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. 💐

I hope you don't mind me joining. I lost my lovely mum to cancer on the 2nd January. She was only 60.
She was admitted into hospital at the beginning of November with Pneumonia. It was only then they found out about her Cancer. After 1 week and against all the doctors advice she discharged herself from hospital. She came to live with me as her house wasn't am option. Together with my dsis and my dad we nursed her until she died, only 8 weeks later.
I was the strong one when she was here. Dad and dsis would often be upset and unable to deal with doctors calls etc.
Since losing mum I am a mess.
My emotions vary from disbelief to anger, crying so hard I've almost given myself panic attacks, despair etc.
It just all happened so quickly.
I wouldn't have changed looking after mum for anything in the world. The doctors had wanted to keep her in the main hospital for a bit and then move her to a community hospital. So given the situation we would have hardly seen her and she would have been alone for most of it.
But I can't get to happy memories. All my memories are clouded by how sick she was at the end. How do you do this? If you've nursed someone right to the point of death how do you look past that to remember the person that they were before?
Please help me to make sense of it all.

@1990shopefulftm I also wonder how I will tell my daughter

Hi @fourandahalfkids I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say other than the old cliche in time better memories will come back it is still so raw for you and seeing someone deteriorate before you and that being your mum not just anyone it's hideous. Life is so cruel a lot of th time none of it makes any sense to me anymore I think I might be heading into depression I feel completely out of it and so low my mum died 10 months ago but I think it's only really beginning to hit me now

@fourandahalfkids I’m so sorry for you loss. I really understand how you are feeling.

I lost my Dad in May 2020 under very similar circumstances and nursed him with the rest of my family until the end. It was so traumatic, surreal and upsetting. I think about it a lot... especially in the months that followed. It was all I thought about. I really just wasn’t prepared for the process or stages of watching someone die.

Over time though, I realise that what we gave my dad was a lovely death. He died at home, surrounded by people that loved him and that’s exactly what he would have wanted.

I can’t say time is a healer yet. My grief is still very much on the surface. I haven’t been able to read any of the messages he sent me yet. I can look at photos though and smile at the memories we shared.

I feel like I could curl up some days and never come out, but he would be so angry to think that his death had ruined my life, so I put one foot in front of the other and make sure I do something every day that makes me happy.

It’s just the most awful thing to happen. Be gentle with yourself. I really do think you just have to ride the waves and hope you come out on top.

Sending you virtual hugs x

A while after my Dad died I had counselling, and I had done it in the past too. I wouldn't hesitate to go back if I needed it again (which is likely, it's still early days with Mum).

It really does help, especially when you feel like nobody around you gets it or wants to hear it. It has to come out somewhere. And it can help you find ways to cope. Just something to consider for anyone who is really struggling and hasn't tried it yet.

Ah, the memories of suffering. That is tough. Yes. I know that @fourandahalfkids
I am so sorry for yiur loss, and your mum was so young. 😔 Sounds like she wanted to just be with her loved ones.
My mum was not quite 72. So... Older, but not old enough in my eyes. And yes, me and my dad were with her as she journeyed. And to see her decline... Horrifying. But, so much worse for mum, as she had this hideous illness a long time, with it really getting a grip in the last year, year and a half.
It is traumatic. Of that, there is no doubt. My mum is my best friend and everything to me. Closest relationship ever. Favourite person to be with.
How have I coped? Well..... Talking, crying, reaching out to my dad and husband, and friends who care. Forget the ones who don't make you feel better.
Rescue remedy drops. Homeopathy. I have a new homeopath, as my old one pretty much dumped me when I needed her. Yep. Thanks for that!
Yoga. Lots of breath work. Yoga for grief.
TALKING TO MUM. number one help. LISTENING TO MUM. again... Number one help.
Because.... That really, really is the place where I get to release the horror of the disease.
And... I keep going round that cycle... Talking, crying, sorting, remedy, yoga, walking, talking... And so on.
Sitting in deeply to my spiritual work Really Does Help.
I tentatively say this helps my dad too. He is an aetheist. But... He has experienced things now... And he does talk to mum.
But... It deeply upset him too, the disease.
It will ease in time.... A balance of allowing that process, and finding healthful distractions whilst still accepting your loss is important. IMO. That's what I can say from my experience.

