I lost my mum a week ago from being her live in carer for 5 years after losing my husband. It’s like losing them both at once now. I’m devastated, she died within 4 days chest infection to pneumonia.
Hi Tan,
Welcome to our Online Community. I am so sorry to hear that you lost your mum a week ago after having also lost your husband. You are dealing with so much in one go and it’s completely understandable you’re feeling devastated and missing your mum. Have you got any other family or close friends that you can talk to about how you’re feeling? Having that support network can be such a great help, even if you’re not ready to talk yet, just knowing they’re there is something.
There are other members of this community who are going through something similar and will be able to support you through this difficult time. You aren’t alone here and I hope knowing that helps, even if only in a small way.
If there’s anything I can do to help you or if you have any questions about the site please don’t hesitate to send me a private message.
Take care,
Eleanor
Online Community Manager
Thank you Eleanor. I have a sister close by but we have never had a close relationship and she never helped me with mum. Mums sister is 5 minutes away and we are close but she is a very strong lady dealing with her grief differently. I have always been easy to tears but at the moment I can’t stop!
My daughter is 130 miles away. My son isn’t far but is autistic so isn’t dealing with losing his Nan well, who he adored.
Hi Tan
I am sorry to read your Mum passed away so recently. It is so hard to lose a parent, especially when they are ill and it is so quick. Also to have lost your husband as well, very hard to bear.
My Mum passed away coming up for two years ago and like you I lived with her. An expression I read soon after ‘Every room is full of her silence’ completely summed up how it felt for me. I missed and still miss her a lot. There is no one like your Mum for help, comfort and support.
A week is no time at all and I am sure you are in shock. There is so much to do so accept help if you need it from other people. However, don’t be pushed into doing anyhting you don’t want to. Just say ‘I don’t want to’, no reason needs to be given. It is very liberating to do as we are so conditioned to please others and you are the most important person to consider at the moment. I found setting myself very small targets each day and though childlike gave myself a reward for getting through each day. Could be a nice bubble bath, takeaway coffee, anything that appealed. I found sweets a terrific comfort. The action of sucking something sweet, sugar rush, etc helped with the tsunamis in public! Comfort food as well, baked potatoes and beans, scrambled eggs, soup and nice bread, etc. The last thing you feel like doing is eating but something easy to eat helps you keep going.
I think you must be a very special person to care for your Mum for five years. I lived with Mum but only cared for her full time for a few months when she became ill. I know how exhausting it was but how special it feels now to me. Those times are ones I will never get back so I treasure the happier memories when Mum was happy and laughing before she became ill.
I send you hugs and please know that|I am and will be thinking of you. There are many kind people who come on this site and I am sure they will answer you too.
Mel.
Hi Tan, so sorry to hear of your loss. I lost my mum many years ago and am only just grieving now (I was 11 at the time). I’ve always cried easily too, but at the moment it’s like turning a tap on several times a day! I’ve learned to just let the tears come when they are there - it feels like a release valve. Do you feel the same? Better after a good cry? X
The empty room feeling is multiplied with the feeing that the warmth of our love has gone. I’m so lonely I have to have the tv on all day for noise.
Hi Tan I am so sorry for your loss the pain is so awful …I was my Mums carer for 11 years i was constantly told by six different doctors for the last six weeks of her life that i was overexagerating her condition and their was nothing wrong i even saw her specialist two days before she died and he told Mum that he was going to discharge her as her lungs where clear she died two days later on his ward of severe pneumonia . On the day she died we got home to receive his report saying she was fine then i received a text from the hospital asking me to rate their performance …unbelievable. The emptiness is unbearable the guilt for not saving Mum is painful and its six months ago since she died i have lost seven close people in six months life is cruel but you have to keep going I try so hard not to think about it Cruise have been brilliant I really recommend seeing a counsellor. I truly hope you can get through this awful time I just feel numb xx
I just feel lost. Caring for mum got me through losing Simon so it’s like a double whammy. The reason I reply now is that I keep thinking I can hear her snore from her room. I want to go and check her but I know that ridiculous and I’ll just dissolve again.
No matter your age you are you need your mum and the house seems devoid of love.
Hi Tan
Another one who cannot sleep tonight! I remember that feeling so well of thinking you can hear your Mum and wanting to check on her in the night. The quiet in the house when her hospital bed was taken away almost deafening I found.
I agree about the crying, I am another one who was always a cryer as a child and have found I am very prone to tears again now. Anything sets me off, a character on TV, books, films, etc. I have been told it is a good release of tension and certainly find I feel a lot better afterwards.
Hope you have managed to get off to sleep now.
Mel
5am every morning im awake. I’m physically exhausted as well as emotionally. My niece came and force fed me last night or I really wouldn’t bother.
I got off to sleep about 5.15 in the end, awake again at 6.30 and 7.15. Everything was going round in my mind. Got to work today and have reports to write so not sure how sensible they are going to be.
I’m finding the nightmares horrendous. That’s what wakes me up I think. All the ones I had after Simon died on top of new ones about mum and losing my kids (adults with their own families) just awful.
Hi
Hope you are all asleep tonight and will be a little more rested in the morning.
Tan it is such very early days for you. Take good care of yourself, do remember to eat perhaps a little bit of whatever may tempt you at the moment.
Mel I see that you are approaching 2 years so perhaps that, added to a bank holiday weekend, was keeping you awake last night. Hope you managed those work reports!
I too lived with my mum although I do have my dad so am not experiencing the deafening silence a few people have mentioned but I can only imagine how hollow that silence is. After 7 months it still seems as if my mum will be in another room if I go and look for her.
Take care all
Hi JayDee
Thanks, better night last night as think I was so tired I just zonked out. Didn’t finish my work until 4.30pm so not even the chance to go out for a walk and some fresh air. If we get some sunshine over the weekend I can soon remedy that!
I was away from home overnight on Thursday which I don’t think was helping, strange surroundings and not terribly nice supper either. Having said that the double gin and tonic I was treated to should have made me sleep. Home now so have my familiar things around me.
I have written before about the comfort I now get from rather childish things and a lovely soft waffle throw on my bed is one. Having that to snuggle under if I am feeling rotten seems to help sometimes.
Hope all have a reasonable bank holiday. Tan, try and get out and walk or see friends. Sitting at home alone over a holiday period can be interminable my local theatre are screening a film I fancy seeing so will get to that if the projector hasn’t broken again.
Mel.