I'm trying to deal with my loss...

[florence43]

don,t know if I'll ever feel normal again.

Dear Bridges,

I don't know if you ever do feel normal again, but from my own experiences, having lost both parents, you may find a new normal which will bring you peace. As long as you know it will take a while, and not to have too many expectations, I believe a time will come where you will enjoy your memories.

I'm sad to say, you have to overcome the pain first. Pain at seeing a photo, pain at remembering the latter years, and it is real pain. It actually hurts. But I really have confidence that we can all move towards our new normal. The sun will always rise and set, and there will be life going on all around us, and as each day passes, you will slowly, very slowly, feel the love of your parents and your brother and all that they meant to you fill your heart and urge you to live too.

Our family contribute to who we are and what they helped create in us will carry us, when they are gone. Look forward to the time the person they made can smile when they think back to before... That time will come, but it takes a while to find it. xxx

 

[jude50]

Both my parents have now died. Mum a year ago 15 July from her Vasc Dem. Things aren't the same as before but I;ve adjusted but it is taking time. I thought I was OK and coping and I was until a few wks ago when I fell and broke my ankle and now I'm trying to cope with this and missing my Mum dreadfully. Crying over the littlest thing but what I'm trying to say is that Pied you are grieving for the loss of your dear Mum and at first it is horrible but it will get better. There will be a day when the first thing you remember about your Mum is the happy memories and you will smile and feel glad for what you had and not sad for what you have lost. After all you loved your Mum so that love is never lost, it's with you forever and you will carry it with you. Let little Pied hug you because she feels for you what you feel for your Mum, tell her that you feel sad because your Mum isn't with you but that her hugs help you.

You will get through Sunday because all of us at TP will be right behind you virtually. I'm not saying it will be easy but soon it will be Monday and it will be done and dusted.

Jude

 

[flowerpot]

Hi Pied I'm so sorry that you feel like this but please don't think that you're bitter or twisted or anything like that. These feelings are normal and as for Sunday I think you'd possibly feel worse cancelling it than actually going. Maybe plan something nice for the weekend after with your family so that you have something to look forward to. It's early days and you seem to be coping well with it all. As for the ch shame on them!

Take care Pied and thinking of you and your family xx

 

[at wits end]

When i lost my mum my old girl guide leader said to me

You never get over it, you just learn to live with it.

I think after eight years i'd agree with her.

Xxx for you pied.

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Talking Point mobile app

 

[piedwarbler]

Thanks for all these lovely posts. I collected the ashes on my way home from work tonight. It was strange. I didn't feel anything at all. The ashes are in a large wooden box. It might just as well have been a shoe box. I've put it on the coffee table in the sitting room with the cremation certificate on top of it.
Now I'm sitting in the garden.
I wrote to the vicar as Helen33 suggested and have had a very bland reply saying she is praying for me. I might as well let it all go sailing off downstream. My plan now is to get to Monday and try and blot out Sunday. Hoping Gwen's right - it may not be as bad as I imagine.
I had another lovely day at work very well supported by colleagues but I do feel so ill and I don't say that lightly. I feel spaced out, head aches, fluey and sick.
I have thought of something and that is to buy a hammock for my garden so I can lie and look at the birds.

 

[ashleypollock]

I'm so sorry for your loss xo

 

[bridges]

Dear Bridges,

I don't know if you ever do feel normal again, but from my own experiences, having lost both parents, you may find a new normal which will bring you peace. As long as you know it will take a while, and not to have too many expectations, I believe a time will come where you will enjoy your memories.

I'm sad to say, you have to overcome the pain first. Pain at seeing a photo, pain at remembering the latter years, and it is real pain. It actually hurts. But I really have confidence that we can all move towards our new normal. The sun will always rise and set, and there will be life going on all around us, and as each day passes, you will slowly, very slowly, feel the love of your parents and your brother and all that they meant to you fill your heart and urge you to live too.

Our family contribute to who we are and what they helped create in us will carry us, when they are gone. Look forward to the time the person they made can smile when they think back to before... That time will come, but it takes a while to find it. xxx

Thank you annie just back home now from the wake, just 1 person missing my mum. But it was nice to be with family and friends, but it hits you when you walk back through that front door, nothings changed, just have to think she's out of all that suffering she's had for 4 years , selfish to want her back in that state.

 

[grove]

Good ( Hammock ) Idea ! !

