Hi all,
Long post, more of a confession.
Everything I’m feeling has been written about in this forum and it’s validating to know my experience is not unique, but I thought I’d share in case it helps anyone else going through the death of their Mom. You can really beat yourself up.
My heart aches daily. I actively search for moments when I can distract my pain and guilt for not doing more for/with Mom while she was here for 11 months. Before moving into my home due to decline (physical and mental) she lived 5 houses down the street and I visited almost daily for a bit and we had many great conversations and did some art projects together (she was an accomplished artist).
My friends/family said, and I agree, I was a devoted, loving daughter. I was the center of her universe. My Mom was a loving, devoted mother and she was probably my best friend (although I don’t think I recognized this until she was gone).
You think I would be able to find peace after she passed. But I still regret and hate myself for being annoyed so many times she was here with me. I had moments of panic that I would never be able to leave and start living the retired life I imagined at age 61. I grew tired of the care “schedule” I was on. She was never aware of these feelings and for that I am down-on-my-knees grateful.
She was so happy to be here and thanked me daily. She loved everything I cooked and anything special I did for her. Every time I bathed her she felt bad for being a “burden” and said I could place her somewhere. I know she tried to mean it but I also know how sad she would be without me and I just couldn’t do it anyway.
By the time she was actively dying (bacterial pneumonia according to hospice) I thought for sure I was ready. When it was clear she could not even get out of bed, would be forced to wear a diaper and began having some pain she said she just wanted to go to sleep. At that point hospice said we could start pain medication and she declined quickly.
While somewhat still lucid she said she felt good and knew how much we loved her. She spoke to my children and told them how proud she was, she loved them and knew they had a great future in front of them. You’d think this is the perfect ending—an acknowledgment that she was “ready”, meaningful “goodbyes” and no pain, her biggest fear. I was at her bedside the last 36 hours of her life and she passed so quietly, like a little mouse. In death, as in life, she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone (ever) and passed so silently as if a dramatic death would be bothersome. That was my Mom.
How I feel today: What the hell was wrong with me that I didn’t hang out in her room more often? Why was I so selfishly impatient that I didn’t have the conversations I now wish I could have? Why couldn’t I consistently focus on the joy of her presence while she was here? Why does her loud breathing toward the end, her dead body and her ashes haunt my thoughts.
Everything I read tells me I will be able to move forward but it still feels like I’m in a quicksand of longing and guilt. I have a regular therapist and I am exercising to cope.
If anyone out there feels the same, please let me know. I feel so isolated in this new world without my Mom. Thank you for listening.
Your Mum just died, only 3 short weeks ago, you have not even turned your calendar over.
There is nothing at all wrong with you and the thoughts, feelings and emotions swirling through your mind. It will take time to work through the grieving process. To get your bearings and right the axis of your world.
When my Granny died, I worried that my memories would only be of her in the hospital with horrible bruising all over her body from the Leukemia. But today I can barely picture it. I remember the hikes, the many plant names she taught me as a young child. I remember her trying to teach me to knit. I remember the way we saw a doe and her new born fawn. The time we went picking wild blueberries and I found enough Huckleberries to make a huckleberry pie.
In time your memories of Mum will be full of the art you did together, the foods she taught you to cook and the love she had for you. Right now, you have undergone a huge trauma and need time to recover from it.
Years ago the advice was that it took a year to grieve a loss. