Thanks Jackie x
Yes, it’s the unexpected that can floor you at any time.
Feel free to have a glass of wine on my behalf.
Ann x
Hi Ann
You are at the end of that dreadful build up to the day and you will have been running around organising everything and this evening you are now just waiting for tomorrow so it is no wonder you will be afraid and bewildered this evening especially after all you have gone through over the last year.
I think the best plan for tomorrow is just to be there and not to think about whether you will be upset or calm or frantic. That will just happen one way or another and your emotions may vary through the day.
I know you have mentioned practising yoga. Deep yoga relaxing breaths Ann.
Thinking of you this evening and tomorrow
Jayne
Xxx
Hi Ann,
So sorry to hear the way you are feeling. It’s a really emotional time and doubly for you as it’s bringing back memories from only a few hundred days so which is nothing time wise.
As the others have said, try to not think about anyone else tomo other than yourself and your mum. Don’t try and be the hostess just try and focus on each part of the day bit by bit. This time tomorrow you’ll have got through your next toughest day. You’ve had many already but try and think that afterwards it’s your time to recover and to carry on their wish of you living your life, but I think you also need time to come to terms with losing both parents, so let your emotions go whichever way they need to. If you’re calm or angry tomo- so be it - I’m sure no one will be judging you. It’s easy to say when you’re 6 months forward but you’ve seen my journey on here and I hope you can believe me even though they are a bit different situations.
It’s 6 months tomo for my Mum which I really can’t believe. Then her birthday Weds. it’s just unreal. I’ll be thinking of both our mums tomo for sure. If you can let us know how you get on tomo please do but of course Just do what you need to tomo. Thinking of you XXx
Hi Jayne, Lucy.
Thank you so much for being there again. My emotions change on a minute by minute basis but I know I keep saying it, but I appreciate this forum and the people who give their time to post to help others so so much. Xx
Yoga breathing is a good plan Jayne. Thank you.
6 months is a milestone Lucy. Xx I’ll be thinking of you too.
I asked my mum at the beginning of this chapter of my life how I would get through it and she just asked if I could get through that day. When I said I suppose so, she told me this was how I would get through it all. One day at a time. God bless her. I just hope I remember all her words of wisdom forever as it’s a lonely world without your mum.
But I don’t have to tell you all that!
Love Ann xx
Hi Ann
You do whatever you have to to get through tomorrow, you will be doing your Mum proud however you handle it. I know you will have chosen lovely music and readings for your Mum, things to make it a special day for her and you. I agree, don’t worry about being the hostess afterwards unless you want to. The day will feel interminable when you wake up tomorrow but you will get through it. I won’t say it will be a relief when it is over, I felt completely empty and drained I remember.
I made Elderflower Champagne a couple of weeks ago and it is now fizzy and ready for drinking. I will raise a glass to your Mum and everyone else’s tomorrow evening.
Love to everyone, especially you Ann and Lucy, big days ahead.
Mel
Xx
Thanks Mel.
Elderflower champagne sounds delicious. When I can think straight and my gallbladder is behaving, I’ll ask you for the recipe.
Ann xx
Hi All.
I just wanted you to know I made it through today. The funeral went as well as it could and there was so much love around because my mum was so loved.
12 beautiful sunflowers are now lying where my dad is and my little boy now has a load of smily balloons. Just as my mum wanted.
Now comes the quiet time to gather myself up again. Sod the gallbladder, I’m raising a toast tonight to my mum and dad.
Lucy, your mum will be included in the toast too. Hope you have been ok today marking 6 months on from losing your mum.
Thanks again everyone for helping get me through.
Ann xx
Hi Ann
Well done and enjoy that drink. So glad it all went well for you. A bouquet of balloons sounds good too.
Take care of yourself and relax tonight. A horrid day but over now.
Mel
Xx
Hi Ann,
Well, here we are 24 hours later and you’ve made it through. Glad you’re having a drink, I’m not a big drinker but I needed one that night. Sounds like you did ok and had got through it well and pleased to her that everyone helped by sharing so much love for your mum, that’s lovely. I describe my mum’s funeral as beautiful and it was but then I think am I crazy - how on earth can a funeral be beautiful!
Thought of you today at 12 and after so I’m glad you popped onto to message.
Yes, now is the next big step and reality again of another new step into a new phase but you don’t have to forget the past, I want to talk about my mum everyday. People struggle with that but I’ve kept in touch with some of my mum’s friends and one messaged me yesterday about today and mum’s birthday tomorrow - so knowing that at least one other person (apart from on here I’m talking about) has taken the time to remember, means a lot. I sometimes forget she was other people’s friend and not only my mum. An old friend messaged me today saying about tomorrow - so again that was lovely.
