For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (March 2022) )

[Crunchymum]

I hope no-one minds me starting a new thread, the old one is almost full.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bereavement/4352163-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-September-2021

As always lots of love and strength and support to you all xxx

@Cocopogo
I know how u feel i get ever single word of your post. It sounds like you are at the point where your grief comes in waves it can hit u like a ten ton truck it is horrible. I used to day dream and imagine that my mum was still out there in the world alive and well. Sometimes i'd have nightmares about finding her dead in random places it was all very distressing.

Reach out for help as i mentioned my previous post grief counseling helped me make sense of the guilt. It allowed me to process this and start to let go of that crippling anxiety that i could have done more. Speak to your GP or just contact Cruse Bereavement yourself. I never went to the counsellor my GP recommended i wanted to go to the experts and i thought that Cruise Bereavement were the ones. It really does help to talk to an impartial person about how you are feeling.

It takes a long time to let go of the feelings of guilt they eat away at you but trust me they do go eventually. I hated when my GP referred to the stages of grief like my grief was not unique. It is entirely individual to the person of course but the stages are there and sometimes you experience some or all of them at once.

Try to think what your mum would say to you now, if she knew that you were punishing yourself? I know that my mum would be very upset to know how much i was hurting (am still hurting) and i try to give myself a break from it and listen to her. I know that she would when tell me to stop it and look after myself and her grandchildren. Remember even though your mum is no longer with you physically it doesn't mean that what she has taught you growing up and the closeness that you both shared is gone these memories will always be with you forever.

Thanks @Ttc42nearly43 everything you say makes sense to me. I’m so tired today as I couldn’t settle until after 3am. Work hasn’t been very productive but luckily I had plenty of flexi to take so I did hence I’m finished for the day now. The tiredness is making me even more emotional though, it’s a viscous cycle. I was Googling how to remember dreams last night, as the last couple of dreams I had my mum was in them but I don’t dream often or remember them as when I do finally get some sleep I’m in a deep sleep.
I think I will contact Cruise and see if there’s someone I can talk things through with.
My mum wasn’t an emotional person, she thought counselling was a load of claptrap so she would not approve of all this rumination.

@Cocopogo
Yes please do reach out and see if this helps. I just figured, what do i have to loose i already feel like the shitest daughter in the world. Rightly or wrongly (i know now my feelings were totally way off reality) Counselling definitely helped me let go of a lot of negative feelings and helped me make a bit of sense with how i was feeling at the time. Punishing yourself doesn't help matters but you cant help it, it all just hurt so bloody much.

Eventually after wrestling for months with such intense pain, having lost my mum i gradually accepted that this was part of me now. A different me, a somewhat broken me but still my mother's daughter and the grief sort of has just become a part of the person i now am, for a while it sat straight on my shoulders, pushing me down but through time i have managed to claw some life back, and you will too,it will come, it just takes a long time to process what has happened.

Acceptance took such a long time for me, to accept that my mum is gone. Denial, was like an escape in the early months but eventually you know that you can't go on like that and this is where the professionals can help you.

I worry about my dad and loosing him. Since my mum died i have got very anxious about this. Again such a great loss changes you, i mean how could it now.

Take care.

I've had a shocking week. Friday marked just 3 weeks since my mum died, how can the world change so much in just 3 weeks?

We cleared out her house this week and, it hurts me to admit this, but she was a heavy drinker and a bit of a hoarder and there was so much rubbish in the house, it was horrible having to clear it all away and clean it. I feel like all my nice memories of my mum have been replaced by the constant loop of her taking unwell suddenly, being told there's nothing they can do for her, sitting with her through the night in hospital as she fought and struggled to live, and now when I close my eyes I see her house, the way she lived.

Half of me feels like I didn't really know her at all. She kept that bit of herself locked away. And because I couldn't access that part of her, I can't access the feelings of grief for that part of her either - I didn't cry when clearing her house, I feel blocked up now. I feel like I can't cry.

I am mid cleaning mum and dads house.
Dad was 89 and died sept. Mum was 90 and she died in feb.
We’ve found so much random stuff but what made us howl with laughter was 2 packets of IN DATE condoms In Her underwear drawer. Both had missing condoms and research shows they were bought in the last 3 years!!
Go on mum and a dad!!!

