I really don’t know where to start, I just cannot function anymore. My son passed away suddenly on 24 April 2022 at 47 Years old. I miss him so much but no one understands my grief. Everyday is dark, sad and a time of tears, tantrums and anger. I am sick of people trying to fix it. I don’t think the loss of a child at any age can be fixed, but people can’t accept that. The grief has got worse since it happened, and everyday is a chore. I just snap peoples heads off. He is in my mind when I wake and all day until I sleep and then in my dreams. The shock and trauma of what happened is still so real, I just don’t know what to do anymore. It is like a film reel playing in my head. I do not think I will ever recover from it.
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Hi @Shazconn, I completely understand your grief. We lost our son on the 29th May and like you the pain seems to be getting worse with each day. I get up in the morning and just want the day to be over. I almost feel as if I’m waiting for something to happen, as if all this is just temporary and suddenly everything is going to be as it was. then the reality hits. My son was 41 and severely disabled, but his death was unexpected. Like you I keep going over the events in my mind. Today has been particularly bad for me as it was our other son’s birthday, normally we would have all gone out as a family but we just couldn’t face it. I wish I could offer you some words of comfort, but I know that no one can say anything that will help. I know that the pain will never go away but hopefully with time it will become easier.
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Hi thank you for replying. I am so sorry for the loss of your son, and I know exactly how you are feeling. Everyday is a burden to me, I do not know what to do half the time. My son’s birthday was a week after his funeral, I truly struggled with that day. I also have a daughter and a husband who are also suffering, and we lean on each other, but I just think the relationship between a mother and a son is such a blessing and I miss him everyday. I hope that you are ok and hope that we can both get through this terrible time we are enduring, talking to people through this site has started to help me and hope that it can help you. Take care.
Hi @Shazconn, good to know that talking to people on this site is starting to help you, I feel the same.
I’ve had a much better day today after my terrible day yesterday .
I met an old friend for coffee and it has really helped me. I must admit I nearly pulled out at the last minute but in the end pushed myself to go and I’m so glad that I did. It was good to be able to talk to someone who unlike my husband and son isn’t coping with their own grief. She is a very good listener and even managed to make me smile. I still felt that emptiness when I got home and realised that my son wasn’t here, but I didn’t break down and spend the rest of the day crying, which is what usually happens when I go out. I hope that you have someone who you could meet with, who isn’t so emotionally involved, and you feel you can open up to. As I say it was hard to push myself but I’m so glad I did. I’m not sure how I will feel tomorrow but it has been good to be able to talk and share happy memories of my lovely son.
Hi, I am so pleased you had a better day yesterday and I am glad you have a friend that truly understands the situation. My husband and I are on different levels of grief and he doesn’t like to talk about what has happened where I do. That’s difficult, but he does try, bless him. The friends I do have just don’t seem to understand the situation really, or how my feelings have sent my world into free fall. I’m sure they mean well, but it’s not helping me at the minute. Will it all get better in the future, I am unsure about that, for me there is no future, and my mind is filled with my most precious son and nothing else. We have no choice but to carry on the best we can. Take care and thank you for replying to me.
Hi @Shazconn, I know what you mean about your friends not understanding the pain that you are going through. Although the friend I saw at the weekend is great I still have other friends who will ring and ask ‘what have you been up to. have you been out, have you got anything planned’ It makes me want to scream. As you say they really don’t get it do they, the pain that we are feeling losing our sons. Do they think that after a few weeks we should be getting on with life as normal. I know it will never be normal again, but I just hope that the pain will ease with time.
My son was severely disabled and required a great amount of care, he was everything to us and we lived our lives around him, it upsets me now when people say well you can spend time together now as a couple, you can have holidays abroad, you can do things you weren’t able to do before. This makes me so angry as it is almost as if they are saying we are better off without him, how dare they. He enriched our lives, and we did so much with him despite his complex physical disabilities. and we miss him so much. The only thing we couldn’t do with him, was go abroad over the last 10 years, as he was unable to fly. This never bothered us, and I don’t want to go anywhere now without him, but people don’t seem to understand this.
Why do they say a holiday will do you good, no it won’t, it won’t change anything so how will it do me good.
As with you and your husband we are both grieving differently. At first, he didn’t want to be in the house, whereas I didn’t want to leave the house, which created some difficulties. He also isn’t happy about certain aspects of our son’s care in the hospital and wants to take this further, but I haven’t the strength at the moment and feel this will have to wait a while.
I’m sorry if I’ve rambled a bit tonight but it feels good to talk to you as I know you understand how all this feels.
Hi, please don’t apologise, or think you are rambling on, it does help us both to talk to each other, as you say the majority of people don’t understand the devastation that we are dealing with. I don’t know where people are coming from when they think you can just pick up where you left off, I don’t know how they think the trauma of it all can be forgotten so easily. I sometimes think they mean well but I am afraid some comments do not help at all. To think that a holiday will do you good tells you they do not understand the pain we are going through. We recently had a break in this country and spent our time walking, talking and crying in the middle of the countryside. We just wore our masks when we had to deal with people. However, it did not change our nightmare, or the terrible grief we are both feeling. I agree with you I feel that normal life cannot possibly be normal again, I think it will run along side us forever. A light has been switched off and it will never return. The bereavement nurses at the hospital where our son died were very helpful. We have raised a complaint about our sons treatment, and they helped us a lot, they wrote the initial letters and got the ball rolling for us. They could give you some support when you or if you decide to go down that route. For us it was a case of trying to get answers regarding our sons sudden, and in our opinion unnecessary death. Take care and please keep talking if you need to, I don’t mind at all.
