I’m lost without my mom

[ADM925]

2 hours ago, ESM said:

People can be just awful.

How cruel and obscene to lash out like that.  Those remarks are all grossly insensitive and the last one is especially vicious.

A somewhat related experience: when the doctors told me Mom could never come home on a ventilator, and would soon be sent to a nursing facility which I knew would probably never let me see her, my already very great anxiety turned into full-blown panic (it was even noted in the medical record).  Hospital visiting was then discontinued with one day's notice, and a (now ex-) relative's response was this:

"So what, it happens to a lot of people."

"You might have seen her for the last time already, get used to it!"

Haven't gotten used to it, it gets worse every day

 

[ESM]

4 hours ago, ADM925 said:

"So what, it happens to a lot of people."

That is just remarkable.

 

4 hours ago, ADM925 said:

"You might have seen her for the last time already, get used to it!"

I don't know what to say.

You just have to be an awful person. Just amazing.

[Sarahismymom]

The responses on social media, while disgusting, I almost understand. Because of social media & the anonymity, a lot of decency has been lost. Rudeness is everywhere. The in person responses would upset me more. That’s really shocking. Then again, I’m in a support group and everyone there has a story of a family member or close friend making comments like that.  That I just can’t understand.  I’m sorry for anyone who’s spoken to like that. 

[Sarahismymom]

I saw this online today. Tomorrow being Mother’s Day is hard for so many of us. I saw this though and it made me smile. It actually made me laugh with joy.  I said out loud “That’s it right there!”
 

 

[ADM925]

On 5/4/2022 at 10:59 PM, Sarahismymom said:

I’m in a support group and everyone there has a story of a family member or close friend making comments like that.

"You've been going around in circles for so long you need to be shocked into the truth."

Still reeling very badly from the first Mother's Day alone, and the next day I find out I've been conscripted into psychotherapy at the insistence of my minimal-employers.  I thought it was going to be a support group or at least a regular counselor and now I'm terrified at how jarring and invasive this might turn out to be (it even says so in the disclaimer / consent form).  In that case I'll be getting out right away because the countless traumas / separations of the past two years plus Mom's permanent absence are already beyond endurance.

There's a great deal of impatience and (especially from family) long-term resentment and anger towards both Mom and me, going back many decades, behind the cruel comments and gloating I've heard or heard about ("He didn't call 911 and now she's brain-dead, now he'll have to declare bankruptcy . . ." etc. etc.) - lifelong feuds with people who hated us for being so close, and who feel vindicated now.

I know there are many here who also feel similar abject terror and desolation and can understand it, and if anyone can't please don't tell me about it, it's already too much

[Sarahismymom]

It’s July 1 as I write this. Mom & I loved summer!!!  We both enjoyed warm weather. We’d take long drives places. We’d go to the casino nearby. We’d do projects outside. It was just a positive & energetic time.  Now, there’s a cloud over everything. Mom really started to decline a year ago during summer. That’s what the season means now. I wish I could talk to her. I wish I could hear her. I pray she knew how I loved her.  Life is so empty now. 

[reader]

I'm so sorry Sarahismymom.  Grief makes us all so raw. I know it doesn't feel like it now but I hope one day it will be better.

 

[Summersun]

I wish I could say something different, but I also have gotten terrible feedback from the outside world, sometimes even doctors offices and the doctors themselves... giving me fortune cookie advice about letting go.

I even started a thread about it, also concerning relatives, but not only. Called " lack of support while grieving"

A death can bring so many things to the surface that only had a veneer over them before, it' s terrible. Or people feel free to say things now, as they know mum cannot get to them and scold them. We are at our most vulnerable right now,without protection, and they take advantage. Many of my mums  "friends" did that. How low.

Maybe we should somewhere here start a seperate thread or group or club - there are clubs! - for only children, who's mum was their whole world. Those who can hardly breathe now. I go through that at times, too. I really do believe that it is different if you have have a healthy other parent or many friends or a family of your own. If you don't, your entire world collapses!

I feel like a battery that is broken right now, gone from 100% to 0% within the 2 minutes of getting the phone call that she was gone -  without any warning at all.