@MeinKraft
Give yourself some time to process everything to that has happened. Still very early days for you. Try not to worry about not crying i have heard other people talk about similar reactions on this thread it is not unusual and doesn't reflect the sadness that you undoubtedly feel having lost your mum so suddenly. I recall that conversation when I was told in the hospital that "there is only so much that medicine can do" it was harsh and it feels unbelievable doesn't it. I felt like i was fighting for my mums life right along side her and in the end we lost the battle, such horrible memories. It takes a long time to see past those dark times but you do eventually. I remember people saying that to me in the beginning "remember the good times and be thankful for what you have got" it just makes you feel like shit but you do eventually get past the shock.

Hi everyone, I haven’t posted for a while but it’s nearly two years since I joined this thread and I do still dip in and out, and still find it comforting to read posts from you all. I guess I’m posting tonight because I’m having a moment tonight about my Dad where I’m feeling low and I thought it might help to come on to the thread and just say hello. I am sorry to see so many more who have had to join, it’s a lovely thread with lovely supportive people but so sad that we’re all on the same heart wrenching journey. None of us want to be here.
For those that haven’t seen my name on here, it will be two years next month since I lost my Dad suddenly and unexpectedly and I feel crushed that it will be two years. I feel like I have felt very numb since it happened and that I haven’t really accepted it. I don’t think I will ever accept him not being here. He wasn’t poorly and it was a shock. I’ve heard that when it’s like that, you take a long time to get over the shock. I don’t understand how it can be two years in September since I kissed my Dad goodbye in the hospital and was holding his hand, when I’m still not even passed the first year without him (in my head, I mean). It still feels like it has only just happened. I wonder sometimes if it will always feel like that.
I have been reading some of the very recent posts and so much of what is said, I can resonate with. I have read a few posters mention being disowned by their sister and about that relationship breaking down. I can relate to that totally. My sister and I were with my Dad when he passed and my mum and the day after the funeral she cut herself off from everyone. She hasn’t been any support to our mum. I have been mum’s main support since we lost Dad and it is hard. It’s hard being mum’s support when she feels she has nothing to live for or go on for anymore and feels she just exists now without my Dad. In a way, I feel like I have lost my mum too, as I don’t think she will ever be the same again without him. It’s so very hard. I do everything that I can for my mum but I feel helpless as I know that I can’t make life better without my Dad.

Does anyone else feel like this journey becomes harder as time goes on? I know people say it gets easier but I don’t really feel like that. I just feel like I miss my Dad more as time goes on and the sadness comes in waves.

Hi @LucyintheSky21. I just wanted to say I’m thinking of you. You sound like you’ve had a lot lot to deal with as well as your grief. I’m coming up to a year since I lost my dad. I half feel like I haven’t had chance to grieve properly. I’m my mum’s main carer, I got Covid just after dad’s funeral, my husband has been really ill and in hospital for several weeks (on the same ward my dad died on), and probate has been really difficult to sort out. I feel like I haven’t had time to grieve. I’ve handled everything much better than I’d ever have imagined, I adored my dad. I feel like it’s going to all catch up with me at some point when life calms down. Perhaps it’s like that for you? Perhaps we’re just numb initially?

weirdly, I had a very iffy relationship with my brother. He’d been a selfish nightmare for decades. But he’s stepped up massively since my dad died. I wish dad could have seen him like this.

Thank you for your kind words @Ttc42nearly43. I've had a few weeks and I think I'm just starting to deal with the shock now. I've read your post a few times and it has helped a lot x

@LucyintheSky21 my father died suddenly 14 years ago (both my parents have now died of brain haemorrhages) I had people at the time telling me I was coping too well and it would have to come out somehow. But it never caught up with me - I just coped in the way I knew how which was being practical, getting on with things, boxing feelings and things away. I can look back and smile about memories with him now (and have been able to do for some 10 years) so I think I've healed as well as anyone can from sudden grief. You don't have to fall apart to be as hurt as anyone else

Hi @Honeyroar , thank you for your kind message. I too am very sorry for your loss. I’m also sorry that your Husband has been unwell and in hospital. Is he better now? It must have been very hard for you with your Husband on the same ward as the one your Dad was on. I often think that I couldn’t bare to be in the hospital where I last saw my Dad.
Grief and loss have to be the hardest things in life to deal with, don’t they? I remember it coming up to a year for me having lost my Dad, but now cannot believe that it’s coming up two years next month. I was saying this to my Husband last night, how can it be nearly two years on when I’m still not through the first year.

