How do you learn to live without your Mum?

[helpagirl]

I am 32 and my Mum is my best friend. She has stage 4 cancer and we have been told only ‘short weeks’ to live. She is very ill and it’s extremely difficult to witness her decline everyday. I want her pain to be over with now as much as I don’t want her to die, this is no way for any of us to be living.
I keep having very intense waves of fear and panic at the thought of life without my mum. I have two young children who adore her and I know I have to carry on for them. But my question is how do people who have lost their mum cope? I’m hoping over time it becomes easier but currently it feels crushing and I’m scared for how the rest of my life will be without her. Any reassurance would be really helpful right now.

Ah you poor thing 🙁 I went through it aged 28. I told myself to just focus on the now, and let afterwards take care of itself. Focusing on giving the DM the best care I possibly could through the worst bit was a comfort to me after and I reached a point where I was just wishing it was over. It's a very peculiar feeling when the world has the audacity to keep turning afterwards but I was surprised when everything didn't in fact fall apart around me. It's very sad of course, and the grief is sometimes overwhelming and often random. I had a loooooong running MN thread and it really helped.

Firstly, I’m so, so sorry - its thoroughly shit 😭

I lost my mum to cancer in August 2024. I’m a bit older than you, 2 Dc who loved her to bits

I don’t know how to cope, but somehow you just do. I can’t talk about her much, because if the tears start then they won’t stop. Maybe that’s a way of coping?

Spend as much time with her as you can, make as many memories as you can. Try to pack as much in to the time you have. Try not to think too far ahead

Sending you the gentlest of hugs from across the ether xx

I actually don’t know. I’m 42. My mum died in July after a short illness ( liver cancer) she lived 17 days after diagnosis. I still don’t even accept she is gone. Christmas can fuck off. I just get up and get the kids sorted and go to work and get the kids and cook and then get stuff done then go to bed and then repeat and that’s it.

im so sorry this is happening to you too

I am very sorry this is happening to your mum

I lost my mum 8 years ago but I still miss her every day. What helps is to realise how much she is still with me - that she made my life so much richer and that many of the things I enjoy are because of her influence. I’m very aware that I see things through her eyes too and that I hear what she’d have thought of things.
She will always be with you in this way, if you are close, in the same way that you’ll be with your children in the future and a bit of her will be passed onto them as well.
So although the missing her doesn’t go away the sharpness of the pain has lessened.

aw bless you, I was in your shoes 6 years ago and honestly it is hard, my children were 3 & 6, like you my mum was my best friend, I can only say time.

it has changed me as a person, I don’t feel whole but anyone other than me wouldn’t notice that, i was numb for a long time as like your mum, it was sudden 12 days from diagnosis of stage 4 cancer then she died, she wasn’t even ill and didn’t know she had cancer.

Take each day at a time, I never thought I’d be able to live without my mum, you can, it’s not easy though xx

My mum was killed in a car accident at 69. There one day and gone the next. I’d already lost my dad when he was 54.
My practical nature got me through as there was so much to sort. I found anything to do with what my DC were missing was worse tbh. That still gets me even years later. It does get easier.

@MellowPinkDeerso sad, I was 40, my mum had liver cancer too, I still hate Christmas without my mum, I still don’t accept she’s gone either x

I'm sending you hugs OP as I know what it's like to lose your Mum. I felt the same, lost, frightened and wondered how I would ever navigate life without her. But I did. And so will you. I found the first 6 months or so very difficult but I kept going with work and kids and home and I think that helped me - the normalcy of life kept me together I think. I found it incredibly painful to look at any photos of any of us after she died - seeing the smiling faces of me and my kids - it was like 'I'm never going to feel joy like that again'. But I did and I do. And so will you.

I framed it by thinking about my Mum having had her dream life. She really did. She was also young only mid 60s and it was sudden cancer, like your Mum. But she'd been a Grandmother, like your Mum and had experienced so much of life. After a while that gave me great comfort and knowing that she was glad it was her and not one of us. It was the right order of things, if you like.

I did drive home from work in tears at times and I did feel sad for a long time but after the first year without her things became like a new normal (she has been gone 17 years.)

Every life has a cycle - your Mum's is coming to and end. Like my Mum's did. I get a lot of joy from my children and now grandchildren and know how proud she was of us all and how much she loved us and I feel a lot of happiness to know that she lived long enough to see us (her DCs) all grown up and meet her grandchildren.

You will feel better - just know that you will. But it will take time. I hope you have some people close that you can talk to or if not, we are always here. Sending love to you, your Mum and family x

Hello, I'm so so sorry to hear this. I lost my mum to cancer just over 2 years ago when I was 33 and had just had my first child. It is a desperately devastating thing to experience, especially when they are relatively young. I found that not thinking of it as something I had to cope with was helpful for me. It's something that was going to happen, and now it's something that has happened. It's shit. It hits you at strange times. But you don't have to 'cope'. It's not an active thing you have to do. You just keep going and keep being. I don't know if that helps or mskes sense at all. I send you lots of love and thoughts x

I am so sorry you are going through this, it is completely shit. We didn't have a lot of time to prepare as like @narcASD my Mum was symptomless and found out she had stage 4 cancer from a routine mammogram. 10 weeks was all we got from seemingly healthy to gone. The last few weeks were torture.

What I take comfort in is that I knew her so well I can pretty much guess her side of a conversation. I still "speak" to her, sometimes aloud, sometimes in my head and I can imagine her replying, I can hear her voice. I know what she would say, what she would advise and as much as I wanted to fall apart I knew that she would have been the one to help me back up off the floor and crack on because life is for living.