I even envy those of you who could say goodbye and had some time to prepare, but that is a different matter.

What counts is the profound feeling of loss and that it will never be fixed again. My feeling of safety is completely gone and anxiety basically a permanent companion now. 

Like many here I was thinking about how to communicate with my mother from now on, and get her advice. I realised today that the only time when I will get to speak with her again - if at all - is the moment when I will really not need her advice on matters of this world anymore, because I will be gone, too.

That was devastating to understand.

And like some here said, I have to deal with the not-understanding of others as well. I feel just so much worse after uninvited "advice" from them. Like today, my neighbor for example. They do not even ask if you want to hear it.

People suggesting therapy over and over, for their own sake not mine, making me feel like I'm a broken toaster they just want to fix.

Just to get rid of the problem and having to witness my grief or be a little bit considerate around the house so I can sleep a tiny bit which is difficult.

And they just make things so much worse with that arrogant attitude  - while we have real problems to deal with. Like others have written, I also have feelings of guilt that I didn't do enough. And I am wondering if my mother knew how much I loved her.

So others making my situation about them, and suggesting indirectly how much it bothers them -  are really an additional problem on top of the others. While they proudly tell me how much they have helped and supported me already! Nightmarish nightmare.

I want to thank every single one who has written here for their contributions. We are all in different places on the planet but it makes me feel a little bit less alone.

I hope you all have a bearable weekend! Stay strong!

[momsbestfriend]

I'm not sure how this works, I lost Mom a month ago and the original story in the thread could have been written by me. I'm really struggling and thought I would try reaching out online but it looks like there may be some negativity and I can't go through that kind of thing, so if anyone has any guidance, I would appreciate it. 

[Sarahismymom]

On August 11 of last year, one year ago almost, my mom went in for a lung biopsy. She was scared. I wasn’t tremendously worried.  I had absolute faith that if there was something was wrong, her checkups would have caught it. I also believed she was due for something good. She came from the hospital and didn’t seem overly worried. The biopsy wasn’t definitive.  I don’t know what I’m writing. I come here & just ramble.  Bottom line, I believed she would be ok. 
 

It feels like it was a week ago. All I’ve done for the past year is fight to survive. My life just stopped a year ago.  Feels like nothing has moved.  Everything stopped. There’s no joy. There’s no dreams.  I know this is silly but my mind goes to one of my favorite movies as a child, Superman. At the end, Superman spins around the Earth & makes time go backwards. I so wish that could be done. 
 

thanks for letting me babble. It’s so hard. 

[Sarahismymom]

One year ago today 8/30/21, my mom went to the emergency room. I thought they’ll give her some fluids & some nutrients & she would be ok.  I never grasped how serious things were.  Maybe I failed her. I don’t know. I feel everything could’ve been handled better.  I should’ve been more aware.  In denial I’m sure.  I also trusted her doctors. That wasn’t right either. Lastly, mom should’ve taken better care of herself. 
 

It all feels so close. It feels like I could reach out & change everything. 

[Summersun]

Sarah, everything you write could have been said by me, too. How similar, denial, guilt, going over it in your mind like a permanent loop. Try not to be too hard on yourself. Seems its like that for a lot of us. Nobody learnt this in school. We are no doctors. In my case, I know I felt responsible emotionally for her already growing up. That makes my final failure so much harder, ultimate proof I was not good enough all along to keep my family safe. I need to talk myself out of it every night, very little sleep. Yes, they were adults and ultimately responsible for themselves. Its the discrepancy in knowing this rationally and feeling otherwise in my heart, that is hard to deal with.

Much love to you.

summersun

[Sarahismymom]

When I was 13 I almost choked on a potato chip. Dorito to be exact!  I remember standing up and feeling the sharp chip blocking my air. I coughed to try and get it up.  My mother ran in and performed the heimlich maneuver. I wasn’t small.  I was fairly overweight and my mom was 5 2” maybe 120lbs. She lifted me off the ground. I remember how hard she worked to save me. The chip came up and she’d saved my life.  
 

