It's over, mum is free of dementia, and so am I

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
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South coast
(((((((((((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))))))))))) @Marnie63

It is so early days for you. Dont listen to anyone who tells you what you should be doing. Everyone grieves in their own time in their own way. Eventually the good memories of your mum will resurface, but at the moment your brain is still processing it all
 

malengwa

Registered User
Jan 26, 2017
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Hang on in there Marnie, it does get better but it takes time and overwhelming sad moments can hit you like an expression train. I'm 11 months after mum died so 2 months is still quite fresh. I made my dad a photo album of mums life and that took me 8 months to compile but was very cathartic looking back and remembering happier times. I really think it helped me in my grief and slowly those old happy memories have replaced the sad ones of her last year or so which was awful.
I hope you find that peace too, but take it one day at a time x
 

Sam Luvit

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Oct 19, 2016
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East Sussex
Morning @Marnie63

Two months may seem like a while, but you have a lifetime of memories to sort through, so it’s no time at all. Your most recent memories are the sharpest, the clearest & the hardest too. We all deal with it differently, some can’t bear to look at photos, others find it helps, do what works for you. When the memory of mums pain gets really hard, I look at a photo taken a few weeks before her last fall, she looked amazing & happy.

Going away to visit friends is distracting, but you have to go home again, it’s that walking back in the house that brings the memories back with a bang. I think that’s part of why I’ve changed things around, it’s still mums house, but it looks a little different. She wouId never have let me make the changes, but I think she’d have liked them now they are done.

There are no answers to the “why?” questions. You will tie yourself in knots if you try to find answers, Mum did all the “preventative” rubbish the media is spouting .. exercise, kept busy, visited friends, voluntary work etc, but still got the dreaded disease .. yet the bully neighbour who scares the neighbourhood gets to waltz around & suffers not at all.

Try to think of the things you did that bought a smile to your mums face, the achievements you made, those moments that made you (& her) laugh. There was a morning, when mum needed the commode & brother & I we’re not quiet quick enough. She was humiliated at her lack of control. So, I made it into a competition for us. We stripped the bed, made up a home made slide sheet & got her back in & comfortable. Then danced around the room celebrating our brilliance. Mum couldn’t stop laughing at us.

WouId it be any easier if someone came round for a few hours & helped with anything? Paint a room, move furniture, file paperwork? Maybe see if there is a group locally who meet for dog walks & join in. Not to talk about your mum, but to listen to other news. I know that probably sounds like purgatory, but it wouId be a focus on something else & wouId make you do something different

Just suggestions. At the end if the day, you need to do it your way, in the way that you can handle & that works for you.
 

Tin

Registered User
May 18, 2014
4,820
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UK
Know how you are feeling Marnie, it has only been 6 days for me, but the thoughts going through my mind are mainly about mum's last few days and if that is not enough I then remember how horrible this illness has been for her for years. Being here in my home is a strange and sad thing. I know we get through it but my heart aches and I cry at just the thought of mum or when someone mentions her name. I have a few things to do tomorrow that will keep me occupied, but I know that at some point I have to start thinking about some kind of employment and how to fill my now endless free time.

All I can do is hope that time does heal and hope that soon some happy memories will replace these terrible ones. Really hope that this is the same for you.
 

Marnie63

Registered User
Dec 26, 2015
1,637
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Hampshire
I'm trying to focus on the positives again, and that helps. That helped me through the dark times of mum's illness. Towards the end, however hard it got, or however desperate I felt, I always found something positive in all of it, however small, that I could focus on. I also prayed a lot, which helped me. In fact it bothers me now, as I often prayed for God to take mum so that she didn't have to suffer the dementia any more, and now I wonder if that fast decline at the end was an answer to my prayers, but because of it mum had to suffer a few days of fluid in her lungs? Silly, I know, but it bothers me. In time it will bother me less, so just have to endure it for now!

Yes, there are so many good things about mum's life and the life I had with her @Sam Luvit, but I guess right now they are masked by the bad memories. I will just have to wait for the good stuff to fight through the bad stuff and come to the fore. I have a wonderful photo of mum on her 91st birthday, we are both smiling and in front of us is a cake that a lovely friend of mine made for us. I aim to buy a suitable frame and have that photo on display. It cheers me to look at it. Of course I will have to find a suitable pic of dad too to have on display, otherwise he would feel left out! And maybe a good one of the two of them, I have plenty, just need to find a nice one.

My Sunday walks help as you get to chat to a lot of people (most of them with problems in life too, so I am not the only one!). Also walking is so therapeutic anyway as it gives your mind time to mull things over when you are not chatting to someone. I loved it last week when I scaled a few mountain tops with my fellow walkers on the holiday. Such a sense of achievement, and when I was pushing myself up those slopes, I thought of mum, and it somehow spurred me on.

It's the aching heart that hurts most @Tin - that's the only way I can describe it, as it does feel like my heart is literally hurting. I hate those images and memories of the horror that dementia inflicted on us - absolutely hate, hate, hate that disease. The only thing I have over it now is that it is gone from my life and it has at last left my mum alone. I did wonder if I'd want to get involved in something to do with dementia now, ie. put my experience to good use, but I don't, I just want nothing to do with it, it hurts me too much, it's a reminder of what we had to endure. I guess in some way I may have done that already - in conversations I had with people on the holiday, people who are still living with dementia and touched by it some way.

I got my nose into a good book last night, so that's a good story I'm now distracted by. I am going to reorganise a bit more stuff in the house, move some bookshelves and sort through the books. I'll need to sort through mum's clothes at some stage. I feel better now about clearing out stuff she didn't wear for years, but the stuff she wore recently will stay, can't part with that yet. Eventually I will probably whittle it down to a few bits and pieces and store them in a drawer or suitcase somewhere. I have lots of her slippers to wear out, somehow I find it comforting to wear them, and a pair of winter boots. She was roughly the same shoe size as me.

All will come good, in time. My next big, nice thing to look forward to is Christmas with my friend in Scandinavia. Her mother will be there, we used to joke about her being my 'second mum', well, she just moved up a position! My friend's father has Alzheimer's and is slowly declining, in a care home. We will go to visit him. I must think of something suitable to take as a present ...