Hi everyone
This is my 1st post. I am 40, married with 2 kids, aged 7 and 11. I am a full time primary teacher…so never really have a minute normally. But just this week I had to bow out of my working life with a sickline for 2weeks because I have not processed losing my very 1st and best friend, my beautiful mum. She died suddenly on April 24th this year. It was too much to process then as it was all so unexpected and fast and now I feel like I have time to process but don’t know where to start. I feel empty,numb,lonely, guilty, sad and hopeless.
We had been up to visit my mum at Easter and did all the usual things. She was 74 and more frail since covid times.
She had battled breast cancer 1st time aged 51 then again aged 66. In amongst that she had contracted mrsa in hospital, pneumonia several times and various other ailments.
However when we saw her she was in great form and seemed well. She didn’t complain about anything, but that was typical mum, never moaned, never asked for help…to the very end.
Anyway after our visit we came back to the mainland and me and mum talked as usual daily or every other day. Not once did she talk about being unwell. Then a week after being up my daughter was unwell and I told mum and said I would speak to her at the weekend so I had time to look after eils and focus just on her. I called mum on the Sunday and no reply a.m or p.m. then again Monday a.m. Finally got a hold of her Monday p.m and she was not herself. She explained she was weak, her legs weren’t working properly and that she had diarrhoea and vomitting for 3 days. She hadn’t had a drink of water or food for 3 days. I asked if she was scared and for the 1st time she said she was. I called an ambulance from Glasgow. She was in hospital within 45mins and on a drip for dehydration…what they were initially treating her for. I was told she was grey and very understandably weak. 3 days later she was still being treated for dehydration and now a severe chest infection so she was on 3 different antibiotics, refusing to eat and just saying she was tired. On the Thursday Dr phoned me to say mum had declined and there was bleeding internally. They couldn’t use a scope as she was too frail so they were giving her a body scan on Friday.
Friday came and I got a phone call to say mum was very frail and that scans showed a large tumour on her lungs and another on her stomach lining. Tumours were incurable and untreatable so best they could say was get her well enough to live her time out at home. Also the chest infection was pneumonia.
I flew home the next morning. She was so tiny. She was confused with all the antibiotics and infection in her body. Most of time she nodded in and out of consciousness. She was too scared to sleep and asked nurses to keep her awake and leave lights on.
When her 3rd lot of antibiotics kicked in she became more lucid and we chatted a little,me mostly,her nodding or smiling. I convinced her to eat some ice cream.
Dr came about 5pm to explain scenario…I.e. nothing they could do, try to build her up to go home with a care package etc. I went back in and spent time with mum until I had to go. I would be back next morning. I was reassured she would be OK, they weren’t withdrawing care.
Through the early a.m next day she had to have a scan as she hadn’t toileted at all. Hospital called me 6.13am to say she had taken a turn for the worse during the scan. I made my way to hospital but within 7mins of call she passed away.
I ran down the corridor to her room and had to look twice, someone else was in her bed.
I went to the nurses station and demanded they tell me where my mum was and that she was alive. They said sorry and that she had passes away.
I broke. Life stopped.
I went to the side room to see her. She was so still. Sounds silly but I shook her and kept saying mum wake up.
I am an adult with my own kids…and that was my reaction…seems so juvenile but my mum was so special, my best friend.
I sat with her from 7am until 5.30pm. It never sank in. My brother arrived on the island at 2.30pm, devastated. He had travelled up from the mainland that morning and I had to call him while he was driving to ferry to say, don’t rush, mum is gone.
And here I am now…lost.
Thanks for listening.
Hello Mocreid!
I have just read your long and detailed post with a tear in my eye and I just know I have to reach out to you. What an ordeal you have been through and I really feel for you as we have three things in common: a Scottish mother but what is more, my own mother died on that date April 24 of this year and, I am a teacher.
We are now facing Christmas and you know, this can be a really hard time! I have also lost someone ( can I call my mother “someone”?!) who was the closest person to me. Like your dear mother, my mother was selfless to the end and rarely, if ever, complained. She had helped my father for years with various ailments yet it is she who is no longer with us.