Lots of love xxx
@mrssunshinexxx thinking of you 🙏 anything I can ever do to help, please call. X

Thank you @Spiritwriter i did a little yoga when pregnant and I've been thinking of taking it more seriously I want to make the time to do it especially now we are TTC no 2 I want to look after my body x

Pregnancy yoga is marvellous. Yoga in general is marvellous. A supportive, healthful practice.
Much love to you x
That you are ttc is a good sign of your managing xxx your mum will be thrilled 🙏

@fourandahalfkids You’ve said all the things I feel, exactly as I feel them too. My darling mum lived in her own home, pottering about, looking after herself - very frail and needing a watchful eye from DSis and me, but essentially independent and her own person.

Then she had a fall and suddenly deteriorated and everything cascaded - she was rushed into hospital and spent just over 2 nightmare weeks in there when we couldn’t contact her properly or get decent updates on what was really happening (no visits because of Covid). They’d been talking about discharging her for several days and we managed to get her home though she suddenly took a turn for the worse and they said she would die that day. She rallied, amazingly - she’d just been longing to come home and I think she’d almost willed herself to die - and there was even a point where I dared to hope that she might just pull round with our care at home, but she slipped into a kind of coma and died 2 days later.

I still feel utterly tormented by all the what-ifs and seeing my beloved mum, who was so brave and endured so much, reduced to her last awful few days. She was so funny and loveable and switched on, and so alive. But it all happened so quickly. I kept trying to explain on the phone to the hospital that she wasn’t just a ‘little old lady’, she was a person with all her intelligence intact who’d been doing her own washing and getting her own meals a few days before. I just can’t get my head round it and I feel I let her down so badly, I failed her by not advocating properly for her with the hospital.
I feel as though my thoughts about it are just below the surface all the time and I’m almost going slightly mad. Sorry. Just grief, I suppose.

@Brillig you do not sound as though you have ever let your mum down! Ever. What would your mum say to you if you told her that?
Your mum rallied and came home and was with you as she passed? That is wonderful for her to be with you.
I know... I dared to hope my mum would heal. How silly of me. But no... It's not. It's hope, and belief in their strength. And... What is the alternative?
A fall for an elderly person is very different for one younger.
What could you have done differently? And would you feel better if you took action with the hospital now?
Or... Have you really done nothing at all to feel bad about? Grief is hard, and your mum loves you. She does not want you to feel that guilt on top of yiur grief. Grief stems from love. Guilt... Does that really belong here?
I have gone through this guilt myself... So I do understand. But please, please, go easy on yourself. What would you say to your mum if she felt this? Or a close friend?
Be kind to yourself.
Much love.

Thank you @Spiritwriter. You’re so kind to come here with support. I’m sitting here in tears and I really shouldn’t be. But it’s so hard still. I wanted so badly to protect her so she would have a peaceful passage in the end, but she didn’t.

When she first came home from hospital after her fall, I just didn’t think I’d need to call the GP to see her because she’d just been discharged by a hospital doctor. But she collapsed a few days later and I blame myself for not seeing she was deteriorating. I knew a nurse was coming to look at her stitches in a few days and I thought it was fine to wait until then. But if I’d called somebody sooner she might not have collapsed. That’s what tortures me, that I caused her suffering in some way. I don’t know if I’ll ever come to terms with that, or if I’ll have to live with it somehow, if that’s even possible.

Sorry for monopolising the thread. Not having a great day but hopefully it will pass. Love to all.

Thanks @Spiritwriter I just want to fill my House and life with love and chaos and business it will give me less time to mope ! Who knows if that's the right attitude

@Brillig The guilt is just another horrible part of grief. I think everyone wonders if they could have done something different or been around more, but none of us can predict the future. You couldn't have changed the outcome and your mum will have known you loved her. I think the guilt is a normal feeling when we're grieving but it's not rational at all.

