How should I be feeling three months on?

[iwishiwasonacruise]

My mum died very suddenly and very unexpectedly on the 7th of March this year. I was talking to her at 8am, at 9am I was giving her CPR, and at 9:45 she was pronounced dead.

To say it was a total shock is the biggest understatement ever. We had absolutely no warning. Even though my mum had some mobility issues with arthritis, she was otherwise completely healthy, and had no health issues that we knew of.

The post-mortem shows that she died of a blood clot in her lungs.

I grieved so, so hard for the first eight or nine days, I literally cried 24/7, I couldn't function at all, I couldn't eat, I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't hold a normal conversation, and then on about the ninth day I woke up and just felt different and calm and numb.

It was like my brain was saying "no, enough of this, you can't survive like this".

Since then, I have had the odd teary moment, we gave Mum a wonderful funeral, and I did really cry that day, and I can't bring myself to watch videos of my mum yet, but apart from that, I feel like I'm just getting on with life, and feel awful saying that I feel quite okay.

I would hate for anyone to be looking at me and thinking that I don't care, or I am not grieving in the right way, but I don't know what else I can do.

I guess I am happy that I can function on a basic level, look after my children, and get on with life, but I feel like my brain has put my grief in a box to the side for now, but I don't know whether that's it, and I'm done, or whether it is going to come back and hit me again at some point, and that really really scares me.

I think of other people that have lost family members, and I feel like I should be crying still, I feel like I should be more upset, and someone suggested grief counselling, but maybe I am just okay? What's the point of forcing myself to be upset when it's not going to bring her back?

I loved my mum to bits, so there's no element of me being glad that she's gone, but in my own head, I feel like I'm being really cold about it.

I do know that during my hard and intense grieving in the first days, I was very aware of what I was putting my children through by just being completely emotionally unavailable, so from that point of view, I'm happy that I'm okay for my children, but I just don't know what to think about it all...

I am quite a practical person, and my mum had started to need the help of a carer to get her ready in the morning, and ready for bed at night, and she absolutely hated it, she hated the loss of independence, and I don't know if maybe in my mind, I've made peace with the fact that she wouldn't have wanted to carry on down that road, and that she didn't have to live like that for long, and she avoided a drawn out and undignified death when she was much older and more fragile. I have tried to pull some positives from the situation to try and make sense of it in my own head.

I have Mum’s ashes at home in a lovely frame with a photo, and I have had some beautiful jewellery made with some of her ashes, so that is quite comforting.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

I'm 43, and my mum was 77. My Nan lived to 93, so I fully expected to have my mum around for many, many more years…

After a few wines last week, I confessed to my husband that I just feel like a cold bitch, and I worry that if something happened to him or either of my children, what if I just felt the same way about that, and that I couldn't grieve for them "properly" either. It's a worry, and surely it's not right?

I don't know the answer to your question, but your message absolutely resonates with me as I feel exactly the same, except I am only one month on from my dad's death.

Everyone handles grief differently and there is no proper or right way to grieve. I keep thinking same as you but also that my dad wouldn't want me to put my life on hold. He always said life goes on, so I'm holding onto that as my mantra and trying to honour him that way.

Be kind to yourself, losing a parent is hard and you've been through a lot. You are doing the best you can and taking comfort from where you can and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Everyone deals with grief differently.

I lost my sister a few years ago. She was in her 30s. It was after a horrible terminal illness. Initially, I felt relief when she died. She was no longer suffering and rather selfishly, her illness took a huge emotional toll on the family. Then lockdown happened and I just had to kind of get on with things. Nothing was open to offer support etc.

I was never really physically upset after her death. It all kind of came out in angry outbursts about a year after she died. I got some counselling then and it helped. Outwardly now I am 'OK'. I still think about her everyday. But it never goes away.

I remember seeing someone describe grief as something that doesn't grow smaller, but the person grows bigger around it.

There is no way to be feeling. I am 18 months on of losing mum in very similar circumstances. Even down to the fact that I spoke to her on the phone and 2 hours later she was dead. It was also a blood clot.

I have had periods where I can’t hold it together. Times that I felt numb and genuinely believed I was ok. For it to hit me months later. Times I feel I simply surviving and times I have been happy. Genuinely happy.

I realise now, I won’t ever be the same person I was before and that’s ok. I am just learning to live my new normal.

You're not cold. Periods of calm and numbness are normal and protective. It may also be that you are starting to adjust to your mum not being here.

You loved your mum. You wish she had not died. You also love your living family. You are not cold. You are in a calm patch.