One, I should’ve always remembered that I owed my life to her. We rarely argued as I got older but I couldn’t be pretty bad in my teens. I should’ve remembered what I owed her. Second, & most important, I didn’t fight to help her like she did for me. She really fought!  I sat in the hospital & politely listened to the doctor because I believed they would save her. I didn’t aggressively fight. I trusted mom’s physician to stay on top of things.  They missed everything. I just have guilt because I didn’t do enough. I didn’t fight with the intensity that mom fought for me. 

[Sarahismymom]

Back in 1983, my grandmother had to go to the hospital. She got better but it wiped us out financially. Mom raised me alone with the help of granny. When Christmas came, it was pretty lean. Mom picked up a few things for me but there wasn’t money for much. One thing she bought was this detective themed card game. You looked at the image on the card & had to determine from the clues what had happened. It was cute & mom and I really enjoyed it. No video games, no Star Wars ships, just this card game. 
 

I would always tell mom that was one of the best Christmases I ever had. We spent time together without any distractions and I really enjoyed it. Even at the time when I was pretty young, I was happy. The gifts didn’t matter at all.  I’m always glad that I told her that story many times over the years. 
 

I miss her so much. 

[beegee22]

Like the OP, I lost my mom to lung cancer. It has been over 3 months and while the emotional impact has lessened somewhat, life just isn't the same. I am single and shared everything with mom: the highs, the lows, meals, gossip, etc. Even now, I learn a piece of news and find myself wanting to tell mom. Of course I then remember I can never tell her anything again. It feels surreal because she had such a larger than life personality that I could never imagine a world without her. I feel the emptiness and the loneliness every single day. The holidays are not kind to people like us. I am always reminded of the fun and the big meals we used to have at this time of year. Now, the house is mostly filled with silence.

Again like the OP, mom was not a fan of doctors and hospitals, especially after they misdiagnosed her with liver cancer in 1995. About 3 years ago, she started having isolated bouts of breathlessness. She went for a chest xray, was told she had a "lung infection" (they hesitated to call it pneumonia), was given an antibiotic and it seemingly went away. They wanted her to go back for a follow up but since the symptoms cleared, she didn't bother and didn't feel she needed to. Around the peak of COVID in 2020, she started to have some bouts of coughing and thought she just caught a cold. Given the COVID situation, she didn't want to go anywhere or see any doctors. Around a year later, the cough started becoming persistent and she started noticing tinges of blood in her sputum. She first went to see her family doc who listened to her lungs and said they were "crystal clear". When the cough continued to worsen and she felt that something was really wrong, she went for a chest xray, which showed a pneumonia like appearance in the right lung. She then went for a CT scan, which showed a large mass. In late August 2021, she had a biopsy done which showed 2 different types of cancers. She was put on a drug that initially worked wonders! Her arm/leg swelling cleared, tumor shrank, fluid in her lungs cleared, she had more energy, better appetite. Doc said the drug may work for years. Unfortunately, about 8 months later, the CT showed the original tumor is now double in size, another larger tumor in the other lung, more fluid in lungs. It was now so aggressive that these changes appeared in the course of 3 months between CT scans. She was gone about 7 weeks later. She was a never smoker. While she never had COVID, I believe it was indirectly responsible because she would have gone for evaluation in 2020 when the cancer could have been much more treatable.

She was 86 and repeatedly told me she lived a good life and to make sure I went on with my life. I promised her I would but it is proving much more difficult than I imagined. The loneliness is terrible as I used to share everything in my life with her. She cared so much about me and I really felt it. She was my best friend, my biggest fan and my biggest champion. The thought of spending decades without her really scares me. Distraction with work, entertainment and extended family (who I am not that close to) all help but at the end of the day, I still feel all alone. She motivated me on so many levels that without her, existence feels empty and hollow. I feel like I am just going through the motions day after day.

So OP and everyone in the thread, I know exactly what you're going through. Whoever said that you can be in a crowd but feel totally alone without your mother is right on the money. I attended many events with my mom and always felt this inexplicable comfort and sense of belonging when I was with her. Without her, it literally feels like a piece of me is missing and cannot be replaced. As this is my first holiday season without her, I just hope I can focus on the good memories enough to carry me through to 2023.

