Death & Grief
Posted by Kiran Sidhu
No one told me about the physical pain I would feel from losing my mother. The umbilical cord that connected me to my mother, and to the world, has been brutally severed and the world as I knew it is no more. It has become a veritable jungle that I must try to navigate and find shelter, but there is no map and I’m without a compass. I can pinpoint exactly when my mother died in hospital from cancer. It was 1am on Xmas Eve. I was in excruciating, unfathomable pain that made me howl like an animal. The pain was so intense I felt like running into the road and getting hit by a car to release me from it. I knew what it was when the phone rang half hour later, my mother had died. Like the pain she felt with me entering the world, I felt the pain of her leaving it. Such is the bond between the mother and her child. The rest of Xmas Eve was spent trying to sort out all sorts of formalities that must be dealt with when a person dies; collecting paperwork from the hospital, the death certificate from the town hall and contacting funeral directors. All these tasks that one must do seem cruel and inappropriate when you have just been brought to your knees. But death is a formality with rules that must be adhered to. If you’re going to leave this world, you need a lot of paperwork to make your exit; it’s your passport to the next world. Xmas Eve was spent collecting bits of paper that confirmed my mother had really died. I walked the streets feeling that my life had suddenly gone into slow motion and the rest of the world that was frantically doing their Xmas shopping was running out of synch with my world. I didn’t understand how the town hall clock could strike midday, how people could still wish a ‘merry Xmas’ and how the traffic lights could carry on changing. My mother had just died. My mother had just died. My mother has died. My mother has died. My mother has died! She died! My mother died! I cried unashamedly as I sat in a café drinking coffee while waiting for the town hall to open. I told the waiter my mother had just died. I told the priest who sat for lunch that my mother died, he gave me a blessing. I told the lady sitting on the opposite table that my mother had died, she told me her daughter had died from cancer two months’ ago. Overnight I learned to speak a new language and had become a member of a club that I didn’t want to join. In the weeks that followed the death of my mother, I noticed that ‘mum’ had turned to ‘mother’. Gone was the colloquial ‘mum’, she had become iconic and mythical, no longer tangible, but an object of deep and painful longing. The age-old mechanics of night morphing into day is a great divider of what you’ve had…and what you’ve lost. My mind races like an old home movie with years of film crackling away, frayed at the edges by time. I see images of my mother collecting me from school, stirring pots in the kitchen, her greeting smile when I visit, the way she looks in the mirror when doing her hair and her infectious laugh. These unremarkable, innocuous images have now become inflictors of the greatest pain I have ever felt. A pain that sees me doubled-up holding my chest on my bedroom floor in agony. A pain that has silenced any other pain I have ever felt. These are the first tears my mother will not be able to wipe. It is a great irony that the death of your mother is the most grown-up experience you’ll ever have and there’s no other experience that will make you feel more like a child. As still picture frames of my mother swiftly pass through my mind, I have become conscious and obsessive about the accuracy of my memory. I am aware that this state of all-consuming grief can create memories that I wish I had had as well as the ones that I do have. And there’s a fear as time goes on the shards of memories will become dormant and then inevitably fictionalised. It’s important to me that I remember my mother correctly and mourn what she was and not what I wanted her to be. In death people become immortalised and somehow get better than they were in life. The early death of a rock star suddenly sees them as legendary. As if death makes our vision hazy with unfound glory making the deceased ten times better than they were when they were alive. Death elevates the deceased to foreign heights. I have lived in the world of grief for a little more than three months. It’s a lonely world where grief becomes your friend, as its existence is the only other existence that you’re truly aware of. My grief takes the form of two characters. First there’s The Wave. I first felt The Wave when walking down the road as I returned from the local shops. I felt my shopping bags getting heavier and my legs had started to slow down. Each step became mammoth, forcing me to stand still and feel the pain of losing my mother wash over me. The second character of my grief is called The Bruiser. The Bruiser is a seven-foot tall sweaty wrestler who won’t let me languor through the day without a fight. Taking advantage of my weakened state, I’m put in the ring with the Bruiser, he wrestles with my already broken body until I have no fight and I succumb to the full-on gut-wrenching pain of losing my mother. I lie on the floor, The Bruiser has me in a headlock and I scream in pain. My mother has died. Grief has made me acutely aware of the world turning on its axis. As winter passes I can see the protruding heads of daffodils appearing and crocuses. It seems a cruel reality that life carries on, edging away from the day my mother died, slipping into a new season, the first new season without my mother. It’s still winter for me. There will be no more creating of new memories, the mother/daughter relationship I had has now passed and is now part of history. All that she owned are now artefacts. My life has divided into two parts, When Mum Was Alive (WMA) and After Mum (AM). When I see dates pre- Xmas Eve 2014 I automatically think WMA; the glorious days when my mother was alive, when life was technicolour, the days before the sky caved in on me and I reached Armageddon. Nietzsche famously said, ‘God is dead!’, that Western culture no longer places God at the centre of things and we are left staring into the abyss. The death of my mother feels like what it may feel like if it was scientifically proven that there is no God. Life long rituals and beliefs have to be reassessed. The comfort and shelter that you have always felt has gone. You are re-born into a world that has no guidance and is chaotic. I have become obsessive about my mother’s age of death, sixty-two. I see the number sixty-two everywhere, on door numbers and on pages. The number sixty-two follows the number sixty-one and is behind the number sixty-three. March 3rd is the 62nd day of the year, Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, if you subtract 38 from 100 you get 62, 31 plus 31 gives you 62, Robin Gibb died at sixty-two, lottery tickets do not have number sixty-two. I loathe the number sixty-two. The moon, mountains, ocean, stars and the green vast lands are the homes that my mother now occupies, she belongs in their eternal and mystical presence and the conundrum of life.
Comments
I lost my mother in 1961 when I had just turned 11 and she barely 40. I just went 'numb' and realize now that I have never adequately grieved.
I am now 65 and have had a good life, but one accompanied by an undertone of sadness. On the positive side this generated from an early age, a lifelong interest in Spirituality and an awareness of our mutual vulnerability.
I am a practicing Buddhist and have a fascination with Mysticism, Lucid Dreaming etc. (of which I've had 7 so far) If we're ever to find "God" and those who have gone before, (st least in this Life) I think it will be in the realm of the Mystic.
Thank you for sharing your sad and difficult story. Although it never goes away completely, grief does ease with time and creates something new and useful in the process. - x -
Posted by skc
I lost my mother just seven weeks ago. She was 59. I don't think I have ever experienced a loss quite like this, despite having lost lots of friends and a few family members over the last 10 to 15 years. I'm 42 and I was my mother's first child. I never thought I would lose her while she was still so young herself. She may not have had an especially long life but there was one very important lesson she taught me - it isn't how long you live that counts, it's what you do with the time you've got. It's still raw obviously and will be for a while yet, my approach is a very simple yet effective one - I'm taking life one day at a time. And I will continue to do so every day from now on.
Posted by Nadeem Zafar
I lost my mum recently only child to a single mum she was my mum, dad, sister and very best friend I am lost and feel so much pain that my mum could take away in seconds. I understand the ache and homesick feeling that can attack you at anytime triggered by silence, music, memories, family gatherings and like now Christmas its so hard but people keep saying your mum would not like you like this but I want my mum to tell me this in person.
Posted by unnamed
X
My heart is breaking..very very raw for me..my gorgeous darling kind caring mum passed 3 days ago.. my world has ended. .im trying to focus but I can't. .I long to be in her arms again. ..love you mum xxxxxxxx
Posted by Heartbroken
I am sorry for your loss. The loss of a parent is debilitating.
Your Armageddon will subside, little by little. Your Technicolor days will return. Give yourself time, even if no one else is willing to give you time.
It is not going to be easy living without your Mom but, eventually, you will be able to keep going. ((hugs))
Posted by Lisa Oliver
I lost my mum when I was 19 back in 2011.
There are no words that I can say that will make it easier when you lose your mum.
All I can say is that the bad days are less and the happier memories start to come back. You don't dwell on the dark times as much but you still remember them as ultimately they have shaped you into who you are now.
Posted by Rebecca
ME TOO
I loss my dad on 25 Jan 1994 at 6:15 am , someone decided he was not good enough to live , The gash on his head is just as clear today as when I first saw it , Thank you for letting me vent a bit , I am so sorry for your loss
steve
Posted by Steve Juszczak
Thank you, Lisa. I will try and remember that. X
Posted by Kiran Aldridge
Thank you for helping me to make sense of my feelings. My mum just died 24 hours ago... time has stood still for me. All if a sudden out of the blue and completely unexpected. We were cheated we ran out of time, I want my mum back.
Posted by Laura
My mum died 2 weeks ago aged 70, our relationship had become something very different in the last 20 years to my earlier life with her as she had become a violent alchoholic. My father tried very hard to appease her all that he could but was regaled to nothing in the process, I distanced myself and family from them as I could not bear to see them in the abyss she had created. I disliked her intensely and loved her dearly.
I believed I had grieved for my mum whilst she lived, now i know I was only fooling myself as my grief over her dying is all consuming. My father has now been diagnosed with rectal cancer and I feel that the world has turned upside down, I miss you mummy and I fear for my daddy. I live every day with self recrimination, should haves and could haves keep circulating and driving me mad. I so want to feel at peace with the past and look forward to the future.
Posted by Lissa
My mum died 10 weeks ago in a car accident. She was 77. Her passenger was also killed. Just devastating. I dream about her every night. I mourn the loss but also the missed times ahead. The only thing that has made sense to me through this process so far is that the pain is the price we pay for loving someone so much and having been loved so much - weren't we lucky. Hugs to all who visit this site - we need them.
