will the guilt ever go?

[mumoverseas]

My wonderful mother died on Saturday and I found out on Sunday morning by way of an email from my brother. I am living 3,000 miles from home at the moment and had not seen her since December when she stayed with me for Christmas at my UK home. I then had to fly back here as I was heavily pregnant and had planned to have my baby abroad where my DH is working. My gorgeous son was born in February and although I wasn't originally due home til July, I had a feeling I should go home earlier to take him to visit her. It took around 6 weeks to get his birth certificate, passport and visa and when I got it I looked into flying back for a UK in around early April but stupidly let myself be talked out of it. Instead I brought my flight forward and was supposed to fly home two weeks today and was going straight down to see her. I am devestated that I left it too late and she never got to see her baby grandson and he will never know his wonderful nanny. We lost my dad 4 years ago.

I had phoned her within an hour of his birth and sent her photos and she was so excited and couldn't wait to meet him and I let her down. I just can't imagine ever forgiving myself for that.
Sorry for rambling, just needed to get it out if that makes sense?

On mumoverseas I am so sorry for the loss of your mum. How awful for you.

You weren't to know. If we could see into the future we would all do lots of things differently.

Please try not to feel guilty. You spoke to your Mum and she knew about your DS. It is so hard being far away I know.

I am a bit shocked that your brother emailed you though! Surely that news would have warranted a phonecall?

I'm so sorry you have lost your mum.
Everything will be raw for you just now but please try not to feel guilty. Buda is right; we cannot see what is in the future, and yes, we would all do things differently if we could.
You sound so close and of course she was excited and proud of you. I don't think she needed to see your baby to feel those things, she felt them anyway IYSWIM.
Please take time to come to terms with this and look after yourself. Best wishes.

Sorry that your mum died and that you feel guilty, guilt is one of the feelings that is around when someone dies it is often misplaced thou.
could you have a photo of your baby put in your mums coffin? do you think that would help?

thank you everyone for your kind words, it really helped.
onlyjoking, thank you for that idea, I'd actually thought that myself last night but wondered if I was being a bit silly. Thank you. Hugs to you as I remember your thread from around this time last year. Never posted on it but you and your DC were in my prayers x

so sorry, when my nan was really ill in hospital i told her i'd take my dd who was then 12 months old to see her on the day i decided not to as dd was abit out of sorts.planned to take her 2 days later [easter sunday] but my nan died that morning.i felt so guilty as she adored my dd [her only great grandchild].i still think about it now as dd [4]asks about her when looking at photos etc.
i saw a counsellor as i had other stuff going on as well and i mentioned this and he said more or less what buda said we weren't to know take care x

Thanks for sharing that we me mrstimlovejoy
I still feel very guilty but I keep trying to convince myself that at least she knew about her new grandson and had seen photos of him. was talking to my aunt a few days ago and she said mum kept talking about him all the time and was excited that we were getting him baptised in her local church in July. We have therefore decided to go ahead with the baptism as it obviously meant a lot to her.
My DD is only 2 1/2 and has a few memories of nanny so I'm going to keep showing her photos and talking about her and hope she remembers her.
Am still having trouble struggling with the fact that I'm an orphan now and feel quite lonely at times.
On the positive side, my brother finally managed to get the death certificate today as they had to do a PM so I can now start planning a lovely funeral for her.
Thanks for listening to my rambings

Hope you are doing as well as can be expected. Thinking of you x