The Queen / my Mum

[SaintVal]

The passing of the Queen has brought all the feelings to the surface again after losing my Mum last year. I thought I had turned a corner in terms of my grieving and coming to terms with things but the news at the moment is so hard to avoid and I'm finding it so triggering.

One of the thoughts that has started going around in my head is 'how?'. I thought I'd accepted my own Mum's death but I've started questioning it in my head, in terms of how and why it happened. Just as a bit of background, Mum was only early 70s but had Alzheimer's which progressed rapidly. She went into a home during the peak of the pandemic and I never saw her again - she passed away in the new year of 2021.

I struggle to accept that one minute you're here and then you're not. The Queen, although she was very frail, was stood up and smiling and then two days' later, she was gone. My Mum stopped eating (dementia does that to you) and then passed away in her sleep about six days later (she'd also got covid at the end which is a twist of irony seeing as we weren't allowed into the home to see her in case we brought covid in).

Now I'm starting to have all these feelings of guilt again. Guilt I couldn't see her and what on earth must she have been thinking. Did she think we had just dumped her there and forgotten her? I keep reading the cycle of grief but I feel like I've gone back to stage 1 this week. It's horrible.

Sorry, not sure what I wanted out of this post but it's good to have got it down.

Have a handhold, if you need it. I don't know what to say but I want you to know you've been heard.

Hey. I don't feel like this due to the queen but I do hear you. Not the same as your very sad situation, but my mum took ill last year suddenly and we called an ambulance. Never saw her again due to covid and she died alone in hospital. If I focus on that, I feel horrible about it.
Totally understand that feeling of 'but she was so alive!' And then, suddenly, not.

I actually think that one year into grief is early stages and it is natural to have these feelings. And there's nothing really to fix it.

Really sorry about your mum.

You’re not alone, it’s brought back grief for all my female relatives, I’ve felt very down.
And as for being here one minute and gone the next, it’s not unusual. When I was working on a female ward, more than one of the patients looked like they were making progress, only to pass on. The body does it’s best to keep going, but at some point it gives in. Often it’s heart failure.
I remember one lady telling me that she was tired, and she meant that she was tired of the fight to live. She passed on and I felt glad for her.

I've been crying at everything I've seen to do with the Queen since she died. Like you, I lost my mum last year and I'm fairly confident it is grief for her and all that her family are feeling and not actually for the Queen at all. It's brought it all back.

I'm fine with it thought as I can see that it's just part of the grieving process really.

It's a difficult time.

I lost my mum 3 weeks ago. My family were all gathering at her house with my dad the day before her funeral on Friday when the news broke. It's been hard.

The Queen was born the same year as my dad, he died nine years ago and this has brought it all back. I’ve cried quite a lot.My mum also had dementia and was very ill for many years before she passed away, it’s so very hard.

You made the best decisions you could at the time and that was all you could do and that is nothing to feel guilty about.

Sorry about your mum.

Thanks for replying, I knew it wouldn't just be me feeling this way. I am sorry for all your losses 💐 we have to keep going and looking forward but sometimes the brain does odd things and catapults you back to square one. It's a work in progress, I guess. Sending strength to all X

Definitely feel the same. Doesn't help that the radio is playing sad inoffensive songs on the radio and one that's being played loads is the song from my mums funeral.
Even my dd12 has been tearful as it's bringing back feelings of her nan and great nan. Both died within 5 months so it's been a shit time.

I think it's good to accept it for what it is and, for want of a better phrase, be kind to yourself.

There are absolutely things that should have gone better with my mum's illness and Death but covid screwed it all up - we all did the best we could at the time. Guilt is natural of course but realistically there was nothing that could have done differently in the circumstances.

[Flowers]