Thank you for raising a toast to my mum too tonight - really kind of you. Anyway you try and rest up and if that means sitting and simply watching TV the just do it and whatever you need to. I’m sure today has and will bring back memories of your dad too which must be tough. They are both pain and suffering free and I like to think that mum has ‘gone with the wind to be free’ - even though I’m not religious or spiritual I still like to think that! She’s free but watching over me and with me all of the time.
Hope you’re ok tomorrow but you know where we all are on here whenever you need. I’ll raise a glass tomorrow to our mum’s again on my mum’s 72nd birthday.
Thank you Mel for your support too. Hope you are ok as well. Love to you both and so pleased you must have done your mum proud today Ann, xx
Hi Lucy
So agree with you about describing our Mum’s funerals as beautiful. It is the last thing we can really do for them and all the personal touches are what makes it good.
I am in touch with quite a few of Mum’s friends still, they were really kind to me when Mum was ill and to her. I know I can still just turn up on the doorstep and be welcomed in if convenient. It is important to talk about our Mums, I think about my Mum every day and what we would have been doing if she was still alive. Probably the same as I have done this evening, had supper and watched Eastenders!
I hope tomorrow goes OK for you. I too am not a big drinker but always raise a glass of something to Mum wherever she is and tell her she is not forgotten. It would have been Mum’s 95th later this year and know I will be in bits nearer the date.
Take care
Mel
Xx
Hi Ann
You got through the day. Your mum would be proud.
Thinking of you this evening
Take care
Xx
Hi Lucy
Thinking of you today at 6 months. You got there, literally day by day. Perhaps you may not feel this today but I think you are doing really well with your positive forward looking planning to do the things your mum would want you to do, even though you will be missing your mum so much and there are these poignant first anniversaries to get through. Thinking of you on your mum’s birthday tomorrow.
Like you, I still include my mum in conversation and I tell her what I am doing!
Jayne
Xx
Hi Mel
It was good to read that, following meeting up with friends you saw a few years ago, you are able to recognise you have come a long way since 2016. Like your mum, my mum would always ask what everyone was wearing when I returned home after a night out and was always surprised if I could not recall every outfit!
Jayne
Xx
Hi Jayne. Thankyou. Xx
Hi Lucy, happy birthday to your mum today. Xx
Ann xx
Thanks Jayne & Ann really kind of you both how have you found today Ann and how’s the gallbladder doing after the drink?
Well both days have been tough but then I actually wonder sometimes did I really care about my Mum because I don’t seem very emotional and feel like I’m doing ok considering. I used to think I wouldn’t cope and even used to think about getting out of everything once Mum had passed but I don’t feel like that (please don’t worry everyone I’m not feeling like that now at all). But how can I go from feeling that depressed to coping? Just doesn’t make sense to me and makes me question why. The two years were hell and I was an emotional wreck at the prospect of being without her and witnessing what she was going through and now I just think - do I care, did I ever care as surely if I did I wouldn’t be coping this well and that does upset me.
I’ve been working today but couldn’t really focus. Didn’t even go for a walk. Raised a glass of her favourite drink to her today & still wrote a card for her. Glad I’m not the only one who talks to my mum Jayne! Had three of her friends contact me over the past few days which has been really lovely. More than I expected so a lovely surprise & nice to know they are thinking of Mum and of course took the time to say hello. I’m looking forward to visiting them in September as my way of involving Mum in my birthday. I miss her so much and knowing I won’t ever get to see her again is so painful. Everyday that passes is another day I’m more distant from her. Had a couple of friends remember and message me but can’t be bothered with some. Same old same old! Anyway sorry I’m so depressing today.
Hope you’ve got through today Ann, I found that next day just numbing in a state of shock.
Thanks Both for thinking of me today and yesterday, such a great support xxx
Thanks Mel, I most certainly did raise a glass to her, I’ve got the renaming bottles of her favourite drink Asti so opened one of those and toasted her. She’d be very jealous knowing I’d got her drink!
It’s so nice isn’t it when their friends keep in touch. I’ve had a call and two emails from mums friends which has been lovely. When is your Mum’s 95th? It’s tough isn’t it, I’m dreading my 40th and I’m going away in August which is going to be tough.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to think her funeral was beautiful but it was. It summed up my Mum and even the sun came out just at the right time.
Hope you’re doing ok xxx
Hi Lucy,
Your thoughts sound normal. I surprised myself yesterday with not crying as much as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, I still looked like a panda…but I didn’t cry as much as I would have expected. Saying that my eyes have barely been dry this last year so it’s all relative.