[Sarahismymom]

I probably repeat myself. I won’t read over my posts because they upset me.  With mom here, I had things I wanted to do. I wanted to take mom on vacation. We hadn’t been since the 80’s. There were new restaurants I wanted us to try. There were movies I wanted her to see.  Now, I have to push forward so I don’t drown so to speak but there’s nothing I’m looking forward to.  She was such a part of everything I do that life feels empty.  She was my best friend. No one even close. 
 

One thing I beat myself over is my trust if the hospitals & doctors. I didn’t panic or act with a sense of urgency because I assumed they knew what they were doing. I assumed they’d catch anything. I hate myself for that.
 

my condolences.  I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.  

[Lal Anar]

i lost my mother and i have no interest in life now

 

[beegee22]

22 hours ago, Sarahismymom said:

 

One thing I beat myself over is my trust if the hospitals & doctors. I didn’t panic or act with a sense of urgency because I assumed they knew what they were doing. I assumed they’d catch anything. I hate myself for that.
 

I know this feeling! My mom's oncologist never acted with urgency. When she had a CT in April that showed mild progression, he wasn't even convinced it was the cancer progressing and still wanted to wait 3 months 'til the next scan. I even asked if we should maybe do one in 2 months instead. He said no as there likely would be no change. Boy was he wrong! I felt so much guilt for not insisting to do an earlier scan. The only thing that gave me comfort is knowing that the outcome likely wouldn't change given the aggressive nature of the cancer. I often replay her entire course of treatment in my head and wonder if anything I could have done would have changed the outcome. The problem is that dwelling on it will drive you crazy and hindsight is 20/20. I would have done many things differently knowing what I know now but life just doesn't work that way. Eventually, we need to let go and accept that what happened was likely meant to be. My mom had so many close health calls in her life and survived them all, until this one. I cannot tell you how many times she was nearly hit by a car crossing the street (she had a habit of looking down and not around her). She had skin cancer in 1987 that likely would have taken her life if it weren't for her family doctor seeing it as a fluke and catching it very early (she came in for something entirely different). It wasn't her time.

So while I know how you feel, I would encourage you not to beat yourself up. I do believe that there is an element of fate that drives all of our lives. My mom was my everything as I am sure yours was to you. It is natural that we would feel guilt over their passing because of our devotion. But remember that most kids only devote a fraction of themselves to their parents and we went above and beyond. Take comfort in the fact that you were an amazing daughter as I know I was an excellent son. In fact, my mom told me on several occasions that the reason she survived for this long is because of everything I did to take care of her. Remembering this gives me some peace and allows me to move past the guilt that sometimes rears its ugly head. Hang in there!

[Lal Anar]

these doctors and hospitals dont know what they doing

read my post about medical science 

[Sarahismymom]

2 hours ago, Lal Anar said:

these doctors and hospitals dont know what they doing

read my post about medical science 

At one point, my mother was scheduled to go in for a biopsy. When she arrived, the Dr had none of her charts and wasn’t sure what she needed.   It breaks my heart. 

[Lal Anar]

my mom got blood fungal infection, bacterial lung infection, bed sore of stage 4, all happened while she was in the hospital. ICU department.
started bleeding from lungs. she was on several different antibiotics. several infectious diseases doctors came, were doing cultures daily and waiting for each culture results. All doctors were saying these bacteria are antibiotic resistant.

dialysis was done three times a week. she was on ventilator. she was up and alert. i hold her hand. gave massage on her hands and feet. but...

I was helpless spectator. couldn't do anything for my mom. none of the doctors had clue or medical science is not that advanced what we beleive
 

[RedPanda23]

I lost my mom on 5/1/20.  I was home in NJ to help her as she was battling lymphoma and was having complications due to the immunotherapy.  The news was the tumors has started to shrink...but due to infections she had to go to the hospital three time between March and May in the most deadly time during Covid - she caught covid from the hospital...the third trip to the hospital was because she was having fevers, and her ulcer started bleeding again.  She had covid this time and I wasn't allowed to go with her.  I remember we were waiting for the ambulance and she looked at me and said "Sue, I think this is going to be a one way ticket."  I only got to speak with her a couple of times and see her once, the day she passed, via facetime over the next two weeks.  And then she was gone...I miss her so much and I just don't know what to do.  It's been 2 1/2 years and I can't believe I could live another 40 years and not have her around.  She is my best friend and I miss her and I feel so alone without her.  How am I supposed to live while people Im close with will pass away leaving me here alone?

