That’s really beautiful, and comforting to read. Thank you. Did you keep the clover?
I hope the spiritualist helps, it’s something to look forward to as well.
Thank you yes I’ve kept it and put it in my Dear Mum journal I’ll write when I found it and thank her for helping me. I think at first writing in it will be hard I’ve not started yet I just have it in my bedside drawer but I hope over time I can use it as a way to speak to her at night time I can write my thoughts in my journal to her.
I will write back to you and let you know how that goes, can chat to me anytime it’s not like our feelings or memories of our mums will ever disappear and it’s nice there is a forum like this to connect to people about our thoughts
You have just summed up so much of how I’m feeling except for the service, I’m moving to not wanting it to happen.
Like you, I feel I’ve accepted it, I hate it, but my Mum was so poorly and I know she’s not in pain anymore. Then I feel guilty for smiling, or not crying, or being in the moment and not what I can best describe as active grieving. I still have a constant sadness and if I smile it’s not an authentic smile but I feel guilty for not crying all day
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I’ve also been thinking about a journal. I used to be spiritual (not religious per se) and it’s comforting that you’re thinking of writing to your Mum too. I hope I find my beliefs again. Can really sense you’re spiritual too
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I get you I feel guilty for not crying all the time anymore, for her hospital stay I cried most nights and wasn’t myself and for 3 days after I cried all the time. Then I got outside and started to focus on my daughter again and start feeling a little bit less sad constantly. It’s not to say I’m not sad but I’m able to function again and it makes me feel guilty.
I wasn’t really spiritual before this I did always have an open mind and felt like my mum wouldn’t ever really leave me. Now she’s died I definitely do believe I have some doubts sometimes as seeing is believing but I just have a feeling she wouldn’t go far from me and I am holding onto that feeling. I hope you get a journal too or something to do if you feel you need an outlet I got myself a grief book too from Fox Under The Moon I seen the page on Instagram and iv got the book on my bedside the messages are really nice. X
I always thought there was something more and I took comfort in that. Whether it’s religion or the Universe, there’s something but right now, I’m shaken.
I’ll go check them out for a nice something to write in, thank you!
Maybe our Mums are giving us strength and we are open to receiving it.
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Hi Amy, so very sorry at your loss, you are rather young to loose your mother, on the 5th January my mother died in my arms at home after a 4 year battle with dementia, she was on a driven syringe and I had had her medication stepped up(I know as much about end of life dementia as most doctors and have some clinical knowledge) and I held her as she gasped her last drowning in her own fluids, then she passed as her heart failed and on the stress scale of 1-10 I suppose that is 11, she was 95 and until the last 4 years had been well all her life, I am 63, on the sad side you lost your mother still fairly young, but you have a very young child who must know be your main priority and your mother would expect you to go on and to make a success of your new life with out her not only for your own sake but for your daughters sake to, you still have a purpose in life and you must focus on that know, I can only say that since the passing of my father in 2008 the bond between my
mother and myself improved and we moved house and had some happy years and did everything together, and when the time came I became her principle carer and had no help until the last 14 months of her life leaving my health brocken at the end of it and I was suicidal, unlike you I do not at this moment have a proper roll in life, but you are right, death is NOT the end, from what I have been able to find out from talking to clairvoyants, mediums, and people who have had death experiences and a personal paranormal experience the night after the death of my twin brother,death is only the end of the beginning, I am the night watchman, when I am out we are all out and back in the pavillion, life is like cricket, sometimes we score boundaries,some of us go on to score centuaries either in acheavement, or cronologically, or both, sometimes we get caught out, stumped, balled out, lbw etc, or even get hit on the head, but at the end of the day we go back to ware we all started from and move into a higher level of being, altogether, go to a reputable clairvoyant, I did it within a month of the death of my mother and it was a revelation, my father was coming through very strongly in the reading and that was a big surprise to me, and since then both my parents have been coming through to me regularly,you have a daughter, clearly you are loved, or have been loved and if the later then one day you may be loved again, you are still young and for you the sun is not yet at its zenith, I, on the other hand am moving into the Autumn of my life(like the season) and while my clairvoyant tells me I have many years ahead of me I have made a will and have put my affairs in order, I have no desire to drag on alone for another 30 years,just keeping going in this world is a constant effort and there may come a point to call it a day and if Putin starts to fling nukes then we are all better out of it, did you live with your mother?, you say she was in hospital?, greef is a very personal thing, it is a clinical condition and it can have chronic effects on health both physical and mental, let me recommend 2 books, one is ‘You are not alone’ by Cariad Lloyd, the creator and host of Griefcast, the second is ‘Climbing out of depression’ by Sue Atkinson, quite an amusing book ware she compares us all (and herself) to lemmings climbing up out of a peek or a rockface,both writers have been through the mill, have families of there own and know there arses from there elbows and know a bit about life, do not be led into thinking there is a correct way to greave, we are all different and anyone who tells you otherwise is a lier,I have no words to bring your mother back,I would love to have my mother back, this is still her house and her ashes are permanently mounted in a casket
in the lounge so there will always be a place for her here,her ashes form the centre of a wall memorial to my family,I find it hard to believe I am the last, take each day as it comes, love your daughter as I am sure your mother loved you,
stay warm, stay safe, eat properly if you possibly can and keep the roof over your head, may God give you guidance and strength in the days ahead. 