And by that, I feel like to other people they will hear me say it’s nearly two years and think that’s quite a while. But it’s not. It is no time at all, and it’s no different to me to being a year on. I don’t feel any different anyway. I think time seems to stand still when this happens. For me, it was my big 40th Birthday and my Dad was a fit well healthy man, with a wife that adored him, two daughters and grandchildren who all thought the world of him. He had so many friends and hobbies and he did so much. He was always helping people. The following night after my Birthday, my mum rang me to say that she had paramedics there at the house as she had to call an ambulance because she thought Dad had had a heart attack. The day after, he died in hospital. So it all came from nowhere, no illness beforehand, no signs or warnings. My Birthday had been a Wednesday and we all had plans to go out and celebrate my 40th at the weekend with a big family meal etc at our favourite place. But he died on the Friday, so we never got to do any of that and this was September 2021.

So I have only had one Birthday since my Dad has been gone, and I didn’t acknowledge it or celebrate it in any way. I just wanted September to come and go last year. It was as though a black cloud was hanging over the whole of September. And that’s how I feel now about September fast approaching again.
Can I ask, was it sudden and unexpected with your Dad as well or was he unwell beforehand? I think what you say about feeling like you haven’t yet had time to grieve properly is also how I feel. I’m not mum’s carer, but in a way I sort of am. She is on her own now and we go round most days, we do so much for my mum. Even one of my boys who is nearly 12 stays there a lot so that she’s not on her own. I’ve also had to deal with a solicitor and probate for my mum as well as all sorts of financial stuff. I think if I’m honest I feel like you say, there’s so much to deal with practically like probate etc that you just function like a robot and try get things done and box up feelings and go on autopilot. I do keep wondering if at some point, and at what point I’m just going to crash and realise what has actually happened is real. I feel like I try to block it out because I’m scared to face what’s happened. It’s easier for me to sort of pretend to myself that he’s just gone somewhere and coming back soon. I think the numbness we feel is our own way of protecting ourselves.
I’m glad your Brother has stepped up and I sure that your Dad will have seen that. I do think they are still with us and watching over us. Sadly my sister didn’t step up, and I know my Dad would be very hurt that she has walked away from the family.

Hello @MeinKraft, thank you for your kind message as well. I am so sorry for your loss of both your Mum and your Dad. Does it feel like 14 years since you lost your Dad? I remember reading a lot about grief when I first lost my Dad nearly two years ago and almost everything I read talked about grief being in stages. Shock, denial, anger and I’m sure acceptance was the last stage. I can’t remember what came after anger. I’d say that I have felt in shock since it happened and I fluctuate from heartbroken to anger, anger that he isn’t here and that this happened. I can’t seem to get my head around the fact my Dad was such a well man. He was never poorly and he lived such a good life. He was a good man with so much to live for, and this makes me so angry, as he still had so much to do in his life. He was 74 but a young 74 and I feel like he had his life stolen from him. My two boys adored him and my oldest has been deeply affected by losing him. It breaks my heart as he says that my Dad was his bestfriend and like a second Dad to him. I honestly thought my Dad would be here to see him turn 18. It devastates me.
Like you, I have had friends say to me that I’m coping really well, and it makes me angry because it’s like they don’t think I’m struggling, which I am. It’s just that as you say and put it so well, you box away your feelings and you paint a smile on your face for other people. I do this so that my mum feels supported and because I have to be there for her but I do it in front of others so that I don’t appear depressing, but I’d say that my way of coping is putting it out of my mind and trying to think it’s not real. I block it out, I think that’s the best way of describing it. So what others see is a person who is hiding it well. I’m not sure if that’s a good way of dealing with it or whether it will catch up to me at some point and hit me like a tonne of bricks, but I know that there is no correct way or incorrect way of grieving.
You say that you are now able to smile about memories of your Dad, would you say that took a long time to be able to think of the memories and feel happy about them? How long ago was it that you lost your mum, if you don’t mind me asking?

