I posted for the first time today about the situation with my mum after my dad had passed away. She is not coping at all and my sister is too angry to deal with anything and avoiding it.
My worry is that I am doing too well… dad got his diagnosis Christmas Eve 2015 and had an op to remove a tumour the size of a house brick just a couple of days later. The rest was to be treated with chemo. 3 different rounds of chemo and many more battles with sepsis led to radiotherapy and the thought it all had been beaten. Sadly this was not the case and dad passed on Father’s Day 2016. He got to leave us on his terms, at home with mum close by. That’s all he wanted, he refused the hospice. My feeling is I cannot be anything but happy that he doesn’t have the pain he did every day, nor the worry of how we would cope without him. I knew for a long time that we wouldn’t have dad here long term and I knew from probably this time last year he wouldn’t be here for my birthday in September. He never told me, I just knew. I feel I made my peace with it all and focused on spending as much time with dad as I could, sometimes a ten hour round trip just for a cup of tea and a hug. Most weekends and all holidays were spent with him. I worry that I’m fooling myself and I’m in denial and this will all crash around me someday.
From your other post, you clearly have a lot of worry about your mum, so is it possible you are putting all your energy into supporting her and putting your own feelings to the back of your mind?
Grief doesn’t follow a set timeline, so, yes, it is possible that it could hit you harder later. But, on the other hand, everyone is different, so don’t feel bad that your feelings aren’t follow a set pattern. The main thing is to go easy on yourself and not bottle anything up.
Some people find mindfulness meditation can help them accept their feelings as they come on a day-to-day basis.
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