Oh yes Pied do buy a Hammock * for your Garden so you can relax & watch all your lovely Birds at the same time


Am pleased you were well supported & lovely day at work , sorry you were feeling so poorly tho


Positive Vibes that the poorly feeling * does not stop you sleeping well tonight


Much Love & Comforting Hugs


Love Grove x x x

 

[CollegeGirl]

Pied, how could any of us think you are awful when we 'witnessed' your devotion to your mum?

I'm not sure why you are having a second funeral, but I am very tempted to say that if you really really don't want to go, then don't. Your mum would not want you to be stressing about this I'm sure.

I hope I haven't upset you ... I'm just so sorry that after everything you have been through recently that you still can't yet start to relax just a little bit.

Big hugs x

 

[DeborahBlythe]

Hello Pied, I'm glad your colleagues continue to be lovely towards you. I wouldn't expect anything less from teachers, who, in my experience are a pretty lovely bunch.

I'm sorry you are feeling ill though, and hope you are managing to do the basics, like eat reasonably healthily and sleep reasonably well.

I didn't want to go to my mother's funeral and she only had the one. It was because I didn't want to accommodate myself to some of my family because I thought they for the most part had left her to rot.

In the end my housemate talked me into going. He said I would regret it if I didn't go, so I did. I made myself act as nicely as I could to everyone who attended, not because I forgave them but because being cross was too much trouble on such a significant day. The ceremony turned out to be beautiful.

It's slightly different for you because you have already been through one ceremony. All I would say is
a) you don't have to cancel the ceremony, you could let your sister get on with it on her own.
b) I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to do that.
c) There will be some people present at the ceremony on Sunday who will have memories of your mum and who will 'lift ' you up. And you will 'lift 'them up. Maybe they will be friends of your mum or people who knew her in some context that you are unfamiliar with.

If you don't go, you may miss a rich opportunity to hear them and also to help them. (You might not want to go around helping strangers or even family and friends, but it's something that comes naturally to you, I think). I'm hoping that it will be a mutual exchange and not one-way.

Annie's advice to let things go is so wise. 'but as long as you say farewell with love in your heart, that's really all that matters'.

We'll be there Pied, just as we were before. x

 

[piedwarbler]

I'm not sure why you are having a second funeral, but I am very tempted to say that if you really really don't want to go, then don't. Your mum would not want you to be stressing about this I'm sure.

I hope I haven't upset you ... I'm just so sorry that after everything you have been through recently that you still can't yet start to relax just a little bit.

No, you haven't upset me CG, we are having a second funeral in Mum's home town. It was to give her friends chance to come. Unfortunately all the ones I have heard of are either ill themselves or their husbands are ill - kind of to be expected at 82 really, and therefore they are not planning on coming to the "do" Sis has planned afterwards.

Therefore I am getting the heebie jeebies wondering who we are doing this for?

 

[piedwarbler]

I'm so sorry for your loss xo

Thank you so much for your kindness and taking the trouble to post. It does mean a great deal.

 

[piedwarbler]

When i lost my mum my old girl guide leader said to me

You never get over it, you just learn to live with it.

Thank you xx

 

[piedwarbler]

... nothings changed, just have to think she's out of all that suffering she's had for 4 years , selfish to want her back in that state.

I keep thinking those thoughts too, well, trying to. It's hard, isn't it.

 

[piedwarbler]

I didn't want to go to my mother's funeral and she only had the one. It was because I didn't want to accommodate myself to some of my family because I thought they for the most part had left her to rot.

In the end my housemate talked me into going. He said I would regret it if I didn't go, so I did. I made myself act as nicely as I could to everyone who attended, not because I forgave them but because being cross was too much trouble on such a significant day. The ceremony turned out to be beautiful.

It's slightly different for you because you have already been through one ceremony. All I would say is
There will be some people present at the ceremony on Sunday who will have memories of your mum and who will 'lift ' you up. And you will 'lift 'them up. Maybe they will be friends of your mum or people who knew her in some context that you are unfamiliar with.

Annie's advice to let things go is so wise. 'but as long as you say farewell with love in your heart, that's really all that matters'.

