Hello
I lost my beautiful mother just yesterday. She had been in hospital for 10 weeks, she had covid then developed an infection. She responded well to the treatments but it the toll it took on her body was just too much and she passed away yesterday morning. I didnt get to the hospital in time to be with her and I’m heartbroken.
I lived with and cared for her for the last 20 years and, at times, I got very frustrated with her sometimes but mostly with myself. All i can think about are the times when I should have been more patient. We both know that we loved each other dearly but we never really said it to one another. My heart is shattered and I dont know how to even start to process whats happened. I just want to be with her. I miss her so much.
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Hi Doreen,
I’m so sorry you’ve lost your precious mam. It is the worst thing in this world. My mam left a year ago and it isn’t getting any easier. All I want to do is be with her. The sense of loss, emptiness, regret, guilt and fear of being alone is overpowering, coming in waves of despair. All you can do is let it wash over you and know that there is relief afterwards, until the next time. I have found wonderful friendship here (see ‘creating a shrine for my mam’). To express everything you feel is to get it out of you, like a therapy. People don’t judge because they are going through it too. It’s a new way of living (existing is more accurate) with the before and after. Your mam’s leaving is so new that you may still be in shock. I keep thinking mam has been away for a long time now and I can’t wait for her to come back. I would give everything just to talk to her again. I want to go back to being normal, where the world made sense and I knew who I was and my place in it. There are so many things I wish I’d said / done differently. I wrestle with trying to perfect the past every day and can’t accept what has happened. It is because we love that we are so destroyed by grief. Keep posting. It does help. To know everyone here understands and that I am not alone is a comfort of some kind. Keep thinking what your mam would say to you when you need her. She is always in your head and heart and will never leave you. I like to think she is the robin in my garden. I feel completely destroyed losing my mam. But somehow I keep going. You will too. We can never be prepared for this but we are designed get through it. Taking each day, hour, minute is the trick in getting through the day until the next. Time isn’t like it was before. It has no relevance now. We live in the moment of whatever emotion we are overpowered by. We are all broken here so you are in good company. Please keep reaching out until you find a place to settle where you find comfort. Going through the preparations ahead will feel very surreal but it is something to focus on. Sending you love for you and your beautiful mam xxx
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Thank you Christine for being so kind, i genuinely appreciate every word.
I’m sat here alone in the house we shared for so long and the feeling of loss is overwhelming, I have never felt anything like it in my life. The house even feels like its grieving for her, I know that sounds silly but it really feels like that. I loved her so much and I don’t think I told her that enough. The last few weeks were awful for her, she lost the ability to do anything and withdrew from us completely, it was utterly heartbreaking to see such a strong, determined lady lose so much of herself in such a short time. I can’t comprehend that the daylight still came this morning and the night will still fall, how can things just continue as if nothing has happened. I pray that shes at peace and happy.
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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
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Hello Christine
I can tell how creative and expressive you are by the unbelievably beautiful way you write about how you feel. Although I knew Mums passing was coming, the end came very, very quickly and despite my best efforts I arrived at the hospital minutes after she passed. I sat with her for 2 hours stroking her beautiful silver hair and telling her how very proud I was to be her daughter and how strong she was. I told her that she must invisibly take my hand and walk with me always, I hope that she does.
I do feel like I have lost my identity, I am no longer someones daughter and that is the hardest thing in the world to accept isn’t it?
I don’t think we will ever get over the grief we feel, I think learning to live a different life will be hard, it feels impossible right now. I am so very sorry that you don’t have the support of you’re family, I think that’s just heart breaking. How you grieve is very personal, very individual and we should respect that, I hope that you find peace with your family in time and you can all grieve and miss your sweet mother together as it should be.
My Mum was a Christian. I’m like you, I’m not sure I can find enough faith to give me the comfort that I so desperately need. I hope Mums beliefs helped her at the end and I hope that she was right to believe and that my Dad was waiting for her to take her dancing.
