My Mum

[Dolly38]

Hi, my mum passed away on New year's Eve, she was unwell in hospital but we never thought for a moment she would not be coming home. My mum was my best friend I used to speak to her twice a day, she was with me when I had my little girl and her and my dad looked after her whilst my husband and I returned to work. She had such a close bond with my daughter. she is finding it hard without her. I thought I was doing ok making my mum proud carrying on. But the last few days I'm struggling I'm angry, my mum was 66 she shouldn't be gone. We should have years left of birthday Christmas,holidays, I'm constantly in a bad mood have zero patience with my daughter, I feel like I've no one to speak to. I don't want to upset my dad or my brother's but I just want to talk about her. Im feeling like there is nothing to look forward to without her. 😥

[Dave Administrator]

Welcome to the group Dolly.

Many of us here know the pain of loosing our mums and my heart goes out to you.

Posting your thoughts and the still hurty bits that stay with you in these early days for you do help with the healing process. So please keep posting knowing it's understanding ears listening to you pouring your heart out that will help support you during this very sad time.

[green dragon]

Dolly, you have my deepest sympathy. I have also recently lost my Mum, who was also my best friend (well, I guess friendship with a parent is a very special kind of friendship, it goes a bit further. We are literally a part of them).

If you want to talk about her, feel free to write here. As someone who is currently dealing with the same kind of grief, I enjoy hearing/reading about other peoples memories or current relationships with their parents, mothers in particular.

[Dolly38]

Thanks for the reply green dragon, I'm so sorry for your loss, it's so so hard isn't it. Now there is times I can't even remember what we used to talk about in two phone calls a day but we were never stuck for words. I feel like I have all these things to say and no one to tell. I'm lucky I still have my dad who I am close to but it's not the same as speaking to your mum. I miss talking to her, on Friday it will be five months since I've spoken to her, or seen her beautiful face. It's heartbreaking. The thought of spending the next 40 maybe year without her fills me with absolute dread. I think about her but all I see is how upset she was in hospital how frightened she was. 😥

[green dragon]

Your last post made me tear up - so very similar to my relationship with Mum. We only spoke once a day, but usually for an hour or so. Sometimes we just gossiped! Other times it was serious stuff or emotional stuff or we moaned to each other about whatever we were fighting with in our daily lives. It is very difficult indeed. I have also thought about how life could possibly go on for another 40 years without her. Who knows? They live in our minds now, so it is up to us to keep the memories alive, even though that is not the same as having them around. The thought of meeting her in some other form or in a future life (if there is such a thing) is comforting, though.

[Dolly38]

I know I hold on to the fact that I will see her again one day, I have to believe that it's the only way I'm pushing through. I've dreamt about her which was nice in it she told me she was ok and she was happy but she was sad for all of us, she was younger in the dream and she was well. Have you had any dreams about your mum? X

[green dragon]

That is good to hear 

I have had dreams about Mum, too. In fact, I just had one last night, as I am a bit stuck right now and have asked her for help. The dream was quite amazing in itself, all about natural disasters (tsunamis, snow in the summer etc.). Around here we have had a lot of hail lately and maybe the dream was an extension of that but also with some comedic effects thrown in (one of the people in the dream used the fact that he was living on the top floor to dive into an overly flooded street - for fun). Anyway, the bit with Mum in it was all about her plumbing having gone bad and me complaining about that. She asked me what I was going to do about it. So I had to fix it myself even if it was disgusting, which I think says it all about my situation.

[Karena]

Hi Dooly sending you a warm welcome 
I lost my mum a long time ago and still miss her, but i remember in a dream after she died, i rang her and my stepfather answered which wasnt unusual except he had died 10 years before her, but he said he would just go and get her she was down the garden he could here her trowel handle rattling - which also wasnt unusual - she did have a trowel with a steel band that had worked loose but wouldnt come off over the handle or trowel section and despite having a lot of other trowels given over the years she  always went back too it, and we always joked about knowing where to find her because of the rattle - I knew if it stopped either it was bed time and time to hide prefferably out of ear shot to get a few minutes more outside or if it was earlier there was a chance it was to make a drink or get an ice cream out, so i would magically appear in the kitchen.
We alos knew if the handle was rattling loudly and quickly to keep out of the way for a while as well 
It was just so ordinary, but that ordinary was to me a way to say she was allright, she had found the love of her life again, and she was doing what she loved to do.Sometimes without dreaming i wake up suddenly and she has shouted my name, not in a cross way but you know how your mum says your name in a way which is different to everyone else -  it has happened a lot since i moved into what was her house and  just before something happened, or when something needed my attention as though she is warning me.

Green Dragon i wonder if your dream was your mums answer to your dilemma - her way of telling you in your subconscious that  you can do whatever it is that needs doing.
The other bit i suspect might be the environment issue - there was something about flooding on the news last night but i didnt quite catch it - the man diving in for fun - is that your inner child saying its a disaster, but you need to enjoy what you can when you can and pull something out of the situation.
Obviousely its different in the awful floods where children loose everything, but how often when it is less of a disaster but there  is a lot of water around on the streets do the children absolutetly relish it  and turn it into fun, and memorable fun at that , while the adults fret about being too wet.When we are stressed and have allsorts of emotions to deal wtih i think we tend to forget that child in us, and if it was a real child that neglect would have them calling out for our attention,and in a real world situation diving off a high rise building into flood water is certainly going to get it, so maybe you need to do something fun too just for a while.   

