Yesterday morning I lost my Nan and I’m struggling to see how I’m going to cope without her. She wasn’t just Nan to me, she was more of a Mum as she raised me and was the most important person in my life. She got diagnosed with dementia 1 year ago and I’ve been caring for her ever since alongside my other family members but I don’t understand how this has all happened so quickly, she was only 73 and had only just retired when she was diagnosed. She wasn’t ready to go this soon, I feel it wasn’t her time. I worry about her being on her own where she is now.
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Hello @KeraG,
I’m so sorry for the loss of your nan. Thank you for sharing this with us. I’m just giving your thread a gentle, “bump” for you - hopefully someone will have some thoughts to share.
Take good care,
Naoise
I hope you are doing well!
I lost my lovely Nanna 8 days now while on holiday - she was rushed in for an emergency op never woke up being put in an induced coma leading to sepsis and organ failure in a matter of hours. We changed our flight that day (a week early) and got the call she passed as we were boarding the plane.
I can’t fully relate to how you are feeling but I understand the shock and confusion of it not being their time and how fast your whole life can change.
I am just a message away if you would like to chat or just a safe space to vent as you process this
Hey,
I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your Nan who was obviously an incredibly important figure in your life. I just wanted to reach out and at least tell you (though I know it’s hard to believe and understand if you are surrounded by people in your life that don’t get it) that you’re not alone and you’re doing absolutely amazing trying to reach out on here, and however else you may be doing it or dealing with this hard loss.
I lost my Nan, who was also like a mother to me, last April to cancer. It was rather sudden as by the time we had discovered she had cancer it had already metastasised to her bones and the doctors told us there was nothing they could do. I feel like my life absolutely shattered, and honestly I still feel exactly the same about that. I was at a complete loss of how I even felt that for a long time I couldn’t understand how I was processing it, I just couldn’t believe it had happened. I felt like all the happiness in my life had been stolen from me. Though I’m fortunate to have a great relationship with my mother, it’s almost as if the relationship dynamic of the three of us was that she was like an older sister and my nan a mother. I love my mum dearly, but my Nan was the person who I would always, always, listen to and seek advice from on how to live and deal with situations - like if I had anything stressful at university or didn’t know how to use something having just moved out - she would be there (as she had the time).
I also feel that my Nan was the person I was the most like, and whom I’ve always been most like. Because of that I seem to struggle to find myself, and it’s taken a long time (and antidepressants and counselling personally) to be able to see that I sometimes feel like nobody else understands, not even my mum, because of my likeness to my Nan. And sometimes now it makes me relax and be able to smile, because realising just how similar we are makes those feelings of confusion and loneliness just a little bit softer and slightly easier to bear.
I still get down, depressed, upset, angry etc all the time because the loss of my Nan has reshaped my entire world and all of my relationships with my family, some for the better, and some now feel more strained as I feel like I’m in the position where I’m the only person who can even attempt to fill the void that she left, and sometimes have to act as a mediator, which is incredibly difficult being the youngest in the family.
Before she passed I was having such a bad time at university and was pretty much hating it. Because of her being so unwell I spent the majority of the second semester of my first year at home watching my lectures online, feeling very alone, and like each day was the same - I’d have to catch up with uni and then I would spend hours at the hospital/hospice.
I just wish she could see how much better I’m doing now, just about to start my third year, even with all the other things that have happened. So many things have passed by which are things for which she would have been my first point of call, like bad flatmate experiences and my dad passing, but of course, I had to figure more of it out on my own than I would have done if she were still here. I feel so much more grown up than I did a couple of years ago, and I just wish I could know for sure that she sees that and that she’s so proud of me.
I’m not sure on your thoughts of any kind of afterlife or rebirth/reincarnation, but I don’t have any particularly strong beliefs about what happens after death. However, I do know that I can still feel my Nan around, and I see her and remember her in many, many things. A couple of weeks ago I was on the train going over a bridge that sits above the sea. With the beautiful views of the sunny sky, blue water, and lack of any large clouds, I had this sudden feeling of relief - I felt that she was there, in everything I was looking out on, she was free and was no longer limited. She wasn’t gone, she was here but took no exact physical form, she was free to do what she wanted, and I could see her in everything.
My Nan was probably the person I have been closest to for my whole life, and that still stands even after a year of losing her. It’s extremely far from easy, but what had helped me is both time and the feeling that she knows and understands what is happening even now. When she was very ill, she told me that she doesn’t know how but she knows that she will be able to see what’s going on here and how we all are.
I know that she would be so incredibly proud of me for coping with the difficulties of returning home and my family relationships now that she’s gone, and for not forgetting about those or abandoning them, but also trying to make a life for myself, having kept at uni and having a partner now, and speaking to other like-minded people in similar (yet different) situations.
It’s never going to be easy, which is of course something that is frankly depressing and unfair and frustrating, however living with such grief and loss isn’t impossible. What I think is the most contributing factor is time, and whilst being young also because that means it comes with ageing and being able to find our own path. Whilst that seems difficult and almost impossible without the person who seemed to guide us through life, it’s not impossible and ultimately we’re doing it ourselves even when reaching out for support from loved ones or strangers (which is something that deserves immense amounts of praise and is so hard and brave). But, I think that we’re doing it through the memories and the understanding of the person that we have lost. Because of my similarity and closeness to my Nan, I know what she would have said, done etc, and a lot of the time that aligns with what I would do, which I find oddly comforting.
I know it’s so easy to say that she would be proud of you and that ‘she’s still in your heart’ and things, but I truly believe it’s more than that, that as difficult as it is feeling like you knew her more than anyone else, that’s something beautiful which will evidence itself, and you’ll be able to see herself in you and it will sometimes feel like she’s still here.
I’m sending you so much love and compassion. Please remember that grief takes many different forms and is not something that people ‘get over’, but is something that starts to feel a little bit easier to handle and express as we grow and more things in our life expand.
I hope that sharing some of my experience would have helped you even slightly, and please if you need anything or want to talk then do reach out.
Best wishes,
Kayleigh x
Hi I’m so sorry for your loss I lost my nana last December. Mine was also such an important person in my life who I loved so much and still do. I’m still going through emotions now it’s such a tough thing when you are so close to someone. I would share everything with mine and had little conversation and loved her giving me advice calling me honey. There will be a time where times will be happy again but I figured out you have to take things day by day can’t rush. I’ve had family members tell me to move on get over it. But sometimes you are allowed to get upset having a cry is good and remembering good is too.
This speaks to my current experience. It’s only been a week, and today I had to donate her belongings and just cried. The entire day. My nan’s illness was longer, and it feels like I am mourning the various stages of her life that are all now totally over.
I don’t have anything useful to add. I’ve been reaching out to friends for practical support (like today, taking her belongings to donate, so I don’t have to). I’m being very honest about how I’m feeling, as far as I can.
It sometimes feels like people expect you to lose a grandparent, so it is somehow meant to hurt less? That’s not my experience at all. She was the one relative I could always trust, who knew what to say and do. I need her support now more than ever. Which is a bit of mental torture really.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. It’s a mess. It hurts more than I can explain. I’m here to read if you need to just type out your feelings.