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Lovely words. xx
Hi Tim thank you for your beautiful reply you made me tear up reading your message. My dad is a similar age to you he is 67 and he is so fit and healthy a stark contrast to how my mother was. They had me aged 39 (mum) and 36 (dad) it made me realise I wanted to have my baby earlier I only want one she is a beautiful 21 month old December baby. my mum and dad were the first people I told their faces lit up they’d been waiting on me doing it, I was 28, so I hope my daughter gets alot longer with me. My partner is still in my life he has been very good to me throughout this my mum and dad love him too. We met 2017 and had Romy our little girl in 2021. You are right she is my purpose now and I feel a sense that if this is part of our journey I can now honour my mum by raising Romy exactly how she raised me, totally loved unconditionally/ that is what I miss most about my mum I could do or say anything and she’d just love me no matter what, she was totally obsessed with me and I understand that now. I lived with my mum my whole life til the pandemic, in a small flat together til the pandemics I had to work from home and my dad offered me to work there during the day and drive home to stay at mums at night. My mum and dad had separated but were still very much in love and best friends they just fell out, she wanted money and to downsize and he had the money to buy her out the house and both were happy wit the arrangement. So I left the family home age 17 to stay with my mum as at the time she was my closest bond. We stayed there til I was 27/28 when eventually I became pregnant in early 2021, I stayed in my family home at dads and he was thrilled with the set up he wanted to be involved and help me and my partner. We’d saved to buy a house I had so much saved but he hung up the phone call I was on with an estate agent and said under no circumstances are you buying yourself and getting into debt this house is yours. And my boyfriend loved the idea too we just pay all his bills (mortgage free so just everything else) and he is happy. And he loves seeing Romy grow up.
After the small flat situation and me all but leaving (I’d still go up at weekends and do overnights on weekends my bf would come stay too at mums) she asked me to apply for her to live in assisted living right across the road from our family house. Application was accepted right away and she moved into the flat there early 2022 so my baby was still small, and I’d take her over have coffees etc my mum didn’t get out she hadn’t kept well all of my 20s really. But to me this was normal my mum just didn’t do alot in terms of didn’t like going out, so to see her I had to go to her flat. It worked well Romy liked watching cartoons on her tv. I then went back to work Feb 2023 and my dad took on watching Romy if I worked from home so he’d take her to her granny’s all day. They got alot of time together I feel so blessed about that and developed a lovely bond in the end. She got taken to hosp Aug 6th my dad and a carer seen her and called ambulance she was unresponsive in bed, that night we were told she’d possibly die overnight soon as we got up the treatments worked and she was ok the next week. After that all downhill, her lungs were making too much co2 and not keeping in enough oxygen. Drs said it’s so hard to balance the right oxygen as too much prompts her body to make even more co2 which is hurting her even more. In the end a bipap mask worked wonders for about 4 days we got my mum in a good place of health Romy was up in hospital bed cuddling her, at least I know my mum felt love, she loved baby’s and children all she ever wanted was to be my mum, she had to go through IUI to have me as her and my dad couldn’t get pregnant alone.
Sorry for all that info. You are totally valid in your feelings Tim a huge fear of mine is when my dads gone (as that will be my next huge loss) he is my best friend we do every thing I only work 2 days a week since having a baby and I’ve promised him I won’t change those hours; he did many of the caring roles for my mother and it is a small solace but I’m glad it happened while he was still young enough to have not destroyed his own mental and physical health caring for her. He sees that too. He misses her to death she was his best friend he has no family now other than me and my daughter. Romy loves him I’ve told him we’ll fill our weeks taking her swimming he loves swimming and big long walks.
