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I am sorry. It's going to be a tough one for you, I'm sure. I hope you get through the best you can. Don't try to squash your feelings. Your grief counseling source is correct.
Yeah, this month is definitely more melancholy than before.
My grief also magnifies so many things. Gardening is a bigtime hobby of mine. My mom was a gardener, but I didn't get into it until we moved to our current house that has a half acre lot. Our front and backyards are mostly landscaped with minimal grass and I maintain them with the help of landscapers for some of the bigger projects.
My garden took on a greater role when my mom fell ill. It was how I helped cope with all of the trauma and stress so that I was my best self when my mom needed me. It brought me joy to see the garden in all of its bloom and working to make all of that happen.
Unfortunately, gardening is also at the whim of mother nature. Last summer was brutally hot, endless days of over 100 degrees, and things suffered.
Two successive winters had catastrophic ice storms that felled a giant 40 foot oak and decimated my garden, costing me thousands of dollars.
Slowly but surely I'm trying to revive it, again costing me thousands of dollars, but wouldn't you know -- random cool wet weather caused an outbreak of a very serious disease (downy mildew) of many plants, namely my prized roses. Most of them look horrible, and I am absolutely crestfallen. What's worse is that the disease is established in the landscape.
Most people will say to me "It's just plants, buy others" but considering what I've gone through/going through, things like this carry more significance. It's hard to just bounce back.
One thing about the grief counseling is that people don't judge. They understand the "whys". The understand that sometimes with grief, you attach onto people and or things to help you through.
It will be almost a year since my mother died. Life is very much back to normal: I work, I exercise, I cook, etc. I can concentrate once again, and I can enjoy things at times. That said, I still experience random waves of shock that last a few minutes, just like I experience deep sadness that comes over me suddenly and might last an hour or so or longer. Life will move on, and it has done just that.
In the first 6-8 months or so, I was paralyzed in many ways, but that's no longer the case.
What bothers me still is that I don't like being around any of my mother's sisters except one. I also don't like other people talking about her out of the blue, except my immediate family.
My father and I ran into a woman two months ago who knew my mother, but fortunately, she never asked us how she was doing.
I have an underlying sadness that is always there. Maybe as more time goes by, it will lessen more and more. But, like most people, I don't think it's fair what happened to my mother. I always think she should have lived to 85-90 or so. She didn't get the 12-15 years extra that many get. I do know, though, that elderly years are often accompanied by sickness and pain. Knowing how weak-minded my mother was, I am not sure how well she would have fared at a very advanced age, but my guess would have been not good at all.
As we all say - it is what it is. She's been gone almost a year now. Life ends for everyone - not just our parents, spouses, and friends. Grief is a journey, for sure, but I think the worst of it is over concerning my mother's death. There will always be a tinge of sadness about her death and what happened to her, but that is just life. She lived into her 70s and had a good life overall.
It will be almost a year since my mother died. Life is very much back to normal: I work, I exercise, I cook, etc. I can concentrate once again, and I can enjoy things at times. That said, I still experience random waves of shock that last a few minutes, just like I experience deep sadness that comes over me suddenly and might last an hour or so or longer. Life will move on, and it has done just that.
In the first 6-8 months or so, I was paralyzed in many ways, but that's no longer the case.
What bothers me still is that I don't like being around any of my mother's sisters except one. I also don't like other people talking about her out of the blue, except my immediate family.
My father and I ran into a woman two months ago who knew my mother, but fortunately, she never asked us how she was doing.
I have an underlying sadness that is always there. Maybe as more time goes by, it will lessen more and more. But, like most people, I don't think it's fair what happened to my mother. I always think she should have lived to 85-90 or so. She didn't get the 12-15 years extra that many get. I do know, though, that elderly years are often accompanied by sickness and pain. Knowing how weak-minded my mother was, I am not sure how well she would have fared at a very advanced age, but my guess would have been not good at all.
As we all say - it is what it is. She's been gone almost a year now. Life ends for everyone - not just our parents, spouses, and friends. Grief is a journey, for sure, but I think the worst of it is over concerning my mother's death. There will always be a tinge of sadness about her death and what happened to her, but that is just life. She lived into her 70s and had a good life overall.
Hi FD, thanks so much for this update. I'm glad that you are learning to live with grief. Right now I'm still haunted by the trauma of the loss, the loss itself, and the missing her. These next several months will be rough as I will be rounding out the final leg of the "terrible firsts" (first birthday, first mother's day) and my daughter's graduation from HS (an otherwise happy event shadowed (at least to me) by the fact that my mom will miss it).
Life has a way of pushing you forward whether you want to go or not.
For the past eight months, I always mentally took note of the 7th of each month. My mom died on July 7th. This month, the 7th passed and life just made me think of other things so that I didn't even realize that it had passed. I feel bad about that, but I also realize that it's just part of the healing process. In counseling, the facilitator told me that one day I will not take note of every month.
Hi FD, thanks so much for this update. I'm glad that you are learning to live with grief. Right now I'm still haunted by the trauma of the loss, the loss itself, and the missing her. These next several months will be rough as I will be rounding out the final leg of the "terrible firsts" (first birthday, first mother's day) and my daughter's graduation from HS (an otherwise happy event shadowed (at least to me) by the fact that my mom will miss it).