Posted by Nat
The very first commenter has it right! I went numb too . . . numb and yet in serious pain . . . My mother died and no one told us for two weeks . . . and that is just the end of the story . . . I am still numb!
Posted by IHaveNoName
My mum died 4 weeks ago. She was very old and didn't eat for 8 weeks before the end, weighed under 5 stone. I was there when she died, the most devastating hours of my life. I relive it in flashbacks constantly. I have buried her ashes under a rose bush in my garden. I miss her so much, the pain is wrenching.
Posted by Tricia
I found this website after trying to find comfort after the loss of my mother to COPD. We never talked about end of life just day to day things. I think I was trying to protect her and she was trying to protect me. This has made grieving harder now Mum has gone. Sedated in Hospital no chance for a last chat or her end of life wishes. I do not think Mum thought it would end this way. Mums do not want to leave you in pain. I wish I could have saved her. I know if she had died at home peacefully in her sleep, I would not be haunted by the what ifs. I left my mums jewellery on her, would she have wanted this. I think she would say you should have kept it. So many things I wish we had talked about, we had time she had stage 4, we just didnt . I think we both regret that. They say you should prepare for worse and hope for the best. Miss you Mum.
Posted by Patricia
My mum passed away in my arms just before xmas last year. We were never close when I was growing up, but the last 10 years were the best relationship a mother and daughter could possibly have, and Im so thankful for them!! I still today, 7 months later feel like my insides are like shattered windscreen in a car....while the rest of me is holding it together. I have my good days, and today Im having one of those really bad days where the tears are flowing. I know my mums not suffering any longer, I feel as if Im taking a double blow of hurt for the team here today!! I just miss her so so so sooooo much!!
Posted by J
Love you maa(Mom) till my last Breath
I wish i could time traveled to told my mom how much i loved her,how much i missed her,my life was being hell without her due to overwhelming of pain , life was not like as it was before.But i know this is not possible now.I don't know how i live my life without her.Miss you so much mom.i wish i could break chest to my pain.
Posted by Nandan Kanan Gogoi
I lost my Mom 16 days ago. She was only 66. She was my world. I feel lost, sad, heartbroken. I don’t understand how she can be gone. “My Mom died”. I repeat that sentence everyday. I need to accept it. Most excruciating pain that you can’t explain but can only experience. I miss her so very much.
Posted by Peg
My mum died 5days ago. I cannot explain this level of pain. It is coming in waves. I have her pyjamas with me now snd I can smell her. I wish for 5 more minutes..... I am angry. Angry at the slightest thing. She annoyed me at times as I did her but we practically lived together through her illness. I am so sad that i snapped at her sometimes. Sad doesnt cut it i am devastated that I ever snapped at her. I will cherish all the nights that I had cuddled beside her. She had great faith. I would love to have it. I feel if she could tell me she is ok id be ok. This is gutrenching xx
Posted by Xo
I lost my mum exactly a week ago and I keep wondering how I can ever survive the pain I feel as it seems not to subside. I was her only daughter and she my only sister and best friend. Her death was so sudden and I find myself crying every single time I am alone. Mum I miss you so so much, it hurts real bad
Posted by Tessylix
Mum
I lost my mum nine weeks ago today to pneumonia and specis.I was able to say goodbye I was lieing on the hospital bed with her when we said goodbye.What keeps me going is it was such a peaceful death and she is now reunited with dad.It feels like I lost her in an accident.It was so sudden In hospital on Friday responding well to the pneumonia caught sepsis than dead Monday morning.Its so hard without her she was my best friend .We were so close and rang each other twice a day and visited 3 times a week and went out weekly
Posted by Nicky
My mum died just over 4 weeks ago , and I’m devastated , she died suddenly at 75. I feel cheated as I wanted her for a much longer time. I am struggling, but I’m taking everyday at a time. I know she’s in my heart forever and no one can ever take that away from me.
Posted by Laila
I am still searching for answers..my mum died from sepsis December 17 2016,and I feel I died then too. The unbearable existence without her, the grief, the what if's and why's? The guilt, and pain, her face, her words, her pain. It's pointless without her. This life holds nothing for me now.. but I trudge on, I know I have to..i may deserve this, but I know, she didn't. I miss my mum . I'd gladly give the rest of my life up, to spend just one more day with her. I am sorry for the sorrow you all must feel, losing your mum, I hope you all find peace. God Bless.