[green dragon]

Interesting point about the child inside. My dreams do tend to have some sort of comedic counterpart to every disaster - like the one I had when I was a kid and was absolutely terrified of aliens (i have long moved on from that fear). So in this one dream, the end of the world was upon us, the aliens were definitely landing. Except their mothership was... a giant rubbish bin.

Now that I think about it, I may be making too much of my situation instead of going with the flow... as it were.

or if it was earlier there was a chance it was to make a drink or get an ice cream out, so i would magically appear in the kitchen.

kids, eh?  that whole thing with the trowel could be a chapter in a book, it is so vivid.

I could differentiate my parents by the way their keys rattled in the door and would always greet them correctly from my room at the back. Little things, indeed. What you learn about the people you live with for a long time, quite amazing.

[Karena]

I just dug this out from some coursework -we had to write a poem about an old tool (dont ask)

She uses it almost every day.
a background sound to summers play.
she is hidden from my view
but you can hear it from  behind the old Yew

Sometimes it will stop.

Quick, slide down from the tree
a stop could mean she is looking for me.
Up a tree is not somewhere I,m suposed to play
and now ripped shorts, and scraped knees, will give me away.

Sometimes it will stop.

It clunks as it is laid on the path
my heart sinks, that means its time for my bath.
later, in bed I can hear it again
as she cleans it, shaking the soil off over the drain.

Sometimes it will stop.

She,s been out there so long,
it was louder, moved faster, something is wrong
She,s mad with some-one it might be me
I,m off to the park not waiting here to see.

Sometimes it will stop.
 
She is heading inside.
shall I follow or shall I hide
decision is made, I hear the freezer lid squeek
I head for the kitchen the ice cream tastes so sweet

Sometimes it will stop.

Now I have  left home,
and she is called to speak with me on the phone
Much later I use it, as she watches from her chair
muttering under my breath as she bosses me from there.

Sometimes it will stop.

I make a pot of of tea
We chat and gossip just her and me
And she drops her wise words into my ears
Just as when as a child I had told her my fears

Then it just stopped.

She is gone, i never thought i would miss that sound
and I have searched everywhere, but it is also no longer around
and  i long to revisit each message, each vowel
spoken by my mothers rattling handled old trowel.

I used to dream about getting chased by russians (it was project fear back in the day) then it was s easide town that i have never identified and dont know who was chasing me - but once it was a seaside town i do know as its where i go dolphin watching and there were dolphins in this dream -but they were surfing and there were penguins wiith them - people laughed at me (i laughed at me) as if that would ever happen but i didnt forget the dream and years later i went to capetown and there are penguins close to there which i saw, and the dolphins do actually surf off the coast just round from there ( which i really want to see)  - so who is laughing now.
(or maybe its because i surfed there and in a wet suit i would say i am definitely more like a penguin than a dolphin.  )

[Sandra61]

Gosh! Fab poem, Karena! Yes, those little things do stay with you and make you miss them more. My dad always used to come and go at the back of the house rather than the front and you's always know it was him by the way he tapped on the glass with his key to get someone to go and open the door for him! Otherwise he would whistle a certain way, so we knew it was him.

Mum was notoriously always in a dream when she was out and if I ran into her in the street, she'd blindly walk past me, thinking about something else. It always made us laugh!

Hello Dolly! I am also here after losing my mum in October 2017 and your family sounds like mine, as I also have a brother, but my dad died in 1985, though I still miss him every day too, so make the most of your dad and your brother whilst you still have them.

I think it is hard to talk about someone you have lost with family. Everyone grieves differently. I couldn't talk about my dad after he died, but my mum needed to. Now I find my brother doesn't seem to want to talk about mum, but I needed to, so instead I have done that here or in writing, or with new friends who have also lost someone recently too and understand how that affects you.

If you can't find anyone to talk to, Dollly, try writing letters to your mum. Tell her in those everything you might have liked to say to her in person. You will probably be able to hear her likely responses in your head. You can keep the letters or you can consider attaching them to a balloon and releasing it perhaps. I talk to my mum and dad's pictures most days, mostly about trivial stuff, work stuff, how my day has gone, what I am planning to do etc. I have a portrait of my dad that was painted years ago and that I always thought he looked very sombre in when he was alive, but these days, he seems to be smiling at me in it. Even my brother has noticed that. It is odd, but comforting too. 

Anger and focus on the bad last weeks of your mum's life is a common reaction in the early days of grief and one we all go through I think, Dolly. I think, over time, you gain perspective however and come to understand that, awful as it was, it was only a small portion of her life and you come to focus more on the good times she had and that you spent with her. It doesn't help to dwell on the bad last days or weeks. You can't change it and I am sure, if you were anything like me, you did all you could to try to make that time as good as you could for her. So be patient with yourself. She is at peace now and not suffering anymore and that's the best you could have hoped for if she could not be saved.

It is normal to feel angry that she passed away so young, but there is no reason to these things. Something will always get us in the end and no one knows at what point in our lives. She had 66 years and I am sure she will have made the most of them. It's up to you now to make the most of however many years you have left to enjoy. She would want that for you, so you owe it to her to do that. You can do it for her too. Then when you do meet again, you will have plenty to talk about and tell her about!

Loss is the hardest thing any of us ever has to go through, Dolly, but it does slowly get better. We just have to find and use the things that help us do that and learn to live with it. Grief never goes away. We are never over it, but it does ease and the good memories return to the fore and the bad ones slowly recede and come into perspective. It is early days for you still. One day at a time, Dolly. Patience and kindness for yourself and those around you, who are also suffering too, after all, whether they choose to talk about it or not.

Sending you a hug.