Life has a way of pushing you forward whether you want to go or not.
For the past eight months, I always mentally took note of the 7th of each month. My mom died on July 7th. This month, the 7th passed and life just made me think of other things so that I didn't even realize that it had passed. I feel bad about that, but I also realize that it's just part of the healing process. In counseling, the facilitator told me that one day I will not take note of every month.
Glad to hear back from you.
You're doing okay somehow. You're moving through grief, inch by inch. I know your pain, and it's frankly unreal at times (and still is at times for me). You have to feel all the sadness to heal. I've been through all the "firsts," and soon you will have been through them all, too. You'll survive them just as you've survived everything else. It hurts deeply, but you cannot run. You've always faced the cruelty of grief, never running away. You did a fine job; your mother would be proud of you.
The sun will shine again someday, but the goal now is to continue grieving and grieving until things naturally lighten up.
This past Sunday I visited my mom's grave and left a pretty balloon marking her birthday. On the 24th she would've been 76.
It was really hard to reflect on the solemnness of the moment due to loud music blaring from an adjacent home. I find the peace of a cemetary very calming and reflective. I cried a good while because the loss continues to ache, but I was happy to tell her grandchildren updates. She would've been so proud -- my oldest attended prom and had a wonderful time and my youngest turned 13 and scored high in a regional art competition.
But alas, such happiness is tempered by the sadness of the ffact that she was no longer with us and didn't get to see/hear about these events in person. It's the obviousness of the loss that's so hard to take.
It's around this time last year when my mom was sick (didn't know it was cancer at the time). I can't help but keep circling back to the sickness and then her death. I long for the day when the wonderful memories of her and us are unlocked and I can find peace in them. The loss would always be there, but I'd remember her life more than her death. They say "one day, one day"...and I still hold out hope for it. but it's hard.
Yet, I'm still here. I am learning life after loss. Time does heal, which I am grateful for.
This past Sunday I visited my mom's grave and left a pretty balloon marking her birthday. On the 24th she would've been 76.
It was really hard to reflect on the solemnness of the moment due to loud music blaring from an adjacent home. I find the peace of a cemetary very calming and reflective. I cried a good while because the loss continues to ache, but I was happy to tell her grandchildren updates. She would've been so proud -- my oldest attended prom and had a wonderful time and my youngest turned 13 and scored high in a regional art competition.
But alas, such happiness is tempered by the sadness of the ffact that she was no longer with us and didn't get to see/hear about these events in person. It's the obviousness of the loss that's so hard to take.
It's around this time last year when my mom was sick (didn't know it was cancer at the time). I can't help but keep circling back to the sickness and then her death. I long for the day when the wonderful memories of her and us are unlocked and I can find peace in them. The loss would always be there, but I'd remember her life more than her death. They say "one day, one day"...and I still hold out hope for it. but it's hard.
Yet, I'm still here. I am learning life after loss. Time does heal, which I am grateful for.
ANyway hope all is well.
That was a beautiful post. It's left me in tears.
You are healing now a little, I believe. But the journey is still long, hard, and painful. Your grief, now, has not gone away; it has simply evolved.
Next month will be 1 year since my mother took her last breath. I am doing okay; I am healing, or at least I think I am. There is still shock, anger, sadness -- and they all hit me hard at times like a tsunami. The only difference now is that I can get back up now without too much difficulty once struck.
So, grief has changed for me over the course of this year. And it i indeed true that time helps us heal.
First I am sorry for your loss and glad your healing.Reading your posts of your journey and others give me comfort.I lost my mom this New Year's while I was abroad.She had a stroke while in end stage dementia,the guilt still I have of not being there for her haunts be.I have 2 brothers who were suppose to look after her but didn't, wouldn't even settle her estate or pay for her cremation I did that.My mom taught me so much during her life,things I still do.I try to take some sort of comfort in that.I still text her phone with thoughts and things I wished I had time to tell her.I also know doing that I'm just torturing myself.I don't by any means want to hijack your journey but I don't have anyone to face up to how I feel.I kinda have to be strong for those around me and I can mask it pretty good.But inside I just feel angry at my brother's for how they failed her and a sadness I'm struggling to deal with knowing I won't ever hear her voice or her telling me I'm messing up.And our long talks of how things were done in the old ways or our genealogy.Again I'm sorry for the rant and by no means want to distract from your journey.And if I may be so bold,by reading your posts, I'd wager your mom is pretty proud of your strength.
I was recently getting harrassed on Facebook by some of my mother's sisters/brother. I had to part ways. I feel lighter to get toxic people out of my life. Cleansing. I never knew how mentally sick they were (not that I am an angel).
My mother was a very private woman, and never liked things put on Facebook about her (her personal life, pictures). In fact, she often told them that while she was alive.
I recently asked some of her siblings to not put pictures of my deceased mother on social media. So what do they do? They post oversized pictures of her for the public to see. I defriended and blocked all contact with them. It's really sick. Instead of respecting me and my dead mother's wishes, they scream the opposite on social media.
While they have every right to do whatever they want on there, it is beyond disrespectful. They could have always share pictures in private, etc.
No one respects anyone.
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