Oh @LucyintheSky21 you’ve had a horrible time, no wonder you struggle sometimes. It’s human nature. I can totally understand the not wanting to celebrate your birthday thing, I had it myself a bit too. My dad was relatively fit and completely independent for an 81 year old. He’d had a small heart attack a decade earlier, but lived sensibly afterwards and seemed fine. Unbeknown to me, he thought he’d caught Covid and told his brother he was going to sleep it off. Had I known I’d have checked in on him. But I didn’t. During the night he must have gone to the loo and he had another small heart attack and blacked out, bumping his head and back as he fell in his small bathroom. He came round but couldn’t get up, and he was there for 18 hours before a friend called on him. I live next door. He was literally on the floor through the wall from me (albeit a very thick stone wall). It was my birthday and I had a lie in. My husband brought me breakfast in bed. I sat there three hours reading and relaxing. And all that time my dad was lying there. So this year that’s all I could think of as my birthday approached this year. I didn’t want a birthday at all. They said the “long lie” contributed to him getting sepsis, which was one of the reasons he died. He was in hospital for ten weeks (although discharged twice to a dreadful rehab home but brought back both times with sepsis) before he died. In a way I wish he’d just died quicker at the start. His treatment wasn’t good really, they wrote him off as old. It was awful having my husband in the same ward this year. We knew he’d be going into the ward for a long time. Otherwise we might have put a complaint in re my dad, but we didn’t want to rock the boat for my husband. The first time I walked past the room dad died in I sat in the corridor and bawled my eyes out. But my husband was there for several weeks and I had to get over it. They gave him good care too. Some of them remembered dad and came over to say they were sad he’d died.

I understand the feeling that he’s gone somewhere and is coming back. It doesn’t feel real still, does it? My dad used to go sailing for months at a time, so it feels normal sometimes. Then it comes back with a punch to the stomach. My best friend died about four years ago. It used to be like this when she died, but it’s less painful nowadays. I hope it will get more like that with dad.

I saw a meme about grief today. It said “Sometimes I look at a picture of you and I smile at the memories, other times I look at it and I cry”. Kind of sums it up. You’ve just got to plod on.

Always here if you need an ear or a shoulder though. This page is lovely for that.

That’s it exactly @Honeyroar, you do have to just plod on. And I say as long as you’re still getting up each day and putting one foot in front of the other, then you’re doing pretty well. I have two boys, a Husband and a mum who I have to keep going for and have to be strong for, and I know my Dad would want that. Like you say, it just doesn’t feel real. I think when it’s unexpected as well, it comes as a shock and you just cannot believe it. I’m still in shock.
Someone did tell me that the shock can take up to 3 years, and I guess that’s when acceptance kicks in. Not that you want to accept any loved one being gone, but at some point we probably all have no choice. And I don’t think it’s something you ever get over, as so many people have said to me, I think you just learn to adjust without that person.
I am truly sorry to hear what happened to your Dad. My Dad too had a heart attack the night before he died, but he went into cardiac arrest and we think if he hadn’t that he might still be here. I can totally understand how you must feel about your Dad, living just next door, literally through the wall and you had no idea what had happened. But how could you have known? I think sometimes the finer details are just best not being re-lived. For example, I just can’t bare to re live that night mum rang to say Dad was in the lounge with paramedics or the day after when we had to say bye to my Dad in the hospital. Literally what I’ve just said is where I have to stop. It’s like my mind just can’t go there, so I try to just think of all the good things about my Dad and the good times.
Thank you for your kind words as well, this is a lovely thread and has been a great support to me. And I’m also here to listen as well, it’s something we can both relate to, losing our Dad’s.

@Honeyroar 💐

You’re right. You have to focus on the good things. Sometimes I catch myself doing or saying something that he would’ve done and I think - he’s still here, he’s passed so much of himself on in me. Someone so wonderful couldn’t just finish…

It helps talking to someone else feeling similar! My SIL told me, last week, that perhaps I should get some therapy because my husband found me crying over a memory one day last week (I was exhausted and am always particularly emotional when tired)? I was a bit upset she said that, I think it’s normal to get upset sometimes. Hearing someone else say similar things about their experiences makes it feel less like you’re not coping, it’s normal, we all go through it.