[RedPanda23]

I empathize  I also feel the same way  

my heart and head are broken

[Lal Anar]

RedPanda23 its very very tough for you.

[Martin79]

This is the hardest time of the year for me, I miss you so much mom. 

[latincoffee]

Sorry for your loss. I miss my parents so much. Especially when the holidays come around every year. 

 

Hugs and prayers sent for everyone going through loss. 💚

[Missmybeautifulmum]

I hope it's ok to jump onto this thread. Sending love to all of you, I can definitely empathise with all the stories on here and they are very heart breaking to read. I used to post on here a while ago when my mum first passed away but haven't for a while. I guess some of the initial extreme grief reactions have calmed down a little for me now 18 months on, though not gone away completely (anger, guilt, regrets etc). In that time I'be focussed on completely retraining and have a new job starting soon (I was never at all career focussed before and always concentrated on my art and music career which has now fallen by the wayside)

However, I find myself still feeling very lonely, lost, confused and down without my mum. I'm just so sad, most of the time. I feel very different inside to how I used to. I miss my mum more than I can ever put into words and I don't see this ever changing. My heart hurts a lot of the time and I have always been sensitive but I cry so easily at things these days. I don't feel at home in this world without my mum and at times, I quite mentally unstable to be honest - like today for example I kept seeing flashbacks of my mum so here, so vibrant and so alive (flashbacks to before she got ill) and then not being able to make sense again of the fact she is now gone, she no longer takes up space in this world - she actually lost her entire life, my lovely, lovely mum. I'm so sad for her too that she lost her life, so much shared history, just lives completely intertwined and now it's just me and I don't even know if I will ever see here again or where she is now (if anywhere). I used to talk to her several times every day and the silence since she's been gone hasn't gotten any less deafeningly loud. I keep trying to connect with her spirit but I just feel scared that I won't be able to because she doesn't exist at all anymore.

Everything feels so serious and scary to me now though I try to tell myself, life can be short, I should enjoy it while I can but that's just so hard to do when I'm missing her so much I also had to see her suffer a lot before she died and I think that has traumatised me. My mum was my closest person, my home, the centre of my world and although I can enjoy some things again now, I love others in my life etc, I still overall don't understand what the point of life is anymore, I just feel tired of this struggle.

[Sarahismymom]

I come home & I think if all the things I want to. Simple things to relax. I’m going to watch an old movie. I’m going to read. I’m going to paint. Too often I end up in bed with the lights off saying “I’ll get up here in a minute”. I just don’t have any drive. I’ve done ok keeping up with bills and taking care of work. What I can’t seem to do is fully enjoy anything. 

[Sarahismymom]

On 3/31/2023 at 8:30 PM, Sarahismymom said:

I come home & I think if all the things I want to. Simple things to relax. I’m going to watch an old movie. I’m going to read. I’m going to paint. Too often I end up in bed with the lights off saying “I’ll get up here in a minute”. I just don’t have any drive. I’ve done ok keeping up with bills and taking care of work. What I can’t seem to do is fully enjoy anything. 

I just came here to post & saw I’d  already shared similar thoughts.   It is so hard. 
 

I posted this in another thread. I wake up sometimes & just start looking at my phone. Maybe I talk to my cat. Everything feels so normal. Then I think “wait a minute.  I dreamed about mom”.  I try & try to remember pieces of it but the longer I’m awake, the more distant it seems. I get glimpses though & they’re so …normal. Just us talking about pizza or my asking her something.  Everything is RIGHT. That’s why when I wake up everything feels like it’s the way it’s supposed to be. 
 

I had no idea what sadness felt like. I just noticed I have 2 pages now on this topic.   

[sundees daughter]

On 10/2/2021 at 9:30 PM, Sarahismymom said:

I hope mom hears me sometimes. Not all the time but when I really need to talk I hope she hears me. That’s the only thing that makes my days bearable. I miss her so much. 
 