I know you’ve said Tim you’re alone and maybe no purpose you will always have one please believe me: if you can please get yourself a dog or a cat if you don’t already, they bring so much love. That is my plan for when I’m old and if my partner goes before me, I’m getting a wee yorkie terrier and calling her Bertha as that was my first dog in this world. They’re small easy to walk and wonderful company. They give you a reason to get up in the morning and someone to cuddle upto. My dad does this, when my mum and me left initially they were on bad terms for about one year, he had 2 dogs and he said they really filled the void of having people in the house, don’t underestimate how powerful the love of an animal can be they are so like children. And every dog deserves a good loving owner many are just waiting for a good person to find them.
I know it doesn’t change the fact you’ve lost so many people you’ve loved in life, they are with you surely waiting for you to return to them someday. But they would want you to feel more love in this life too. I’d you’re ever feeling alone and want a chat please don’t hesitate to msg me here or private message me.
I will definitely get those books I love reading. I read that souls need a few months after their death to fully connect so maybe that’s why first time you mostly got your dad. I’m going to a spiritualist with my cousin next year she told me their best advice is wait 3/4 months before trying to allow them to get used to their new life on the other side. It for sure doesn’t end, there’s no way we’d get signs and such strong feeling that they are still with us.
And you are right my new purpose in life is to be the best mother I can to my little girl she deserves a great childhood and happy memories with me like I got with my mum.
I do feel very young to have lost my mum I was in shock, I thought definitely she’d lived til 76-79 with me closer to being 40. I wanted her to see Romy go to school and me possibly marrying my partner. She loved weddings and I never even got to tell her we’ve been speaking of being married. When I do I’m going to wear her perfume and believe that she is with me.
But I just want to end by saying I don’t want you to feel that as you enter the autumn of your life there is no more love or connections from you. You’ve just cheered me up, you’re clearly a caring man and you never know what’s around the corner for you connection wise. My gran on my mums side her husband died young and she met another man in their 60s and had a lovely time together, mostly companions but they were very close and lived together. So much of life still infront of you although I understand your pain about being the last one left, it is a fear I have. Please when you can try and get out and meet people even some nice people at a club if there’s any around you, and a wee animal to keep you company. I don’t know if my reply will make you feel better I hope it does. And in times with dark thoughts just try to remember they’re waiting for you, but keep holding on you’ve so much to offer in life you seem like a very kind and caring person. I love the idea of casket in living room my mum is being buried through but like the wall memorial idea too I want to do a shrine to her on the mantle piece in living room. I can’t wait to see a spiritualist and try to connect I will write back and let yous know but it won’t be til next year. Don’t foresee these feelings ever going away though so I will still be in the forum and will write my experience.
Take care xxx
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Hi Lisa
So sorry about your mum and how you’re feeling 
I hope you have a good support system around you and you’re always welcome to chat on here. If you want to share what happened writing it down that could help get it out of your head. Keep speaking to her too. She’ll be with you now. What May work to help me through this may not help you but try speaking to her writing your thoughts down in a notebook or on here we just need people to listen sometimes 
you’ll always miss her but you will be strong enough in time to get through things and not move on but function and enjoy some things again: thinking of you xxx
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Hi, the funeral is a ceremony that feels quite surreal I think. The whole day just felt so emotionally charged for me. When that day was over it felt like something had shifted. My Mum was cremated so some of her ashes are in the earth of my memorial pot for her. I bought a butterfly tribute sign to put in the pot and seeing it from my kitchen window is strangely comforting. I could never have imagined how much of an impact her death would have had on me. It has shaken me to the core but I accept it because obviously our Mums are our first relationship. I think it has made me aware that no one loves me unconditionally anymore. It’s so hard to adjust to this simple fact…xx
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hi Amy, thankyou so very much for your very kind reply, you clearly have a very positive outlook on life and that is so good to know and that your father is in good health, when my father died on the 1st/Dec/2008 I was in Liverpool working as a taxi driver, my Jewish girl friend(who was related and told me some interesting stories about lord sugar) told me I should go to my mother are she would be gone very quickly and to cut a long story short I packed up liverpool and moved back to live with my mother in the lakes at lakeside, windermere and that was christmas 2010, on the 12th May 2012 my mother and myself moved to Laneside Rd, Kentsbank, and we had some 6 happy years together that have left me with happy memories like the holiday in Norway, the trips to Scotland at Christmas and to the Galith poninsula in wales and she was doing it partly to give me some happy memories, and at the end of the day that is all we have left and that makes them so priceless. interesting what you said about getting a dog or a cat because I was looking after my sister in laws dog over the weekend and I took it to church because I did not want to leave it shut in the house incase it felt abandoned, she would not stop whimpering and I felt obliged to leave and if you tune in to youtube and select Grange Methodist Church 1st October the reference to the little dog leaving was with me!,I have promised my sister in law that should anything happen to her that I will provide a home for Ruby,she is a lovely dog and would lick anyone to death,