I want to say thank you for all your lovely comments when my mum died 3 weeks ago. I've had no Internet access til today but you were all so kind.
It was my darling Mums funeral yesterday and I really tried to be brave but I fell to bits. I did manage to get up and give a little tribute and held that bit together apart from a few wobbles so I am glad I could do that for her.
I went to see her in the funeral home finally last Thursday, as she died unexpectedly at home so there was lots to sort out. I'm glad I did , I'd missed her so much and I just wanted to see her beautiful face again. I'm ashamed to say, I behaved like a crazy person. I had sent in a beautiful broderie anglaise night dress for the funeral lady to dress her in but when I got there she just looked so very cold. I immediately went and bought a lovely blanket and some warm slippers and went back and got her all cosy. But I couldn't bear to leave her there, I had hold of her hand and I leaned close and took her hand to stroke my face like she always did. I was there talking to her for what seemed like hours (the lady brought me 3 cups of tea🙈) and when I did leave her it was a real wrench, "just one more kiss mum, I'm so sorry but I have to leave you here." Then yesterday when the curtains closed at the crematorium that wrench was there again. Except that's it. The last place I had to leave her. She's gone and it physically really hurts, it feels like I have a heavy weight in my heart, my best friend in the world has gone. I have quite advanced SLE and it seems I've been on autopilot and not sleeping more than a couple of broken hours now everything really hurts and my face is all rashy so it would appear I'm starting a flare. My GP has rang me every other day since Mum passed. I have been on diazepam since I found Mum on that horrible day. He's really supportive so that's a blessing.
I just feel so lost. My Mum was everything to me and I just don't know how to be me. Hopefully she's back with my wonderful Dad who died a few years ago.
Lots of love and handholding for all who are feeling like this.

@Honeyroar you're 100% right. They do live on in many many ways. I still can’t bring myself to speak about Dad in the past tense, I still say Dad loves this or Dad likes that. Or my Dad hates this etc. On the 24th September it will be two years since he’s been gone but it doesn’t feel like he’s really gone. I really do feel like my Dad is still with us and around us. I feel it, I feel like he comforts me at times when I need it , and if there’s ever a time where I’m struggling to make a decision, I feel like my Dad speaks to me. There’s been a few occasions where that’s happened and the answer has just come to me, and I know it’s my Dad guiding me. He would always help me with things and help me to make the right decisions. So what I’m saying is that I think it’s just like you said, that they do live on through us. Of course they do because they’re in our genes for a start. I also find myself thinking like my Dad at times and saying things he’d have said. For me, my oldest son is also a lot like my Dad and has always been like him. He doesn’t look like him but in his mannerisms and his personality, he’s so much like him. So I feel like my Dad will live on through my son as well. I think he will grow up to be a lot like my Dad (he’s 11).
I don’t know about you, but I have good days and bad. When I say ‘good’, no days feel good since I’ve lost my Dad, it’s been a real struggle for all of us as he was such a huge part of our family but there are definitely days that are harder than others and days where I feel it more than others. The other days are ‘ok days’. I describe it best as there being a black cloud over everything since Dad hasn’t been here but I know that sounds quite depressing.

I also don’t blame you for feeling a bit upset or miffed at your SIL. I’ve had people at times say to me, do you think you should maybe consider getting bereavement counselling but I don’t want to do it and I don’t think I need it. I have nothing against counselling and I know a lot of people find it very helpful at times like this. But for me, I don’t want to sit in a room with a total stranger who is being paid to pretend they care. I have enough friends in RL to talk to about my Dad. I do think it helps massively to talk to people who have been through it or are going through the same. That’s definitely more helpful than talking to the friends who do know you that haven’t been through it. It definitely does as you can relate so much to each other. All in the same boat. I did think at the time when we first lost my Dad that a bereavement support group would be something I’d maybe have gone for, I mean like a local one where people just go for a cup of tea or coffee and all talk about what they’re going through. A bit like an alcohol support group probably is, but I had a look online at the time and there was nothing like that.
I’m similar to you, when I’m very tired I become tearful and emotional as well. People are quick to suggest things like counselling I think because they don’t know what else to say to help. I think people mean well but just don’t always get it right. For me, my mum and Dad were together, so I have lost my Dad who was a massive part of my life, but my mum has lost her Husband of 47 years who was her whole life. She won’t ever come back from this. People that know us that work in shops etc, they ask how is my mum and when I say ‘oh you know, not great’ they say something like ‘oh really, why’ like it’s been nearly two years so it should be ok now and we should all be over it. You never get over it, you carry it forever. That’s my take on it anyway but I do really hate it when people ask me how my mum is. I wish they’d stop asking. I think the odd time I’ve snapped and said ‘well people who haven’t been through it, don’t know what it’s like at all. You haven’t a clue until it happens to you’. I know you shouldn’t snap but sometimes people just wind you up.