I think we all come to terms with things in different time frames and it comes and goes. With me, I went straight into complete melt down when I heard my mum’s diagnosis and skipped denial all together. I also think that when we care for them so intimately at the end, acceptance hits faster maybe? When I start to freak out that my mum has gone, I just remind myself that it would be cruel to still want her here suffering so badly.
I’ve just been flat today. Not racked with emotions, just trying to get distracted with work and a bit of gardening. (The joys of being your own boss and taking time out when you need…) I’ve got fathers day and my dad’s birthday coming up on Sunday so it’s just one hurdle after the next. At this rate I’m going to get groin strain with all this hurdling!
I’ve decided I want to spend lots of time with my mum’s friends too. They remind me of her how they put others first. So far my friends have been good, but I already know that I also need to be “mothered” so my mum’s friends are the closest I will get.
Gallbladder update: still behaving.
Ann xx
Thanks Ann for that. Honestly we all go from despair into support mode every day on this forum and role reversals! Can’t believe you’ve now got Father’s Day and his birthday Sunday. Pull myself together by Friday then! Glad gallbladder is there a chance it could settle naturally now? If you gradually calm and are a little less run ragged? Still got the emotional side of course.
How you’ve been is what I’ve been like. I didn’t have any denial when I heard Mum had two years to live I just couldn’t function as was an emotional wreck, crying, being sick a couple of times and just felt absolute despair. I know I grieved the whole time and with each month that came the closer we got and the worse I became. Then numerous emergency hospital visits at all times of night and day, how on earth did she cope let alone me. I just wish I’d been a bit more emotionally supportive at times. Oh by the way excuse any awful grammar- its just me hitting the wrong keys in phone and predictive text!
Glad today has been as ok as it can & you e kept busy. I worked from home and kept wanting to sit in the garden but then couldn’t be bothered as it was on and off hot & cold but ended up doing nothing really but I felt like I couldn’t really make a decision today.
Yes do try and keep in touch with some of your mums friends. I said to Mine that Mum would be very grateful knowing they were keeping in touch and keeping an eye on me, which she would be.
I’ve been an anger mode tonight at the sheer lack of support from my family here. So angry but disgusted with them frankly. My auntie hasn’t called, text or emailed and she knew mum’s birthday as she sent a card every year but Mum always said she wasn’t a very nice person and all of this has proved it. Not a thing from my cousins and my dad hasn’t remembered! He didn’t remember when they were married so def not likely to now!!! But he’s been supportive otherwise so I’m not bothered and we spoke yesterday. But the rest can do one! Just going to surround myself with the people that care. Xxx
Hi Lucy, and everyone.
Sorry to hear you haven’t had all the support you expected around the last couple of days Lucy. For me it just makes the good people stand out so much more as there are some self centred “bar stewards” out there. For me it’s the in laws that are the selfish ones which is tricky as I can’t avoid them, much as I would like to.
I asked them if they had booked any holidays the other day as they never mention my mum and dad as it’s aqward … so small talk is hard and they had the cheek to say they were putting everything on hold in case we needed them. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. I certainly don’t need them now. My mum is dead.
They spent the last year galavanting around the world while I was caring for my mum 24/7, my son and my business and grieving for my dad. Where were they then when we were all at complete breaking point? They just want to appear to be saying the right things but actions speak louder than words in my book. Grrr. I’m feeling your anger Lucy!
Anyway. Hope everyone has been ok today. I’m starting to feel that I have more time on my hands suddenly and it is not in a good way. My wonderful mum and dad have left a hole that I can’t ever imagine being able to fill.
Ann xx
Hi Ann,
How are you and how have you got on the rest of the week? Thinking of you today with your dads birthday and Father’s Day. Sure you are doing him proud and especially the way you’ve looked after your Mum, I’m sure he’d be very proud of all you’ve done for him and your Mum.
Are you still Charing around like mad?! I was like a jack in the box for a couple of months and when I think about it now I must have looked nuts as I literally couldn’t sit still for a minute! I’ve just really calmed lately. No sun today so my new hobby of sitting in the garden relishing the sun can’t happen! I can’t believe that’s literally all I want to do!
Hope the gallbladder is still behaving. I’m back on antibiotics tomorrow as my tonsils have flared up again and I feel exhausted again. I have a few packs for as and when I need them until they get taken out- can’t wait but that can’t hsppen until end of September due to work and holiday and I don’t want to be recovering from that on my 40th!
Anyway just wondered how you were and to let you know I’m thinkinv of you today.
Hope you’re ok Mel and Jayne,
Xxx