Lucy
I too have been concerned you have not been here for a while now. We need our little amigo…please let us know how you are
xxx
Hi all, sorry not been in touch but work been crazy, needed some alone time and just been away for a few days with a great friend. I will catch up on all the messages Sunday when I stop work - so apologies I’m not up to speed but hope everyone’s ok. Thanks Ann just seen your msg at the bottom as logged on to just say hello to everyone - got interviews tomo all day, training thurs all day etc etc. All a bit crazy. Much love x
Hi Lucy
Good to hear you are ok amongst your busy schedule and work commitments
Take care
Lyn
x
Hi Ann
I guess I am over thinking everything and just need to move on
xx
Hi Ann, Lyn, All
I don’t think Ann’s a nutter at all. Your experience of your dad hanging on until you arrived is strikingly similar to the experience of an elderly aunt. She had been lying attached to a syringe driver for about a fortnight and towards the end seemed deeply unconscious. She let go and died when a priest she was particularly fond of and wanted to see arrived at her bedside. And if you felt your dad’s spirit passing I would consider you a very lucky person to have had this experience.
Sleep tight everyone
Marigold
X
Hi all,
Just checking in and hoping that everyone is ok.
I am struggling with so many ‘firsts’ at the moment as this time last year mum was here with us.
Will try to post in more detail soon but I am thinking of each and every one of you.
Caroline xxx
Hi All
Hope everyone is doing as ok as possible.
I have read the messages on questioning where our parents are. I do not have a faith but that does not stop me questioning where my mum is. I wonder if she is with the rest of the family. I ask my mum where she is. I wonder if I need to tell her when I get home or will she already know where I am but then wonder if she may be busy doing something wherever she is and then I am back to thinking she is nowhere and then around I go again with asking her where she is. I do think months 4 and 5 were really difficult with searching for these answers. I find walking reduces the sadness and also cooking or gardening, something practical which is totally different than my life before!
Hope everyone is able to get out into the sunshine this weekend.
Xx
Hi Everyone
Hope you are all ok
Jayne
I keep going round in circles going over and over the same thoughts and feelings and questioning everything and trying to find some meaning to it all and just end up overwhelmed with sadness.
I walk a lot and it does help because walking helps clear my head so that I am in the present moment.
Caroline
I understand the struggle with ‘first’s’ but I think they will always be around as we think and miss them constantly in everything we do. I woke up yesterday and saw the first sunshine of this year and burst into tears.
Work offer 6 free counseling sessions so I have contacted them and taken them up on the offer. Just hope it may help so will let you all know how I get on
Hope we all have a peaceful relaxing day
xxxx
Hi All,
Hope everyone’s ok, finally caught up on all of the messages. It’s just been manic with work and one minute I love it the next I hate it and so it goes on but the past couple of weeks I’ve enjoyed it - makes a change to get in and out of work without any accidents holding me up! Just had to have some me time to get my thoughts together. Had my ring returned with mums ashes in and I absolutely love it and wear it everyday. It’s a great comfort. Not for everyone I know but works for me.
Interesting about your holiday Caroline, I went away a couple of weekends ago with a friends and found my patience a little shorter than normal (means -000 patience!!) and although I had a nice time, it’s a new kind of nice.
Read your post Ann and it must be so hard to watch your mum become a different person and have to witness it. I hope you are coping as well as you can. I hated seeing mine suffered during her last 36hours but in the huge scheme of things it all happened so quickly within 10 days and I know she’d be grateful for that. That was tough but you’re being very strong. I had a friend over at the weekend and she promptly got upset as she’s now worrying her mum won’t be around for long and because she’s seen everything that’s happened with me, she’s getting very worked up. You know when you sit somewhere and think - is this really happening - she’s come over to support me but is in tears herself bless her!! I ended up being the support!!! I must admit I wish I wasn’t one of the first of my friends to have faced this but I’m so grateful my mum was my mum. It’s not going to be easy seeing this happen to friends over the years as I now know exactly what they are going to have to face and from a selfish perspective I don’t want to see it - but I will of course and I’ll be there for them.
Lyn & Marigold, you sound like you’re doing getting there and finding ways to come to terms with things - not that we ever will come to terms with our loss but I suppose we are all finding ways of coping more a few months in. In some ways mum dying seems like yesterday but in other ways it seems to be months ago. It’s only 4 months yet I feel like I’ve not seen her for a year.
Jayne - I’m so glad I’m not the only one who talks to mum! I find myself saying what I know she’d say to me and giving myself encouragement from her. I talk to her everyday and ask her where she is! I just hope that she can see everything and I’m sure she can and I don’t believe either but I do feel that she’s with me still and always will be.
Well I hope you are all ok, sorry for the absence but I just needed a break from everything.
xx
Hi Everyone
Just to say a big thank you for listening and being there for me when I needed support.
Wishing you all lots of love for the future
I won’t be posting again
Lyn
xxxxx
Hi Everyone
Just to say a big thank you for listening and being there for me when I needed support.
Wishing you all lots of love for the future
I won’t be posting again
Lyn
xxxxx
Hi everyone, it has been quiet from everyone this week. Not sure if that is a good sign but hope so. On my way home from work I often wonder how you are all doing.
I have been feeling a bit less sad this week but then wonder how I could be less sad after only 6 months. I do still feel it is a temporary situation til my mum gets back?!
Lyn, have you been able to start the counselling through work yet?
Lucy, hope your work has calmed down a bit.
Ann, thinking of you and your mum.
Caroline, I know what you mean about the firsts. I did not think I would bother too much about Easter as it did not seem beforehand that it would have the same effect as Christmas but it felt almost as awful. I guess we just need to pre warn ourselves that the firsts and certain times of year are going to hit hard.