had some good news today, may be a little closer to resolving an issue with probate so money should soon be available to fix the house up properly, given my mother wanted nothing doiung with it for years, I have had put in a soler power system,new cavity insulation and a modern gas boiler(other 2 were free because I get tax credits so I struck while the iron is hot) and I am building a snug at the far end of what is a large lounge, my plan is to stay warm in the snug this winter, no point in heating the whole house on my own as that is antisocial, even if I could afford it.I am self employed and do clock and furniture restoration and regard myself as semi retired, considering taking up para gliding next year at Cark airfield if my health is up to it, its to late this year as it is know the closed season for that and eventually I would like to qualify as an ultralight pilot and build my own plane(probably plywood reinforced in high stress points with carbon fiber) and treated with fire retardant, my car is going to need some work on it over winter so that will keep me busy so I am going through and getting on with things and feel a lot better today then I did yesterday(I think I have post bereathment depression, i am under a nurse for it more used to dealing with battlefield trauma and I probably have a form of it, its called battlefield trauma but any extreme stress can cause it) christmas will be a difficult time, I will probably be down with my niece and sister in law in Ormskirk on christmas day but most of christmas I will be alone and I associate christmas with the death of my mother but it is the same for my sister in law who lost her mother on the 6th of January 2021 to dementia,(kills more people then anything else and is the worst death) one day less then 1 year before the death of
my mother,I hope things look up for you, try not to get too down, from what you say I think you have some good support, God bless
Tim
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I’m finding today really difficult. Can’t stop crying and I feel so tired and weak to be able to do anything.
Hi Tim
Your message sounds so hopeful today too! You have so much to do don’t forget that and many happy years ahead for both of us. 63 is a good age and you can still enjoy many hobbies and like we’ve said perhaps get an animal to nurture and love, there are so many who would love to have a happy home and I bet you’d have the love to provide that. I think in life we have to keep loving people and animals that’s what makes life fulfilling enough to keep going through it. I am sorry to hear about your depression is the battle field depression associated from work? Making a plane would be an awesome experience! I might start knitting as my mum enjoyed that.
I am sat in my daughters bedroom which she doesn’t sleep in yet she’s in my bed at the moment and I just came in here to get some space alone, there is one small white feather here, no idea how it would have gotten here! I hope it is my mum.
Today was a good day for me my sister and her 2 kids and husband travelled up from England for the funeral which is not until this Friday. But they wanted to be up earlier to see us for longer. It is the first time since my daughter was a tiny baby that they’ve seen her, and I warned them that she will probably cry and she is very shy. She took to them almost instantly as if she knew it was her family it was really beautiful and I only wish my mother was alive to see that. But I hope she was watching from where she is now.
I know the holidays will be so difficult, I always spent Christmas with my mother and I understand with your mum passing at that time it will be even harder. I hope you still manage to find some joy in the season but don’t be upset with yourself if you don’t do that this year and if you just want to lie in bed and be with your thoughts that is totally understandable. I know that in life as we get older and lose people the holidays can be lonely. And I feel that because we know (or think) everyone else is happy that makes it worse. There will be alot of people like you who are alone and I know it’s not nice but you can chat on here I will check my post over the holidays. I have to work from home (only 2 days a week Monday and Friday) over the holidays and I am already dreading it as my work is quiet at the best of times and at Christmas it is extremely quiet so I will just be sat alone with my thoughts and wondering what my mum is up to now and wishing she was here. And again I know I’m harping on this point of dogs! But they get you out every day and even on Christmas and new years I see people alone walking their dogs outside and at least they’re not so alone I think. I have a dog myself just now a border collie called poppy and you never feel alone at home with one around, even if my dad takes my daughter out I’m never alone as she is there running around the house which I enjoy as I will be honest I hate to be alone. Humans are social creatures we enjoy company it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I also watch a lot of YouTube just to listen to people talk when I am alone.
And that’s nice you got to spend the last 6 years living with your mum making memories she’d have loved that and gave you memories of holidays and trips together. I live in Scotland myself it’s a lovely place to be and it was nice reading yous visited here on a holiday. Aviemore is great at Christmas time if you could afford to go a trip yourself I’d recommend it.
Me and my dad also won the post code lottery a few weeks ago £1000 each so that has helped us financially with the funeral costs.
I hope you are okay tonight and can message on here anytime
Amy
I feel that too no one not even my partner can love me unconditionally only our mothers can do that. They have memories of us no one else has and the bond between mother and child is the closest anyone can have. I am glad the garden tribute brings you comfort too. I am really dreading the funeral it is this Friday. Seen some of my family today and it was nice but bittersweet kept wishing my mum was there too. We went to a place she often came with us so that was hard. The loss of unconditional love is probably one of the hardest parts of this loss.