Love to you xx
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Hi Doreen,
Thank you! I always loved English language and literature at school and have learned through therapy to be expressive of my emotions. Getting them out releases the pain and becoming so overwhelmed that I just can’t function. That’s why this site is a perfect tool for grief, to share with others who understand and are not judgmental. I’ve been told I have no filter! but I find honesty with myself the best policy.
My mam loved dancing too. I love the idea of everyone dancing in Heaven. I hope mam is with her parents. She never talked about it. I imagine a beautiful summers garden with all the cats and people she has ever loved. Everyone has their party dresses on and there’s a marquee with tasty treats like mam made ( I can’t cook so can’t even try to make the things she did to comfort myself). Mamma Cass is playing (from my childhood) and everyone is twirling. I want her to visit me but she must be content to not feel the need to come back. When I was little and her mam passed she visited me as a ghost to tell me she was ok and not to worry about her. I assumed mam would make sure I was ok but she hasn’t come to me. I live in hope that she will. I love your imagery of your mam holding your hand through life now that she isn’t here physically. I think to be a spiritual being without a body must be very freeing, like angels and fairies. Mam believed in magic. I want to as well.
I know it will haunt you not arriving in time but I think there is a transition between leaving the body and waiting to leave again, to travel on to the spiritual world, where the person (our mams) watch us before we are asked to leave. You are so lucky to have been able to have those hours with her, to talk to her in private and have those precious last moments to tell her how you feel and to carry them with you now. I had no privacy, a full audience, so I couldn’t tell mam anything. When I was speaking there were comments that I would wake her up (I’d just arrived and they had been there a long time before me) and when I continued to fan her (as I had been doing because she was hot with the morphine) after she passed my dad was saying I’d lost it, like I was mad. Sitting holding her hand was also timed by my sister and everyone had to have a turn. So our final hours together was a spectacle. I don’t think I’ve actually described that before now. But I think whatever circumstances we find at the ‘end’ is no comfort really, and it doesn’t define the lifetime of love we shared. My therapist says I need to let go of trying to perfect the past because when we are living we are not trying to perfect life in anticipation of loss. It’s so hard to let go of all the things I regret. But that is part of grief.
I’m going to start reading ‘The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying’ in the hope of finding answers and insight as to how to let go of grief in order to feel close to mam again. Whenever I have a happy memory of her I start crying again.
Keep posting. It does help, however desperate you may feel (I am the queen of feeling desperate and don’t know how to make it stop). I am always here, popping in throughout the day. When it got so bad that I couldn’t post I still read posts and found it some comfort until I was back again.
Just had to deal with a leaking roof in my loft. It seems when I have to I can spring into action and get things done. Have to wait until the rain has stopped to get the chimney repaired. So I now have to keep going into the loft to replace the paper soaking up the rain and empty the bucket. It was just by chance that I went up there to get some xmas decs out in preparation for getting a xmas tree. I find reading the details of other peoples lives sparks interest and is a window into a normal life again. That’s why I always post pictures of my work in the garden and the shrine I created. It will have a little xmas revamp with a touch of ivy. Not looking forward to collecting that in the pouring rain!
It’s lovely to meet you Doreen, even if it is under the worst possible circumstances. It seems we are all searching for something and being thrown together here creates unexpected loving friendships that are as valuable to me as if in ‘real’ life. I’d love to return to my old life where mam would live forever but we are faced with a new reality and just have to get on with it. I didn’t really know how precious mam was until she left me behind. I feel like a little girl again, totally lost and desperate for my mammy. You will survive this, as I have a year on. But it is the hardest thing you will face. Have courage!
Lots of love. xxx
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My, that so resonates with me. I too feel as if I have regressed into a little girl again and feeling lost in a supermarket when you lose sight of your mam for a moment
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I too am grieving alone, no family to grieve with, so even more difficult
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Here if you need to chat x
Hi Doreen,
Firstly I am so sorry for your loss, I truly understand where you are coming from. The loss of a parent is a hard loss especially if you have been caring for them. And the emptiness after is so hard to express… the best thing you can do is use sites like this so you can really talk about how you are feeling. Talking is hard but it helps so that you don’t feel so alone and people here come for different reasons but it’s a safe space.
