Welcome to this site, Lucy. Sending you strength and an understanding hug.
I lost my own mum two years ago now. The time has flown by! It was her anniversary a couple of weeks ago and I have learnt that the anniversaries are the hardest times to bear. For me, the worst are the anniversaries of the events leading up to her passing - when she fell so ill I had to call the ambulance, the transfer from one hospital to another, the day the doctors told me she wasn't going to get better, the day she died. I now dread the onset of September and October in particular, as I have lost three relatives during the month of October over the years, so find October particularly hard as have three anniversaries to face within days of eachother.
I wish I could tell you something that would help, but I haven't yet found anything that does and find myself close to tears most of the time on those days and involuntarily recalling the memories of the events of those days as they come round. I am not sure much can be done to help this and perhaps you have to just ride it out! I take flowers to the grave and have a mass said for them (I am religious) and I try to look at photos and talk to their pictures to let them know I am thinking of them and to help me recall the happier times we spent together.
I think we naturally struggle around times of anniversaries and also birthdays, Christmas and any other significant days. This is part of how grief changes you. The times you looked forward to spending happy times with them in the past become tainted for us knowing that they will not be with us the next time these times come round. A lot of people dread Christmas due to this problem. For myself, I set up a tree and use the evenings to sit and recall the happy times we had together with the tree lights on and that's about the best I can do so far. Maybe it will get better as time goes by. I suppose I will find out.
I suppose what I am trying to say, Lucy, is that this is a common problem for us all who have lost someone and we just have to get through it as best we can. Just do whatever helps. If it helps to release balloons in their memory, do that. If it helps to visit a place you went to where you have special memories of spending time with your mum, you could try that. That does make me smile sometimes, whilst still feeling sad. If it helps to go the grave, if there is one, do that.
Grief is a journey that carries on throughout your life, but it varies in intensity at different times and is something you get more used to over the years. I won't say it is something you 'get over', because you don't. You learn to live with it and in that sense, it gets easier, because you come to accept that it is part of you and that you will never stop loving or missing the person you have lost, but the thing to hold on to is that you had so many more happy years with them than sad times and the end of their life only made up a small proportion of the time they had here. Be grateful for the good memories and try to bring those to the fore. They made up the majority of their life and our memories will always be there and so will our love for them.
Tell us whatever you wish here, Lucy. No one will judge or be shocked! We have all been there and are all stumbling our way along the road, hopefully, towards some degree of recovery. Thinking of you.