or will it be harder when you actually let the truth in?

Lost my wonderful mum 6 months ago. I miss her so much. I feel like a shell of myself, it's such a struggle to even get dressed in the mornings. And I'm so tired every single day. She was my best friend and everything feels so weird without her. I don't know what else to say other than I am really hurting without her and it's not easy to juggle life right now - work, TTC (we've been trying years and nothing), looking after dad, dealing with him living alone feeling super guilty about that. Sometimes it feels all too much. Sending love to anyone else missing their parent(s) x

@Ttc42nearly43 I know what you mean about that surreal aspect. Very much so. And my middle son has articulated the same. He's just turned nine.
I look on it like this- it's a complete mystery. Life, and death especially, are a massive mind blowing mystery.
For me...I think accepting it came round about then.
If I even have accepted it. I...think I have. But then, not always.
Also, I listen closely to my mum, as closely as I can, and I believe her. So, that helps enormously.
Please don't pressure yourself in any way. You feel how you feel at any given time. And that's another thing I can say....I think about time differently. The less linear thinking the better, I sort of find.
Don't force anything. You can notice your thoughts and then let them go, like lightly touching bubbles floating past.
That's what I do. If I sink into the whole story it gets heavy and horrid. But then...I have done that.
It's a journey. A process. And there's really no destination.
I don't know if this will help, but it's what I can share with you right now x
Lots of love. X

@Eirefairy I emphasise. In that me and mum are/were best friends. I feel like I've lost part of me, but...I keep going, though last week I could barely get out of bed. Couldn't before half nine each morning.
Go easy on yourself. No pressure. Just kindness. How your mum wants you to be treated.
The ttc must be hard, extra emotion.
And I understand about your dad. Can you place your guilt at all?
We have dad here every tea time through all evening. He's here now watching a film with us. We got through the raw early days together, muddled along. Watched lots of Bob Ross, the happy painter on I player.
Lots of talking, niggling, etc.
It's so hard. Have you spoken with your dad to have a heart to heart?
I wish you peace, and strength. Xx

@Eirefairy so sorry to hear about your mum and also completely empathise with the ttc. It's so tough.
I also worry about my Dad, it's so hard knowing he's sat on his own. My dad was with her when it happened and tried to revive her, so for him it's always been more real I guess @Ttc42nearly43 this is where the non reality comes in for me because sat in my own house I don't have the same obvious notion that mum has gone. I worry I don't believe it yet either.
I often see photos of her (I've put photos in the kids rooms so they don't forget her) and my legs go wobbly and weak, it's like there's a mental to physical break happening. Hard to describe.
@Spiritwriter agree it's a total mystery. I loved my mum so utterly she was a complete force of nature and a huge figure in my life and I keep thinking, how can all of that just be gone? Surely it's leaked out and it's gone somewhere?
Has it just gone? It's the strangest and darkest time in my life.

@Spiritwriter I'm sorry for your loss. Hope you're keeping well. We live with dad at the moment but are moving out soon. He is healthy and independent, but I guess you always worry. That's lovely you can have your dad around at tea times, i am sure he will really appreciate that! I don't particularly live in a family who 'talks'. So i find it tough to be kind to myself. Mum was always the kind one. @kittlesticks I'm sorry to hear of your loss too. Thanks both for the kind words and sending lots of love x

Just found this thread.

So sorry for the pain that everyone is in, but lovely to stumble across such a caring thread.

It must have been so hard not being able to take your family with you @0ntheg0again. How lovely to have a suitcase filled with so many memories. I know it must be hard to look through it though.

I lost my Dad too. Today would have been his 60th birthday.

Think these words explain a lot of what we will all be feeling right now ♥️

Thanks @Ttc42nearly43 yes that's a good summary!
I'm really feeling it today. Weekends are tough, I know why, I would usually have seen my mum at least once every weekend.
My DD is just 2 (mum missed her birthday) and I have put some photos in her room. Today she pointed at the photo and said 'grandma on holiday?'
I just broke down.
I miss her so much, it's like someone is taking something physical from me. I sometimes just feel like part of me is dying, nobody can see, and I have to carry on but I'm thinking 'can't you see?'
The over riding feeling is that my life is worse than it was before, and will be forever, and I will struggle to give my children the same joy my mum gave me. I feel like I will be a worse mum, less than they deserve.

I hope i'm wrong.

@kittlesticks your words resonate with me. It’s been eight months since mum died and nine months since I saw her (she was in hospital with covid for a month) and it still feels so raw. It does indeed feel like part of me is dying and yet everything and everyone else just carries on regardless and I’m expected to just- function. She has become a memory to them.There are places I struggle to go to as she and I were always going there together. I keep reminiscing about the things we did together and the shared experiences, eg DDs first day at school and even just the day to day stuff, seeing her walk up to my house. It just feels so bloody lonely, I have DH, DD, extended family and friends but it’s not the same. No one cares about me or checks in with me the way that mum did. DD is now mid teens and naturally pulling away, before mum died I felt that because of that we had more time together. So now I just feel alone, bereft and cheated. I don’t feel I’ve been emotionally available to DD through her GCSEs or in general. My grief feels complicated because of the awful way she died and that we weren’t allowed to be with her in that month. I keep thinking how awful it must have been for her and how she was cheated out of a decade or more of life expectancy. To top it all we moved to a new house which is very lovely but all my memories of her are in the old one, mums house was a council house so we don’t have that. I feel like everything has been ripped away and I worry that if she is still nearby she won’t be able to find us. Which sounds silly I know but the other option is oblivion which is just so depressing. My life has just been thrown off kilter.