@mrssunshinexxx that sounds a wonderful thing to fill your home with 💕
@Brillig I am so sorry you are having a bad day. We all have them and we come here often for support. You are not monopolising. You are seeking solace and support and I am most happy to offer it in the moments I can. You can DM me any time too. If yiu ever want to. It does not sound rational at all, like @Cherrycee says... That questioning is a part of grief. But you can't blame yourself really. It is normal to think we could have done more. But really.... If you have that conversation with yiur mum in your mind, I am sure she would say otherwise.
You've been a marvellous daughter. 🙏

Does anyone have any nice ideas or can show me what they bought for graves ? I feel like I want to get a little something but a lot of the stuff online mentions god and I aren't religious

@mrssunshinexxx

Does anyone have any nice ideas or can show me what they bought for graves ? I feel like I want to get a little something but a lot of the stuff online mentions god and I aren't religious

Did your mum have any hobbies or anything in particular she was interested in?

The grave beside my parents has little statues of dogs (westies I think). I've seen sporting stuff and pictures of places that meant something to the person. You could print a poem on some nice paper and frame it. You could put a candle in a lantern. Doesn't have to be religious at all.

Thank you @Cherrycee x

So much of what pp have said is so familiar. Like being asked how you are. I've taken to say... I'm surviving.

We've had the funeral now and whist it went smoothly, it just felt so final. I never thought this is something I'd be doing now. Burying my mum out of nowhere from getting covid.

My poor dad was in pieces. He never thought he would live longer than mum.

I'm glad the funeral is over as I was nervous about it. I still have many times during the day (6 weeks on) when I can't believe she's really gone.

I sit down and it hits me. My mum is gone forever. I'll never get her calls asking me to pick something up from the shops on my way over.

She'll never open the door and say Hi daughter. It's incredibly sad having such a loss. I find I'm just living one day to the next, as the future feels too hard to contemplate and is overwhelming.

DD said she'll come back from university for mothers day, but I'm honestly dreading it. I feel like I want to stay in bed all day and wake up when it's over, but I can't because of my DCs.

Also dreading Mother's Day was in marks and Spencer the other day and caugtt he sight of the stand with all the cards I burst into tears and literally ran out with the pram. You feel like no one understands
We spread my mums ashes yesterday it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life I'm sure but I do feel some comfort from doing it I think the build up was making me so anxious I did some with my husband and baby and my dad and sisters are having a ceremony on a couple weeks to do the rest which they have asked me to go to but I'll see x

5 months today since my lovely mum died.

I feel like I've lived a whole lifetime since then. Seasons have changed, we've had birthdays (hers, my dad's, all my DC), we had Christmas, its a new year, its a new decade!!!!

So much has happened, my mum has missed so much already.

Not sure how I feel to be honest? Reflective, resigned but stronger than I was.

Mother's Day will be hard. Although my mum never made a fuss, she was very low key about it. In years when she was well (mental health wise) she'd do a big dinner for us all. In more recent years I'd just pop a card and small gift in for her. She always used to say "it's not about how you spoil me for one day, it's how much you love me all year" and love her we all did / do. Very much.

She was a wise woman was my mum.

I'd like to join you, my dear mum died on Wednesday. I am absolutely heart-broken. I have never felt such sadness in my life.

You'll have lots of support here, @Sanloren. I'm so very sorry that you've lost your mum.

@Crunchymum - isn't is strange to think that it's a whole new year now? I feel the same. My mum never made it to 2021. I'm glad you feel stronger, that's good to hear.

@Crunchymum it is so strange how the world can keep going without someone, all the little things that they have missed, even the snow we had last week.

I am dreading Mothers Day, last year we were sat round her hospital bed thinking she might just wake up, then on the 24th we started her end of life care. I saw all the Mothers Day stuff in Home Bargains the other day and had a bit of a moment. Life is unfair, I should still have my Mum at 32. She will have been gone one year in April, how is that even possible!

@Glitterb we are on a similar time frame what date did your mum pass away? Mine was 25th April