Marigold, I remember you saying you were struggling to motivate to work in the house and garden. I too lived in the same home as my mum which I have found can make it difficult to focus at home when I can generally focus away from home. I am trying to take a bit more time out to relax at home.
Warm thoughts to everyone
Xxx
Lyn I have just seen your post. Both your post and Lucy’s post must have arrived while I was typing mine.
I do not know your reasons for deciding not to post again but am sad to hear that. You always have such wise words. I am sending you positive thoughts and here for you if you do at any stage decide to post xxxx
Hi Everyone
Lucy, I am pleased you are doing ok and getting comfort from your special ring. X
It made me smile when you say you were sitting there wondering if it was for real ending up being the one comforting your friend! I get that feeling alot…when people start being compassionate then say things like they are annoyed with their mum for doing absolutely nothing at all …or they broke a finger nail etc
When you say you are glad your mum was your mum, that sums it up so well. Regardless how long she was with you, she made you who you are and that is a wonderful legacy 
Hi Jayne
Thanks for thinking about me. Things up and down with my mum who is getting more confused. I have a bit of time to be me again though now and catch up on work etc so for that i am thankful. I see her everyday but no longer have the stress of 24/7 care. Glad you are doing ok. I wouldn’t question it, just be glad you are
Hi Lyn
I really hope we do hear from you again as I like to think we are all here to ride the waves both up and down but sending you a virtual hug either way. Xxx
Ann x
Ah…I have just realised what an idiot I am! The message I posted was meant to be posted on another bereavement forum I was on and not this one. Sorry everyone. I’m still here on this site. I wondered why I had these strange messages.
Hope everyone is doing ok? I had my first counseling session yesterday and it went really well. The lady is lovely and put me at ease straight away and once I started talking I never came up for air! Poor lady. I told her more in an hour than I have ever told anyone. She did remind me I had another 5 sessions to go haha!
I know counseling is not for everyone and personally never thought it was for me but it was good and a release/relief to talk to someone about my thoughts and feelings without any form of censorship.
I am still up and down with good days and bad ones but I am finding different ways of coping now and I am making a big effort to stop myself from focusing all the time on dad not being here, instead I am switching that focus on the love we shared and the happy times we had and telling myself he is still with me and always will be. It’s hard to do but I can’t live my life in a constant state of sadness. That would defeat all what dad taught me about life. I am going through a period of wanting to change things but not yet sure of what?
I haven’t seen Caroline, Lucy or Marigold here for a while? Hope you are all ok?
xxx
Hi All
Hope everyone is doing ok over the Bank Holiday.
Ann, thinking of you and your mum. Hope you are finding some time to try to relax a little and keep up those yoga sessions.
Lyn, hope the counselling sessions are helping in some way. I know you said you were looking to change some things but hadnt decided what. I guess it is a time which makes us re-evaluate everything.
Xxx
Hi Jayne.
I am managing to take some time out this bank holiday thankfully. I hope you are too. Things terrible with my mum. She is getting more confused and calling me all the time in a panic. The really upsetting thing is she thought she could see and hear my dad calling for help and not breathing but she couldn’t get to him. That was excruciating to hear. It will be 1 year since I lost him on Tuesday and I can’t believe how cruel life is being to me at the moment.
Sorry to harp on but I had my own medical emergency last weekend too. To cut a long story short that included ambulances, a&e, tests, mri, I had a gallstone blocking my bile duct and I was exceptionally Ill and jaundiced. They tried to remove it but had to stop so now I have a stent in and got to go back in a few weeks. May need gallbladder out too. It was so hard being so ill and going to the same hospital i was jn just months ago with my mums diagnosis. Am I being tested this year? It sure feels like I would pick the wrong side for each and every coin toss at the moment!
Positives? it is sunny at last and the flowers are blooming…
Ann xx
Hi Jayne
Hope you are doing ok? I will be thinking of you on Wednesday on the first anniversary in memory of your lovely dad William Bryan. Hope the day brings happy memories along with all the other mixed emotions we are all feeling. I will raise a glass to him Jayne
I have had my 3rd counselling session and although it’s good to talk everything out, issues around my mother are becoming dominant. The counsellor is a bit over focussed on this which is starting to annoy me but maybe that’s the objective? I don’t feel any better or worse but will see it through.
Just booked a holiday on the Isle of Wight, staying in the exact same lodge as we took my dad to 5 mths before he passed so it will bring back some lovely memories, I am hoping, as he really enjoyed himself and was the happiest I had seen him in years. The isle of Wight is where I want to live when I retire, if I am not disinherited by by mother!!
xxxx
Hi Ann
You are certainly being tested! your strength to get through all that is happening to you is amazing. I’m so sorry to hear about your mum’s confusion, it is truly heartbreaking to watch them deteriorating and feeling so helpless and powerless to do anything. I remember praying to God and saying either give me a miracle and get my dad better but if he is never going to be the same person please take him and end this suffering. I actually felt relieved when he did pass but never in a million years thought I would be going this nightmare grief throws you into.
I am also sorry to hear about your own health crisis and how brave you are facing it head on and getting it sorted. I hope you have a speedy recovery and that you are being looked after and taking care of your own needs.
I need to see my Dr for some routine health checks but I just can’t face anymore Dr’s or anything medical and my surgery is next to the hospital dad passed in so at the moment I keep putting them off.
It is so hot and I said I wouldn’t moan but I do struggle with it going from one extreme to another. My poor Sammy (dog) struggles to and I have to cut his walks down or take him late evening when I’m too tired to do anything!
Keep your chin up Ann, we are all here for you when you need us.
Sending you some positive vibes
xxxx
Hi Ann and Jayne
So sorry I have just realised my error. Ann it’s your dad’s anniversary today not Jayne.
Hope you manage to cope ok. Thinking of you xx