Quality Of Life

[candycane]

Who else has noticed that your quality of life never fully came back after the death of your mother?

Thank you for being here because as a daughter without a mother it is a unique and special pain. It is not the same as breaking up with a boyfriend or things of the like!!!!!!!

[Nicole-my grief journey]

You are completely right. I feel this way too. I’ve said over and over again how every cell in my body is part of her. How my heart is intertwined with her. I’m a year and a half into the loss of my mother. She was a mother in the truest sense of the word. Unconditional love, trust, a sweet giving nature and made my life so special. She was my world. We adventured together and had so many plans. I lost her three months after her cancer diagnosis and 6 months after losing my closest sibling. I didn’t think I would survive my losses. But I’m still here and now I work on being my own anchor. Some of the things that have truly helped me are not ignoring my grief, feeling all my feelings, and not caring what my grief journey looks like to outsiders. In the beginning, people would often say things wanting to help and sometimes just because people can be so uncomfortable with grief they would try to skip me a head in my journey with standard phrases and words that would just seem hollow to me. I feel the discomfort causes them to minimize, or gloss over the loss and for me, it made things more painful. They would also say “You’re so strong”. They meant well, but it made me feel like I had to be for everyone else. I took care of everyone except for me for the longest time and if I know anything about grief, it’s that we have to not keep it in because it causes health problems if we do. 

My grief is still here but has transformed a lot. I do things to honor my mom, like going to gardens, working in her yard, keeping with our traditions (but also starting new ones), crying it out, talking it out, writing it out (hard for me) and therapy. I’m a firm believer in therapy.  I’ve also connected with my aunt who has experienced great loss and tells things as is. She is also motherly at times and I trust her when I want advice and I’m so grateful for this relationship. It’s definitely not the same as speaking to my mom and I would never expect it to be, but I find mentoring has helped me and kept me going forward. For months, I couldn’t do anything but stare at the wall, cry and yearn for my mother. I suffered with PTSD and anxiety (at times I still do). It was difficult to get out of bed, shower, work, eat. My mom would want me to keep going and so I do. Sending you my deepest empathy on your loss. It is heartbreaking to lose a mother. Love to you.