I think when you care for a parent you have a strong feeling of responsibility but also days of frustration which is normal and not something you should feel bad about. Not all families/children care for their parents. You hopefully in time will look back at all the things you did and know that it’s not easy but luckily you were there and will feel comfort in that. Sending virtual hugs
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I don’t know what kind of support you have in place but if you have any issues with paperwork or housing please reach out to me as I may be able to support you with those issues
Take care
I also feel very lost in this strange new world we have been thrown in
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Thank you, I don’t have issues with housing, the paperwork I do have a problem is a legal one, my mums Will. No, it is just the loneliness and isolation, lack of direction. I seem to have lost my place in this world.
Love the name by the way.
Thank you for your message,
Reading the replies to your message I can really relate to . I lost my mum on the 19th of December 22 she had battled with MS for years till she just couldn’t fight anymore. My mum loved next door to me I would care for her along with carers . The last five days of her life I would watch her sleep to make sure she was ok. The day she died she was so poorly she knew I didn’t want to see her passing she waited it feels for me and my brother to leave her with the carers for a short time and she passed with them. How I wish I could have told her I loved one last time. It’s always been me and my mum since my father passed away in 94 I have never lived without her I got married and she lived with me my husband and two children. My 12 year old is doing ok, my four year old told me grandma lives on the moon … I feel so alone like I have no one which I know is not true but it’s not my mum …. Losing my Dad was painful I was only 15 but losing my mum is different which I feel bad for saying but I can’t help the way I feel … I feel like I want to world to stop so I can get off if that makes sense…
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Hi Louise,
I’m so very sorry about your mam. My mam left me a year ago in November and it still feels like it’s just happened. Wanting the world to stop so you can get off perfectly describes that constant battle of deep sorrow and despair. I too would give anything for just one last time, to tell mam I love her and explain how I don’t know how to live without her here. I have tried to appreciate my lifetime with her, to not focus on the last few years where she was ill and then leaving me, but I just can’t let her go.
I’m really pleased you’ve found us here. Kindness and understanding help enormously when days are really bleak. I have found real friendship and love from strangers when my family disowned me for being ‘too grief stricken’. I’m pleased you have a supportive and loving family around you. People can empathise but until they experience it they’ll never know just how heartbreaking it is. And time doesn’t take away the pain of losing your mam. I can never imagine it not being there. But people say we learn to live alongside it. It’s a journey like no other. Some days I feel I’m ok and can be getting on with life and then I will be knocked off my feet again by the most random thing. You just have to roll with it. I find too there is some relief after feeling deeply distressed. It comes in waves. Christmas will never be celebrated again. It will be incredibly hard for you with children, having to go through the motions when all you want to do is curl up and stay hidden. I don’t have children so can only imagine that struggle. However you cope is to be commended. Recognise the small victories and be kind to yourself (I find that really hard).
Please take comfort in the fact your mam didn’t have you with her when she passed. I am haunted by seeing my mam gasping her last breaths. I can’t get that image out of my head.
Keep posting, and if you can’t face doing that then reading what everyone is up to still helps. It keeps you in the loop and up to date and connected. I feel lost otherwise. Feeling lost and carrying a vast emptiness is all part of the course. I find comfort in routines, doing housework, going for a swim, gardening. It’s a relief to get through another day. Whatever you can do to make the time pass more quickly is worthwhile, even when getting started is the hardest task of the day. You will find your path to take you forward. And your mam will always be with you - in your everyday thoughts and precious memories. She’ll still guide you. I’m 52 and feel like a lost little girl again. I’d do anything for it to have never happened. And not being able to change things is the hardest of all. To know this is it.
Building my shrine for mam and also a tribute site (with photo’s, info and updates) helped me to do something for her. Everything I do now is for her. I can’t celebrate life because she’s not here but I can celebrate my mam. She is my everything now.
Lovely to meet you Louise.
Lots of love xxx
Lots of love xxx
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Is it just me, or do you feel more alone as a person when you have no parents?
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I have honestly never felt so alone…
and then I have moments where I feel he is still here,
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