I got a heart shaped balloon today and wrote a few things on it. Then I turned it loose. May seem silly but it made me feel good. I hope she saw it. I so need to be connected to her. 

Hi. We did the same thing for my mom on her birthday. She passed away on July 17,2023 and her birthday was July 26. I miss her so much. She was my best friend and I'm so lost without her. 

I took care of her while she was sick with peritoneal cancer. Oh my God it was so heartbreaking and horrible to watch her get so sick. She was such a strong woman and to watch what cancer did to her made me mad at God. I still picture her and how she suffered. The doctors and my brother finally talked me into having her out on in home hospice. I don't know if it was the right thing to do. The doctors said she would never get better and she couldn't eat due to the cancer spreading to her bowels. So she just starved to death and hospice had her on so much pain medication I felt like I was overdosing her. I'm so messed up right now. I hate the thought of how she suffered and I hate that she's gone. Sometimes I start thinking about how I'll never see her again or talk to her. We were so close. 

This weekend we are having a service for her and it's killing me . I feel like such a big baby. 

Thank you for letting me vent. I just felt for some reason that you would understand. I'm sorry for the pain you're feeling as well.

[Sarahismymom]

I’m so sorry. I know how hard it is & I wish I had some wisdom to share but I don’t. Just be thankful. So many people never experience love or a relationship like that.   Makes it harder but no less fortunate. 

[Lexi302]

Hey guys,

I turned 30 years old on 30th of June and my mother died on 18th August this year. She stared getting sick in December right before Christmas but she came home eventually and it seemed like everything was going to be just fine. The doctors have "cured" her and now she was just there. We celebrated Easter in April and by April 30th, she had a septic shock. Everyone was telling me that she has strong chances to die back then and that was the first time I ever experienced a so close to death situation of my mother. 7 days later, she got better and I started getting my hopes up, sometimes to such a point that I would say: no way mom will not fully recover! We had good days with great news and then out of sudden something bad would happen and send us back to the point one. But I never ever since April lost hope that she will get better. In may she told me that she had a feeling she was going to die (while she was unconscious) and she felt calm about it until she realized she hasn't told me she loves me (she s told me that thousands of times before, we were best friends). So she came back from the dead literally and we had 3 and a half months to live. Except those months were awful for her (and me) back and forth to hospitals, so many scares, her feeling sick most of the time, unable to walk or even position herself alone in bed. But I was greatful for these months. We had good days too when we would feel joy and happiness. We had some chances to tell each other stuff. She told me not to cry if she dies, but then she would not develop the subject any further. She was afraid of dieing because she felt her life is incomplete. You see, she made me at 40yo so my mom was 70 when she died. That's not a traigcal age, but she could have lived so much longer... I kept praying and praying that she would live for several years more so I could be more mature and that she could go in peace when the time has come... But life had other plans. They discharged her on a Thursday and we were supposed to return for surgery 10 days later. 7 days after she came home, she just...fell asleep. And we couldn't wake her up. I was at work and my dad told me to call for an ambulance. By the time I arrived, the doctors were trying to rise her blood pressure. I literally fell on the ground and was so shocked like a little kid with no power. But I got up, went to her bed and told her I love her and that we will never leave her and that she needs to be calm. From what my husband has told me she nodded. So she heard me. I kissed her forehead multiple times and held her hand until the doctors decided she was stable enough to be transported to the hospital. At the ER, they wouldn't let me go be with her right away. I finally managed to sneak in and when I called her, she only managed to open her eyes. It was a blank stare. But the doctors said she should hear me, so I kept telling her that everything will be ok and that I am right there with her and I love her. Next time I went in to see her, she was intubated and unconscious. A really heavy rain started that night and we had to go home close the windows and I just wanted to... I don't even know what I wanted. They transported her to ICU and I was back at the hospital by 1 am. I wasn't able to see her but they told me she wasn't hearing or feeling anything. That morning they called me my mom died. She died alone, in a hospital. I looked through her phone and she wrote a message to some astrologist Facebook page that she was afraid to know what will happen. That devastated me. I miss her and her not being with me hurts so much to the point that I have no willing to enjoy life. It seems unfair to do anything nice without her. Although I know she didn't want me to be like that. She even told me she wants me happy when she dies. I feel bad about feeling sad and I feel bad if I catch myself smiling at my husband because she is dead. I guess the reason why I feel so sad is not because I lost my mother, but because mother lost her life. 