Thanks for your lovely email @Shazconn.It really does help. It’s not been a great week. A neighbours lovely son passed away unexpectedly at the weekend, he was 45. another lovely young man taken too soon. Life is so cruel.
Life is so cruel. It is so very sad and I send my condolences to his family. I think we both know exactly what the coming months will be like for them, I feel for them I really do. I saw this written somewhere and it resonated with me, thought it might help.
People think the bereaved have an option to immediately move on after a loved one dies - they don’t. You simply learn that time doesn’t heal your grief, it shows you how to wear it. The painful reality is that you have to wade through the quagmire of grief to eventually get to a place that feels a little bit lighter.
Take care and you know where I am if you ever need to talk, and thanks for all your understanding, it means a lot.
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Hi Ladys i totally get you .losing a child of any age is awfull. Your in shock and nothing seems real.i lost my son sam april 27th 2021 .it feels like yesterday i miss him so bad he was 25 he had a rare sarcoma. Which took him in four months. He was so very brave .i have to say this site is my life line .theres other threads loss of son 27…lots of people chat . Will help .my heart goes out to you.such early days baby steps big hugs zoe xxx
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Hi everybody I am feeling as sad as ever so I thought I would login to see how everybody is feeling.Its amazing when you read the feelings other people have cos that’s just how you feel.Reet 41 says she feels she is waiting for something to happen.I am the same then I say “it’s already happened”.There is no time limit on grief .I lost my lovely husband 11 years ago I think of him and miss him every minute of the day.My son and I could talk about his dad and laugh at the good times.However now my son my only child has passed 6 months ago.The way I feel is horrendously sad and empty.I just want my boy back.I go out see friends and family talk about my boys but I don’t want to feel like a “broken record” and get them down.So often I just want to get home and cry freely talk to my men tel them how I am Sometimes I feel like I am losing the plot.Love and hugs to everybody going through this nightmare of bereavement Marg
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Hi everyone. Your messages all resonate with me. I lost my son aged 47 two months ago. I seemed to cope at first. There was a lot to do. But my grieving has got worse. People say to think of the good times but I can’t help thinking of his last two weeks in hospital and going over the progression in my mind. The only good thing is that I don’t think he thought he was going to die. His illness affected his brain so he did not take on board everything the medics were saying.
I miss him terribly. He lived with me for the last three years and it is hard not to have him in the house anymore. I have had dreams where he is still alive and then woken up to the reality. It is the enormity of it that gets to me. Last week was hard as it would have been his birthday. I know that it will get better in time but it is still raw and sometimes meeting friends does not help as they say inappropriate things which sometimes hurt.
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Hi@Patsy2, I am sorry for the loss of your son and understand fully what you are going through. It’s been 4 months since we lost our son, who was 41, and the pain is a strong today as the day it happened. Like you I have flash backs to the events of his last few days. Although he was severely disabled his death was unexpected. He went into hospital for a routine procedure, had a massive seizure and passed away two days later. like you I do try to think of the happy times and I get a lot from looking at pictures of him and his beautiful smile. However, particularly as I lie in bed at night I have these terrible images. I am hoping that these will become less as time goes on and like you I hope that things will become better with time.
It can be difficult talking to friends and family, they mean well, but the only people that can understand the depth of the pain we are suffering are people who have experienced this loss.
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Hi Patsy2 after reading your message I felt as though I was reading my own circumstances.So very very hard to carry on living without our lost boys .But we have to carry on no choice.My love and hugs to you .Marg 1
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Thanks Marg. I appreciate all you say and thanks for replying. It’s hard to come to terms with the big hole that has opened up. I still hear his voice and see him talking to me. I am able to recall some of our conversations and when something happens to me there is the compulsion to come back home and tell him about it. I’m sorry for your loss.
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Sharing happy memories is just the best thing. I love talking about my son and particularly to people who knew and loved him. The celebration of his life that we held 10 days after he died was good because so many people attended and his kids has laid out a terrific number of photos and they made a 7 minute video of aspects of his life and it was good to be able to laugh at a video of him dancing in the front room and also one of him arm wrestling with his son. Magic stuff. But then on one’s own again it is gut wrenching to comprehend what has happened and that we will never see him again. He’s at peace yes, and all his anguish and pain has gone, but at what price? Some people cannot appreciate that I am still grieving and want to talk about anything else as it makes them uncomfortable as there is no community of feeling. I understand , but it makes one feel lonely in one’s distress. Anyway, all this will only be too familiar to those who have lost an adult child. My heart goes out to all of you.
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My son 36 died within 2hrs working away from home. He’d not been I’ll he’s left 2 little babies. 7mths I’ve felt dead inside no feelings ,can’t get my head round it. I feel in disbelief. We as a family never got to say goodbye . Life is so cruel my 3 elder daughters get comfort taking his babies out I’m shamed to say I don’t he was MY baby. I can’t cry I just feel lost., lonely and alone. No one understands me and I don’t understand myself. I just feel I failed him although there was no saving him from what happened xxx
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Hi Suzie86 I am so very sorry for your loss. Life really is so very cruel.No there is nothing to feel guilty about but its natural for a parent to feel that way
I feel the same after losing my son my only child in March.I think it’s probably the order of things is wrong as parents should naturally go first.The feeling of emptiness and disbelief yes its unreal.I am able to cry which may or may not help I really don’t know.But the way you grieve and feel is what you need to do in your own way.So sorry there is nothing I can pass on to help you but maybe just maybe in time you will enjoy your baby’s babies.I hope so sadly I do not have grandchildren and yes my lovely son was my baby.Sending you hugs xMarg 1
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Thank you Marg1 it’s so difficult and hard xxx
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