Hi Doreen,
I know myself how immense a kind word feels. Nothing you say is silly. You have expressed beautifully what it feels like to be left behind. I still wish I could join my mam. I’ve picked myself up again today after sobbing for the last few days. Getting up each day if you can, getting dressed, doing the dishes will all be achievements in themselves because everything now will feel pointless or a mountain that you just can’t climb. Allow yourself time to grieve. Let it consume you. To feel whatever you feel is normal. My whole family have disowned me because I am so grief stricken. As soon as mam left us my dad was saying to everyone that I’d lost the plot because I didn’t want to leave her. It must have been horrendous watching the essence of your mam slip away. We were fortunate enough to all be with mam for the days leading up to her passing and I watched her take her final breaths. It haunts me that I can’t take her place so she can live on. I’ll think I’m doing ok and then the most random thing will appear to break me again, like seeing a swing chair in a garden on tv because my happiest memories are of us together in her old garden. I have been relentless in creating my own garden in her memory but it doesn’t stop me crying as soon as I stop because the reality hits me over and over again. I knew grief was coming but had nothing to prepare me for the overwhelming feeling of emptiness. I can’t imagine it can ever be filled. How can it be? Whatever you can do to get through the time will help you to not just sit all day long, every day, wanting to join her. That feeling never leaves me but when I get to evening it is a relief that another day behind me will be a day closer to her. I imagine meeting her again and I work my time around that. If you have support it will help you to journey through grief. I wasn’t allowed to cry (had to sit in the garden), talk about her, sort through her things. You will be surrounded by beautiful things and memories of the lifetime you shared together in your house. My dad couldn’t wait to get rid of all her things and I can’t visit to just sit where she was because he wants nothing to do with me. I still don’t understand why. It’s natural to focus on all the things you wish you had done / said and telling mam how much I loved her is my biggest one because I didn’t say it but I know she must have known because I can’t hide what I feel. People say the pain of grief doesn’t go away but you learn to live alongside it. And don’t feel guilty if you laugh or are able to do something and feel like you are ‘moving on’ because it’s such an unpredictable ‘experience’ / way of living. I’ve just sorted through my bookcase and now have all my boxes of buttons to get up in the loft. So I suppose I’ve achieved something today. Before mam left I was so very driven to be creative and now it means nothing because mam isn’t here. But I’ve done something rather than nothing. Each thing you do, however tiny, is worth a little praise, even if it feels silly in the massive scheme of things. Baby steps, focuses on just now, never too far ahead, will help. We can’t stop time, day and night, the seasons. It has been heartbreaking knowing mam won’t see my garden. I hope she is watching and is the little robin who gets excited when I go out there. Whatever thoughts we have, whether it is a faith or not, it can help to comfort. I sat in church a couple of times because mam believed but I felt no connection there. I thought I would feel close to her. I like the idea of Buddhist philosophy with reincarnation. Overall I believe that if we are good in this life we have nothing to fear in the next. Whatever spiritual realm awaits us it must be more fulfilling than this life. I’m sure our mams are at peace wherever they are and we are left wondering how to continue without them. I read that losing a mam is like losing your identity as a daughter. I’d never looked at it that way but it’s very true, that sense of being lost.
Keep going, feel whatever and whenever you feel, immerse yourself in grief. I’d rather that than to fight it and pretend it’s not happening or that I should be ok for other people. Always imagine what your mam would say to you. Mine would say ‘Ah pet, it’s ok, you don’t need to worry about me, I’ll see you soon’… And I’m sobbing again!
Lots of love xxx