Sending you love and hope that tomorrow is a good day x
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I’m sorry to read that just know that it’s normal you are allowed to feel this way. I hope tomorrow is better for you and I hope you see her in your dreams tonight. She will come to you I think when she senses you feeling this way. And please know in your heart that you won’t feel this intensely for ever, you will always feel her absence but over time I know we will get stronger. Really hope you are ok.
Thankyou, kind of you to say so, I try to say something meaningful that will help, as I said in the eulogy to my mother regarding the teachings of St Frances of Assisi,we need the humility to accept the things we cannot change, it is only then the healing process can begin, good luck and stay strong.
Tim
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Thanks Tim that is so true. I am telling myself I can’t change things, it is hard to accept but we must. But we know they’re not really far from us I am sure our mums are near by and wishing they could tell us everything will be OK.
Amy x
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Thanks Amy, that’s so sweet of you. We have the celebrant coming round in the morning and needed to tidy today. I think hoovering and moving things has been quite upsetting for me today. The conversation with the celebrant is something I’m also quite anxious about.
Hope you’re having a strong day
Hello again Amy and thankyou so much for your reply, you have a profound understanding of life for your age if I may say so, you appear to have an extended family coming from England, could you possibly spend Christmas with them?, I remember christmas 2008 just after my father died, I was at home with my mother and it was not much of a christmas as my brother who was married went down to church Stretton with his wife to stay with her mother, my mother and myself joined them in christmas 2009 but my mother did not really get on with her sister in law(telling my mother to wear her hearing aids because the TV was turned dead low and she would not turn it up) so from then on we (my mother and myself) spent christmas in Newton Moore at the highland hotel, scotland which we enjoyed very much and it included a pantomime at the Inverness theatre on boxing day(o yes it did!!) and we always went with Bibbys off Ingleton, a coach company. one year we went to the Edinburgh tatou, it was very enjoyable, blowing a bit and we were rapped up in wind proofs, my mother had 3 degrees in dancing and was a fully qualified dance teacher, her values were shaped during the second world war in times of national danger, hardship and osterity,she remembered sheltering under the stairs next door to her house in station road, dalton listening to the strain of Dornier engines of the Luftwaffe as they carried there deadly cargo to barrow and other places, by 15 she was a qualified commercial secretary in shorthand, typing and bookkeeping and was the only person in her year to pass book keeping and went to work for the Duke of Maclue under a colonel Woddon in Dalton,she harboured ambitions to join ensa(to some that was every night something awful) but had my mother been involved who was a natural performer it would have been every night something arsom, she was too young and on the 8th May 1945 Churchill declared VE day or victory in Europe and that dream ended, she was 17. and so with her passing has slipped away from me that last direct link with the greatest generation,she fought to the bitter end when hell itself froze over and if dementia were Vladimir Putin then she would be president Koleski of Ukraine. I know you will be dreading Friday, keep your loved ones close to you, I had to do it all myself so I opted for direct cremation, return of the ashes and a funeral with the ashes on the 17th April, it was the first time in my life I had organised an event myself, it was my mothers funeral and to me a baptism of fire, to make matters worse I had just been in hospital with cellulitis having put a steel toecap through my left foot so my left foot was in a slipper and I practically ran the whole show myself(the Eulogy took 20 minutes) for which I stood the whole time, it was a drain on my stamina, I had visions of falling flat on my face but somehow I got through that day, sustained partly by seeing old friends I had not seen for some years, I had arranged a meal for close friends and we went off there after the funeral, I was very glad to sit down, I was all in by the end of the day, before then I had not so much as organised the proverbial in a brury,yes, it was a triumph of organisation,. stamina and fortitude, what does not destroy you makes you stronger,I was the chief mourner, also the architect of the funeral format (I used the service sheet from my fathers funeral as a template)host, and representative of my mother, it was a time to step up to the plate and show leadership, like my mother, I too have star quality, I think she would have been proud of me. on Friday, make your mother proud of you,I know you will look back on the day with sadness, but I hope it will give you a chance to pause, to come up for air, to reflect on happy times with family and frends and prepare to move forward into the world,remember, your mother is not in the coffin, that is only skin and bone, the words on my mothers casket read as follows
Those we love don’t go away,
They walk beside us every day
Unseen, unheard, but always near
Still loved, still missed, and very dear
quae fecerunt sibi optima (she did her best)
God bless you Amy, we shall communicate again.
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