I can feel the sadness in your words and I can understand you feel like life has stopped ( to quote you). Do you feel like your life is now divided into before and after your mother’s death? You say you feel lost and I also feel that way quite often and just have lost a great deal of my motivation and zest for life.
I think what we have to do is just continue the relationship we had in any way we can. Talk to her, tell her about your feelings and reminisce about the past. What I have been doing is writing notes and recording notes on my phone, which I listen back to. I have called it my self-therapy and it is interesting to listen back to what you have said etc.
Don’t forget what I said about the Christmas issue - we are now surrounded by it and it’ll be your first with your mother and I think the first Christmas without her there or speaking to her, will be the hardest…
I so miss speaking to my mother on the phone after work. I am really thinking of you but you know we have been lucky to have such a good relationship with them because this is not always the case.
One last niggle is that some people just think you are getting yourself sorted emotionally but it can take a very long time. Finally, all I can say is that “the greater the love, the greater the grief” adage is correct.
Please write back if you feel like it…
Love Sandra
PS. Don’t feel bad about being off sick - losing a parent is a mega life event and you need to look after yourself! How can you be strong in front of kids when you lost your mother this year? Take care x
Hey Sandra
So, christmas is over, and I don’t know about you but I am so glad. As I suspected I felt no happiness and every day since is a day of sadness. I have cried so much. My kids loved xmas and i did my best but i was so glad to get past it. I plan to take all my decorations down tomorrow and will not be celebrating New Year. How did you cope? I went back to work for the last week of term and i am glad. I wanted to end the year with my class and get weirdness out of the way with colleagues. Did you ever take time off after your mum passed? I feel in a way I turned a mini corner in finding out why my mum died after not knowing she was ill in the 1st place. But i am left just missing her and angry and sad and lost,still. What about you Sandra ? Hope you are fairing a little better. I feel like an emotional mess. X
Hello Mocreid
Good to read your message and I can definitely relate to so much that you are writing.
To answer your question, I took time off which was absolutely necessary and glad I did. I don’t mind interacting with my students as I help them but I found colleagues were kind to a point and then nobody asked anymore so I get on with what I have to do and keep my energy for myself. I didn’t attend the Christmas meal and was asked why - I am so glad I didn’t and made other plans. In an ideal world, people should be signed off for six months post loss with full pay to allow them to heal but life isn’t like that.
Losing a loved one like a mother is akin to cutting an umbilical cord without an anaesthetic! I do hope you are managing and if you feel bad, don’t go in and they can get a supply teacher. You also have kids (I don’t) but I spend 90% of my spare time looking after my father who can be difficult so it isn’t easy.
You feel alone and you say “an emotional mess” - I feel like I am going mad sometimes and it scares me. We are eight months on but it’s been Christmas so bound to be horrid, especially without our mothers. Some people have been cold - most of them are men who haven’t lost anyone close so it’s due to their ignorance.
Please let me know how you fare, at least we can say that we are in this together.
Love Sandra
Hey Sandra
Time off before xmas was the right move for me. As i said in my last post i went back to work the last week of term. Now the holidays are over. Being honest they didnt feel like holidays,kist an extension of sick leave as i didnt see anyone outside my own wee family unit. Then i got covid again over New year. Next challenge is back to work for the toughest and longest term and i dont feel any stronger. I spend my time at night in the sitting room watching rubbish tv i don’t have to think about while my lovely husband sits in another room suggesting we watch aomething together. But i just want to be alone, because wven surrounded by family, that is how i feel, alone. Noone can replace mums love and presence and the strength she gave. I know i need to move through but i feel stuck. Hope you are faring better than my sorry excuse for living. I want to live again not just exist. But i feel no lasting joy, small glimmers with my kids, and a definite sense of being loved and feelong peace when i am with them. But nothing lasting. I was always the smiler in my family, always looking pn the bright side, always cheering up others…now i am just always sad and empty.
Sending love. X