Posted by Maureen
My mum passed away just over 2 months ago. It was very sudden and unexpected. It has been a very difficult time, I have never experienced grief before. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone. It’s hard, really hard. ❤️
Posted by Amanda
Mama You’re My Angel
I lost my mother in 2009 and I wrote a song to help release the pain. It’s called “Mama You’re My Angel.” Feel free to share it with anyone you wish. https://soundcloud.com/eddiefox/mama-youre-my-angel
Posted by Eddie Fox
My mum died yesterday. I feel numb. My mum in law died 47 days ago- not sure how we are meant to deal with it all. I am lost.
Posted by Tracy
My Mum died 7 weeks ago in Australia. I was due to see her in a few weeks, she was in rehab doing well, and then died suddenly. I am feeling guilty for not getting home sooner. Why didn’t I just go home when Mum was diagnosed. I will never be able to see her again. Never smell her, or cuddle her, or feel her soft cheek against mine. Her smile, wink, laugh. I feel regret and guilt. People think it is sad and I just need to go back to work and keep busy. But my Mum is dead. I still can’t believe she is gone. We talked every day, she listens to me, she tells me what she thinks about things, she is passionate about the environment, birds, the moon, we love thunderstorms together, she makes me laugh, she is interesting to talk to. She listens to me, she comforts me. She accepts me for who I am, no matter what I do or say. We laugh together. She sends me surprise packages. Mother’s Day and Anniversary cards. Her cheeks are soft, and her cuddles comforting, she winks, she smiles, she makes me feel special. She is loving and soft. I see her when green parrots fly overhead, when storm clouds are gathering, at time 11.11. Every morning I wake up and cannot call her to speak with her. I knew she would die, but never really thought she would. She was always there, and now she isn’t. She is my foundation, my blueprint. I am so sorry. I am so sad. Thank you all for your words above, they are comforting and help me to feel less lonely. All I want is to see you again Mum. I love you so deeply and am sorry we didn’t have more time together. I miss you.
Posted by Melly
Kiran, thank you very much for your beautiful article. Your words reflect my experience. My wonderful mother passed awsy nearly 8 weeks ago.
Due to medical negligence issues, I was pushing for an inquest so the memorial service happened before the funeral.
Anyway, though legal action is beginning slowly there will now be no inquest and the funeral will happen later today at the time of writing.
As you rightly say, Kiran, you rage and despair after at first holding it together for some time.
But as the last paragraph if your article rightly states, we feel the embrace of mother around us.
I just wanted to thank you, Kiran, for your article. It has bern a great help to me.
Take care, x
Posted by James Watkins
Likewise
I could have written this myself... thank you for filling a very lonely and teary moment. You write beautifully and truthfully to only those that understand. My mum last me aged 62 on the 9th Dec 2016, her funeral was the 23rd... completely get the angry Xmas vibes. Just winter sucks,knowing those anniversaries are coming
Posted by Kma
My mother died three weeks ago from pneumonia sepsis and the pain is unbearable. I can't imagine a life without her . It holds no joy for me .Now I think of all the years ahead without her and it fills me with heart break that she won't be here to see them .
She was my best friend , sister and an amazing mum . She would always be there for me day and night .
We would talk and confide to each other about everything and she would never judge but still steer me in the right path . She always was kind hearted to everyone and didn't have a mean bone in her body .
I don't think I will ever get over losing her and I don't want to either . I want to keep her memory alive always.
Posted by Anonymous
My mum died 5 weeks ago and I'm broken. Around 5 stone and Myleofibrosis took her. The grief is overwhelming and my poor dad, they would have been married for 60 yrs in Dec. The world is different without mum in it and I miss her so much; would do anything to hold her one more time, I couldn't say goodbye, just held her hand and said not to worry and I would see her again. I love you so much mum, thank you for being in our lives.xx
Posted by Linda
Broken
My Mums Life was cut short , the Hospital wrongly diagnosed her , I feel cheated she was still enjoying life and her children and Grand children, my Heart Aches for her everyday , she's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night ! I used to say to her , dont t know what I will ever do the day you leave , How true those words were . I still can't fathom that we will never speak , Hug, or see each other again . Mum you were my Best Friend my Champion , I Love you forever x
Posted by Shellie
My mum died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism not long after having the Oxford covid vaccine. Will never find out if it was due to the vaccine or whether she already had the blood clot in her body. I lived with her. The house is so quiet without her. I don't think I'll ever get over it. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost their mums and dads and people close to them. I hope that one day time will help to heal the wounds , and the pain won't be as bad as it is today. I'm glad I found this site today.
Posted by Sue
My mum also died of a blood clot to the brain after the Astra vaccination and no no autopsy nothing mentioned about the jab and she was so happy to be having the vaccine , miss you and love you mum
Posted by Shell
Am so sorry to read that your Mum died too Shell, after the astra vaccine. My Mum was also so happy to be having the vaccine. Hoping they will put blood clots on the leaflet as a very rare side effect of the vaccine just so the small number of unlucky people who develop blood clots after it are aware of the symptoms.
Posted by Sue