Mother dead at 60

[RVetter88]

Its almost been a year since my mom passed away from stage IV lung cancer.  Its hard to find words to express how I feel these days.  On one hand, I'm glad she isn't around as we had a very bumpy relationship and on the other its still hard to believe that she's actually gone.  I've basically always lived at home, (I'm 32 now) I've lived on my own here and there- even had relationships, but I honestly cannot find a good line of work that pays enough to live somewhere (my sisters in the same spot).  My mom was I believe a narcissist, its hard to know exactly as she hardly ever went to any doctors and practiced a lot of "alternative" medicine.  The stuff she would say 5 or 6 months into her 7 month prognosis just kept getting crazier and crazier.  About a month before she died she was saying she'd beat the cancer even as she lay mostly bed ridden.  It was awful stuff.  We had two hospice nurses on staff twice a week.  For the rest of the week it was just my Sister, my Dad and me.  We didn't know what we were doing, we weren't giving her morphine doses correctly because a hospice nurse had shown us the wrong way to do it.  It was just miserable.  Those last 2 weeks were so bad I don't want to remember them.  The wailing, the confusion, the mumbling, and my Mother had brain damage by the time the tumors in her head began to take over.  I don't really believe in a down below or a place above, but I'm glad she's at peace even just for the fact that she doesn't have to be here in that kind of state anymore.  My Mom never got a mammogram, she had smoked for 20 years (quit) and never volunteered for a chest X-ray at 50 which might've saved her life.  We realized later that the initial tumor wasn't even that large and it was only in one lung.  She did a lot of that CPD oil nonsense, which didn't extend her life, but at least she felt relaxed and could hold down food.  It was like looking after my Grandmother in an old home though and we didn't talk.  Their wasn't anything to talk about.  I was working all throughout and a lot of days I just didn't want to have anything to do with her.  We never (maybe just me) got closure on a LOT that happened when I was younger.  Some of the stuff that happened in our home has tainted how I view my family almost completely, but it was even more of a shock to realize that they'd all forgotten about it somehow.  One of those, "Well that was years ago, why do you still care about it," things.  I honestly don't really like my family.  My sister is older than me and even though she actually graduated college, has done nothing with her diploma and works less than I do.  My Dad is almost 66 and is pretty stuck in his ways- we rarely talk.  My mom was someone I could talk to back in the day, but she always gave me terrible advice, she had never lived, she had never done anything but fail at everything she tried to do.  She had basically been fired from so many jobs that she'd given up on working after 45.  Its just terribly ironic really, she was always "eating healthy" and telling us how amazing all these alternative practices were- like almost mocking her family by implying she was going to outlive us all.  I'm at a juncture where I have no idea who I am, I don't really want to remember my Mom, even as every else around me seems to constantly bang on about her.  I think it sealed some things away in my life that I'll never have to worry about again as well.  She was always very controlling, very manipulative and I don't think she really cared who I was as a person.  All in all, I'm in a very mixed state of mind about the whole ordeal.  I've tried talking to a couple of therapists, but they haven't really offered me many solutions.  Am I just a bad person because I didn't get along with her?  Is it bad that we disagreed on almost everything in life?  I feel more mad than upset about how she left things.  She didn't even leave me anything in her will, she left nobody anything.  She left a camera to a woman we've never met in Wyoming and a bunch of questions about who she was and who her relationships were with.  Honestly, I don't think I knew anything about her.  I heard more about my Mom from my Dad after she died, then when she was alive.

[Zee24]

Very sorry for your loss. I have been reading that time heals and I hope that eventually will be the case for us all. 
I wont give you any suggestions on what to do or how to think because I have been at the receiving end and researched myself. Just know you are not alone and keep writing here.

[matthew.gd@hotmail.com]

I'm 37 and have lived with one parent or another for most of my life. Honestly I fit the stereotype of the almost 40 year old who lives in his mothers basement pretty much spot on. I've tried to find work but have had my own depressive issues to deal with with most of my life. My mom was my best friend but to say our relationship was healthy is inaccurate at best. Towards the end of her life I took it upon myself to care for her the best I could. The arguments we'd have are something for the ages. The things we'd say to each other were beyond what most people could take. We'd always argued like this since I was a kid. She'd learned from her mom. I'd learned it from her. She had chronic pain for most of her life so she was prescribed morphine. Without it she'd crumble. One of the only reasons I believe  she'd go to her doctors and agree to take tests was so she could get refills. It wasn't a matter of addiction. It was a matter of survival. Because without the relief she would receive should couldn't go on living. But she hid things from doctors. How much she smoked. Her black outs. Her swollen legs. There were nights I would go down stairs and she was seeing people in the room. Talking to ghosts. She kept most of these things from her doctor. She could no longer hold down food and her weight dropped to the mid 70's. Her legs leaked salt water. Bruised and pocked. She lost most of her hair from lack of protein. But she still refused to go to the hospital. One night I went down stairs while she was sleeping and the corner of her mouth was drooping. It looked as if it had fallen off of her skull. I woke up her and said.. "Mom you look like you've had a stroke." She said.. "I'm just sleeping! Let me sleep". Like I was crazy. Two days later she was sitting on the sofa in extreme agony. I told her it's time to go to the hospital. She still refused. It wasn't until she started having to what I believe to be a stroke that she said "We're going to the hospital". And not five minutes later she lost control of her speech function. Her eyes slowly began to close and she was gone. I do believe over the past several months if not years she had had a series of mini strokes. But she never complained or told her doctor. Denial can be a useful mechanism. If they had diagnosed my mom earlier I don't think it would have changed anything. Other than the fact she knew she was dying and that alone may have killed her quicker. Her biggest fear was being put on a machine. Had I have taken her to the hospital the night I noticed her face was drooping I do believe she never would have left. She would have been intubated eventually and put on hospice care. Her biggest fear would have come to pass and I wouldn't have honored her final wish to die at home. She knew she was passing away the last week or so before her death. But up until then she could at the very least live a life of blissful ignorance. Had she had known she had little time left I do believe she would have gone into a deeper and darker depression for a longer period. It's only been three days and I want her back so badly. I want to talk with her because as hard as things could be she was always the person that I'd talk to when I was sad or upset or anxious. But she was hurting. And it was her time to go. Sometimes denying anything is wrong may feel selfish to us. But it can also be a very useful coping mechanism. Sometimes the "alternative medicine" crap is just a way for people to live in blissful ignorance. And as annoying as I personally find many of those that fall into that category if it makes them happy then I try not to judge.