If you can, record your Mum talking because what they sound like is often the hardest thing to play back in your mind. My Mum died 15 years ago. In all honesty you just live with the pain of it and it will still cut you to the core when you least expect it. Mother's Day is bloody awful especially as everywhere you go it is in your face.

But you also remember all the good things, her knowing your children, being in your life. You basically try to drown the fact that she isn't here with brilliant vibrant memories of her, her funny phrases, the way she laughed, the books she read to your children, the voices she put on for it, how beautifully she sang (if she did, mine did) we play the card games she taught us from childhood, we talk about her.

Beautiful words here

Just to echo what everyone else says and puts so beautifully too, you will never stop missing her but you will carry the love you have for her for the rest of your life and your mannerisms and traditions are all from her. I hope you can find comfort somehow x

I lost my mum a few years ago unexpectedly. She had just moved to a new city to be near my brother into her dream fancy apartment. One day she had a cold, next day dead. I was due to visit her a few days after she died.

it’s hard. I had so many things I wanted to say and wish I had. Please tell your mum lots of things when you can. I wished I had that choice.

it gets easier. First few months I walked through life. I kept forgetting she died and wanted to call her. I got angry and think I had delayed grief.

Few years later and I haven’t forgot her. But gets easier. Just let yourself grieve. I hadn’t lost anyone close before and just did what people wanted as didn’t want to be the sad person. I feel if I did want I wanted I would have been less angry.

Watching my mum go through stage 4 cancer was the most miserable time of my life. I am sorry that you are going through that too, Op.

In my experience, it’s been 10+ years, and it took a long time to get to feeling normal. I missed her so much. I still do, but it does get easier, or you get used to it.

she lives on, in the sayings I use, in the traditions we keep without realising, even in the way I do my chores. I take comfort in thinking that she’d be proud of how I have handled things without her.

It really, really sucks, but somehow, we get through it.

Just wanted to send you some love to help you through such a difficult time. No advice, but hope some comfort from the messages posted already makes its way to you and helps through this awfully difficult time xx

I’m relieved someone else has spoken about a recording of her voice. I sound like my mum which on occasion spooked my dad after her death and I have a recording of his voice when he practised learning speeches. A sample of your mum’s handwriting in letters, cards and on envelopes can add to photographs of her. Keeping her favourite scarf and jumper on which you can smell her perfume is also a comfort.
It’s a devastating time for you. 💐

I dont know OP, I'm 46 with 3 DC and lost my DM 3 years ago.

I'm still learning how to do it without her. It's hard, it's bloody hard - but she gave me the knowledge and the life skills to carry on without her.

Some days are easier than others, but I'm probably struggling more now than when she first passed.

Sending love and strength to you xx

you just sort of do. I lost my mum very suddenly in March - she was ill for a few days in hospital, I live hundreds of miles away and was waiting for her to settle down and be well enough to talk, and then I had a phone call early in the morning. I jumped in my car, knowing that I would never make it before she died but actually I barely made it a mile before she had gone. I remember howling in the car as my dad told me. My world shattered.

It completely broke me, and I was in the middle of an utterly brutal redundancy at the time (the monsters interviewed me for a role less than two weeks after she died and then told me I was too sad and distracted to get the role).

I spent a good four months on sick leave from work and over time gradually stabilised. In the early days I made a few appearances at our local hipster coffee shop and burst into tears a few times. I was also showered with love from my friends, who kept up a good rota of meeting me for coffee and for walks. I was a total mess. I watched a whole bunch of late 1990s/early 2000s teen movies (10 things i hate about you is utter film perfection). And then, over time, I got a little less demonstrably sad and a little more able to hold it together. And now, 8 months gone, I’m much more stable. I’m still raw, and the unexpected grief moments leave me reeling - perhaps even more so than when it was fresh. The firsts are hard. I had grief counselling which helped enormously.

The Dead Mum’s Club is real, so do find those people in your circle who are already members. You will need their strength.

I’m a little older than you, at 39, but still far too young to face this.

I was 16 when mum died of ovarian cancer. She was just 46. I watched.her go through radiation treatment..being sick in buckets and slowly fading away. Eventually taken to a nursing home for the end. It was traumatic and sad. She never got to meet my husband or daughter. To make things worse I lost my dad a few years later. I have no siblings...the feeling of being alone can catch you out unexpectedly even though I'm 61.

It’s cruel for you both. I can’t imagine losing my mum when I was 32. She definitely wasn’t my best friend, but she was a completely devoted mum and she gave me so much support in every way when our children were growing up.

She was in her 90s when she died and all her grandchildren were at least 18. That’s the right order of things and you’re massively cheated if you don’t get this. My husband’s dad died in his mid 50s. All of his children were still only in their 20s. Everyone has missed out on so much. But what can you do? I know from my husband that you learn to live alongside it. He still has waves of sorrow 30 years on, but he accepts it will always be this way.

I am so very sorry, sending you love.

Hold your Mum close while you can, tell her you love her, take photos with her, make a video and record voice notes. Ask her questions about her life and her family.

I lost my Mum almost a year ago, it was sudden and unexpected and I was out of the country. It was devastating, but you cope, you won't know how but you will get through.

My Mum once told me that you never stop missing your Mum, no matter how old you are. She was right. Most of the time I'm fine but it hits me when I want to tell her something, ask her opinion or just have a hug. The memories can be hard too.

Be kind to yourself give yourself time. Don't rush back to work. Lean on your friends and spend time with family.

Ahh, I'm so sorry. It is hard. I lost my mum 17 years ago and think of her every day.
I find it really calming to think that she lives on through me and my kids. I'm also religious so that helps. The hardest part was not being able to phone her every day....

I was 27 when I lost my mum really suddenly and honestly it still hurts 6 years later. Spend as much time as you can with her. I'm really sorry you're going through this, I wouldn't wish it on anyone