Interactions with family after loss of mother

[StellaBlue]

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I am 32 years old, a wife, and mother of 2. I have a tendency to ramble on so I apologize in advance for what promises to be a long post.

My little family has been absolutely shaken by loss in a very short amount of time. In mid October we unexpectedly lost my mother-in-law who lived with us. We were all very close, especially my 9 year old daughter who shared a room with her. It was very hard on my whole family but we felt we were going to push through even though it hurt every day.

We were finally settling into a feeling of at least half normalcy by the time the holidays came around this year. We invited my mother to come stay with us and spend Christmas with her grandchildren a few days before Christmas Eve. My mom and I planned our large traditional Christmas Eve meal, talked about all the fun holiday things like what the kids Elf on the Shelf would be doing, making cookies and basically were enjoying our time together as a family. I woke up at 6:30am on Christmas Eve to have my morning coffee and moment of clarity before the kids were up and moving. I peeked in on my mother who was typically up way before me and she was snoring away. The kids woke up around 8:30 excited to see what their Elf was up to and my husband was moseying around. I turned to him and said "Wow, mom is really sleeping. She must be comfortable. She might not even be breathing" honestly just meaning it as a joke but she wasn't. He took a look at her and told me to send the kids to their room and we called 911. I did CPR on her, the EMTs did CPR and other procedures and got her heart to start back up 3 times between my home and the hospital. By that night it was determined that she had been without oxygen too long, her blood pressure was very low on 3 medications to keep it up, and she was on a breathing machine. At about 4am Christmas Day we got the phone call that she had passed away at 56 years old.

This has been the absolute shock of my life. I am an only child and my parents were divorced 20 years ago. It's been her and me for as long as I could remember. I'm handling grief a lot differently than I though I would. I had 2 actual breakdowns, Christmas Eve when the ambulance left and also at the hospital. There have been moments of my day since then where I'm doing things and cry for maybe a minute. The entire planning process of her funeral service and at the actual service, I kept telling my husband that I felt like everyone was waiting for me to cry...and maybe that's why I didn't? I'm really not sure but I know everyone grieves in their own way. My heart hurts and I am broken inside, but I feel like I'm all cried out and can't do it anymore. That's half of why I'm here...I don't care about being normal but I don't want to seem like a "cold" person. I'm torn apart but I know I have these 2 amazing kids I have to be strong for...and I also feel like maybe there have been so many other parts of life that have broken me already that maybe I'm used to emotional pain. I don't know if that even makes sense.

The other reason I'm here is because I'm having some issues with family after her passing. I love them all very much and know they love me, this is not the problem. I find myself avoiding talking to most of them right now. I feel like I need SPACE. I have talked to my grandmother several times and everything she wants to talk about is things that I need to DO instead of just checking with how I am. For this reason I've mostly been avoiding her. I know that sounds awful but I wouldn't answer the phone for most people on a normal day before all of this because of anxiety and depression. When I talk to her, it's always her telling me to run to my mom's house 30 minutes away to do something, or go to the post office in my mom's town to check her PO box, or coming to her house that's almost an hour away. After all the loss my family has gone through we are financially burdened...it has come down to the last few dollars to our name going on food and gas for my husband to get to work. We are on the verge of being evicted if we don't have our rent together in a week. I feel awful to tell her that I can't do these things but I honestly just can't afford to constantly be running around everywhere right now. So for this reason I've been just blocking her out even though I know it's wrong. I hate to have to tell her the financial situation we're in I think because I'm not a person who like to admit what feels like defeat and failure. It's tearing me apart because I know I should be calling her, but I don't know how to handle any of it right now so I just shut down. I know I have a lot of responsibility in taking care of my mother's home and getting it cleaned out and ready to sell but I feel like it isn't going anywhere and right now I just need to be the most present person for my kids and husband and keep pushing us to get things together. I'm overwhelmed by stress, grief, anxiety, depression, and trying to appease everyone around me. If people ask me how I am, I just say that my soul and spirit are tired. 

Anyway, I don't know if anyone can relate to anything I've said, or maybe I'm just losing it through all of this. No one teaches you how to cope, and no one could possibly teach or tell you how to act or feel when these things happen. I'm going forward with this the only way I know how whether it's right or wrong. I would love it if anyone had any insight to anything I'm feeling, to maybe help me feel like I'm not crazy or a bad person, or even to tell me I am. I'm struggling with my feelings and the way I'm handling things every day.

[reader]

Dear Stellablue,

My deepest sympathies and condolences. I am very sorry for your losses. It is a lot for one person to go through in a very short time. I can understand the shock and the need for space.

Please know everything you are feeling and thinking is normal and natural and a part of grieving process.

I had a very similar experience with my grandmother as well after my father passed. She lived in a nursing home. I visited her shortly after my dad's passing and she said to me "why do you have to go home? Your dad is not there anymore." I was so raw about my dad that after that, I avoided her almost a year. I know she was elderly and maybe that wasn't what she meant but I just couldn't deal with it. 

My whole life I tried to be the good one, the understanding one, but after losing my dad, I just didn't have it in anymore to do very much. Grief has taken a toll. We all need some peace to come to terms with everything that has happened.

It sounds to me like you are a very good person going through an extremely difficult time. Please don't be hard on yourself. Try to be kind and gentle. You are allowed as much space as you need.

Thinking of you. Sending all my thoughts and prayers.