We'll be there Pied, just as we were before. x

Thank you Deborah. You have voiced a lot of my thoughts here. It is making my brain hurt to think about getting through the day. I will indeed try to get through it in the way you suggest. I will hope that Mum's friends will manage to make it there and not be too ill on the day. They will make the day for me. They will hopefully lift me and I have a bag of things for one of them in particular - Mum's best friend E, who is very upset by her loss. I am upset at the thought of her being upset. She is such a nice person.

x

 

[piedwarbler]

Dear Pied,

The funeral is such a difficult occasion and for you to have to attend it twice must be so, so hard.

Your lovely mum has gone, and she is peaceful now. What she leaves behind should, where possible, reflect this and no amount of detail or disagreement will change the fact she has gone. Nothing really matters except remembering the wonderful woman she was. Nothing. And whatever the disagreements are, they are probably not worth the stress. After all...what difference will they make? In reality, can you let some things slide? Is there anything important enough to fall out over?

Maybe sometimes, after all the stress of caring for someone, we have trouble letting the adrenalin subside. Maybe the sudden stop hits too hard. No more phone calls, letters, emails, appointments, research, discussions.... We just get up and go about our quiet, very different, new life. Suddenly. No gentle let down. In the past few weeks you've gone from 80mph to stationary and when that happened to me I felt lost. So perhaps by throwing yourself into the details of the funeral makes you feel more like you have for so many years, but as long as you say farewell with love in your heart, that's really all that matters.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks for everything you say, Annie, which is always so enormously helpful because you have the happy knack of putting complicated feelings into simple words. xxxx

 

[florence43]

Dearest Pied,

Here is my attempt at a short post...(phew...it's gonna be tough...)

Sunday: give "E" a big hug, (and another one just from all of us at TP).

Monday: buy a hammock.


Lots of love to you. You're just sorting things out in your head and at times it feels like a washing basket full of crumpled clothes...all the darks with the whites. We'll all help you get the neat piles of clean washing, and then you'll be just dandy...(swinging in your hammock )

xxxxx

 

[piedwarbler]

You made me actually LAUGH then!! Well ok - chuckle - but hey! That's the first time in days!!!
Thanks for that
xxxx

 

[Daisy Jane]

Having been away from TP for more than 2 years, you have inspired and motivated me to post. And that's really something, so well done!

Dear Pied, so many feeling you describe are familiar, including the ones you deem negative.

After so much support, debate and care offered by the friends on TP, I was prepared and ready for Mum`s inevitable passing - or so I thought. Nothing could have prepared me for the loss and numbness I felt. But the offerings from TP meant I was psychologically a little more able to cope.

I know you appreciate the comments and love which is obvious. But trust the good thoughts to help you through - they will.

My mum`s brother is a minister. But for the many years that she asked for him, for such a long time before she stopped speaking, he never visited. Never phoned or wrote. She asked and asked for her little brother. Not the behaviour one would have expected?

I cursed and criticised him, telling Dad there would be one day - we knew which day I meant - when I would tell him what I thought, how uncaring I thought he was.

But when that day arrived, when he was complementing me on my speech, I didn't say a thing.

I was polite and appreciative (seething inside!) because I was there for Mum. It was a day for Mum, Dad and my brother and sister, and for me. I felt closer to Mum than I thought I would, mainly because I made the decision to show her how much I love her - I made her proud, following her example and approaching the day with love- for her.

I didn't want to be there, didn't agree with things that went on, but once I got my head round it, I felt closer to Mum than I had all the way through her illness.

Sorry for waffling, Pied, your friends have already said it all. But like I said before, you made me post after nearly 3 years, so I couldn't ignore the urge!

I'll be thinking of you - but remember, the thought of a challenge is so so much more difficult than the thing itself. It may build up but once you tackle it, it'll fall apart like dust

Big hugs x x x

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Talking Point mobile app

 

[cragmaid]

Sunday is just one more "duty of care day" and will soon be over. You know that by the end of the summer you will be able to look back at this time and be amazed how well you managed it all. But for now you must believe that you are constantly having to " be on show" and to put a brave face on things, and so, I'm sure, does your sister. You two can't just run away and find a corner and cry because you have lost your Mummy, you have to be Mum, Wife, Sis, Mrs Pied, Teacher, Mum's daughter to her friends and someone to please everyone. So for a few days more you have to grit your teeth, slap on the waterproof mascara, use the same phrases over and over again. So think about Monday...concentrate on Monday when this next event is over and then retreat from the public face a bit at a time, and start being Pied, Wife, mother and friend to herself.
R & R is just round the corner...and when it arrives, for heavens sake use it well,x.x.x.