@OhLola04 I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry for your loss. Yesterday must have been very hard for you to get through, but you got through it. I remember my Dad’s funeral and I honestly don’t know how I got through the day. The whole day I felt totally numb and in shock, almost like I was playing a part for a film or series. A day I don’t want to remember at all. But you got through it and I think once that’s out of the way, you can start to grieve.

@LucyintheSky21 it may not hit you like a ton of bricks, it never got me like that. It took about 4 years for me to be able to smile about memories of my father, he was my first big loss in this life though, he died age 47. My mum died just over a month ago, I think I'm still processing the fact that actually happened really. Very much still in disbelief.

@OhLola04 thinking of you. I found it difficult visiting my mum in the funeral home a few weeks ago too. When I turned to leave I thought how can this be it, how can I never see her face again? We also dressed my mum in nightwear, like you we wanted her to be warm and comfy so we got her snuggly comfies and slippers.

@LucyintheSky21 Thank you, yes you're right it felt almost like I was dreaming a horrible horrible dream. It was the same at my Dad's funeral in 2018, except even more like the feeling like you're in a film as it was heavily heavily snowing and we were really late because of it, the sea of black outside the church against the pure white snow was just so surreal. I did the eulogy for my Dad's, I really don't know how, I think I was in shock as he wasn't even sick and just collaped and died. I don't think it truly hit me til 4 or 5 months later.

@MeinKraft I know those feelings of shock and disbelief very well. I’m so sorry about your Mum, and also your Dad. That’s no age at all for your Dad, that’s just dreadful. My Dad was quite a bit older than yours, he’s passed away at 74 But to me, it’s no age. He was still a young 74 and active and busy, he rode motorbikes and had more hobbies and friends than I’ve had hot dinners. But I do know that feeling of disbelief. When it comes from nowhere and the next minute they’re gone, it’s like bang! I remember being stood at my Dad’s funeral in total total disbelief. It was as if I needed to ask someone what am I actually doing here. I’d seen my Dad on the Thursday morning when I’d popped into my mum and dad’s house on the way to do food shopping and my dad was there as normal getting ready to go out with a few friends actually on their motorbikes and he was fine, fit well and healthy. He was out most of the day, came back in the evening and had his tea with my mum. Then she rang me that night later on to say he’d had a heart attack. How does that even happen? I kept thinking about the Thursday morning when I’d seen him and by God, now so I wish I’d stayed longer. It’s so hard.

@OhLola04 my Dad died in a similar way. He was a fit healthy man and he keeled over and had a heart attack. Totally unexpected. You can’t get your head around it can you?

@MeinKraft Oh it's unbearable isn't it. I'm so sorry for your loss, I'm feeling better about the cosy thing now youve said you did the same getting her in her comfies. Everyone was trying to persuade me to dress her in a suit or something smart, but she loved being comfortable and cosy so it was right.We did dress my Dad in his suit though, it was more "him"
@LucyintheSky21 I meant to say the same for you too, I'm really sorry for your loss, reading back a bit, your Dad sounds like a nice man.

@OhLola04

Hi i wanted to reach out and say that my behaviour was not unlike yours. I went 4 times to the funeral home to visit my mum. I spent a long time there with her holding her hand and just being in her presence. I insisted that they change my mums trousers as somehow they were wet at the bottom. I also brought a blanket for her as i couldn't have her being cold. It probably all sounds crazy to some people. I brought pictures of everyone in the family and sellotaped them to the inside of her coffin lid. I wrote her a letter telling my mum how much i love her, i even read the letter out to her several times. I put her glasses inside and her mobile phone as she always liked to have her mobile with her. I think some people thought i was loosing the plot but i wasn't really bothered what other people thought. I just knew that this was the very last time i would ever get to see my mum again. I was there on the day that they sealed her coffin it was very emotional really upsetting. I checked that everything was in place first. She had her favourite lavender flowers in her hand and i bought a mother and daughter love heart necklaces. I have the daughter part and mum is wearing the mother part. I think we all deal with this part in our own way. I was the only one in my family who went back to the funeral home, no one else could face it again but that was their choice and i have no judgement for that. I just couldn't stand mum lying alone in that room. My mum hated being alone so i felt that it was the last thing that i could do for her was to make sure that she wasn't alone. It was a very strange time but i don't regret the time i spent with my mum at the funeral home.