I keep reading stuff about science and afterlife and the only thing that makes me feel better right now is that I have this hope that we will continue after and when I die I will have this big revelation that we are all connected and everything will be peaceful. I like to imagine my mom is in that state right now. 

What I know for sure is that I need to get better, I need to be happy. I am 30 years old. I lost her way too early, but I need to live my life. Our parents decided to have kids so that their kids will have a fulfilling life, knowing that they will die. Did they plan to die when their kids were a certain age? Probably. I know for sure my mom didnt want me to be 30 yo when she died. I am sure she hoped I d be at least 40. 

But death is a certainty for all of us. At some point, they would have been gone. It is the circle of life. And your mothers knew that. They knew before they even gave birth to you that they will die and you will live a part of your life without them.

Some of you are in your 50s. I would have settled with even 5 more years with my mom. But I need to settle with 30 years with her. This is it. It's all I got and I cannot get more. And she knew that. So did your parents. They sure wouldn't want you to waste your life. They would want you to enjoy it without them, otherwise they wouldn't even decided to have you. Love your mom, cherish her memories. Honor her life. But love yourself as well. We were our mothers most important thing in the world! They would have given their life for us! They would have died for us! Mine told me this 3 days before she died... now that they are gone, we need to start recieve the gift of life that our mothers gave us and not waste it. It would be wasting their honor. 

If there is an afterlife, and they know what's happening here on earth, imagine their grieve if they see their children so broken. There is no greater grieve in this world that a parent for his child. 

Think about them and love them and exactly because you love them, live your life. Take it easy, one step at a time. But love your life... Yesterday I cooked pasta and I couldn't bring myself to clean right after.. but I cleaned today. It's a step forward. I cannot go to the cemetery and see her grave because just the idea that my mom's body is in a coffin underground makes me sick to the point I will vomit, but I lit up a candle in a church for her today. Then I went by the lake to her fave restaurant and I even enjoyed myself a little bit. Then I felt sorry she doesn't enjoy it too and I started crying. Then I remembered she doesn't want to see me cry so I stopped crying. Now I'm looking for grieving forums online. 

Obviously I am not good. I pet my cat and then I just push it away cause I wish I could hold mom's hand instead. 

But I'm trying. I'm trying and I am living and I am doing things and I will get better, little by little. I wish you all well. 

 

 

[Sarahismymom]

I had an emergency colonoscopy recently & a cancerous mass was found.   I’m undergoing chemo.   It’s hard without my mom. I need to be positive & I need to fight. If mom was here, I know I would have a different mindset.   When I lost mom, every time I’ve been sick, I think “maybe this is my time”. I miss her so much.   I just  know I need to push negatives from my mind. Mom would be mad if I didn’t fight as much as I can.   There are moments where am conflicted. 
 

I don’t know if I’ve made any sense lol!  I just wanted to post something. It’s a scary time. 
 

bless you all in 2024

[Traz]

Dear Sarahismymom,

I can't imagine what you are going through and my heart goes out to you. A frightening time is an understatement. My sister-in-law was diagnosed with colon cancer and ten years later, she is still here and thriving. There is absolutely every reason to have hope. Cancer is no longer an immediate death sentence as it used to be, thanks to advances in medicine and treatments.  

I empathize with how scary this is without the support of your mom. Do you have a support group via the hospital to help you? Do you have any other extended family or friends who you could reach out to?  I am praying for you. Xo

[Sarahismymom]

I’ve found my grief counseling group provides great support. I appreciate them tremendously.  I don't have a lot of family.   A few friends have been very supportive.  
 

Sometimes when I’m in pain I wish my mom was with me. She was such a comfort. I remember being sick a few years ago & the thought went through my head “What will I do if she’s not here one day?”  I rarely thought like that.  Too upsetting.    While I occasionally wish she was here to comfort me, I wouldn’t want her to see me sick. I wouldn’t want her to worry.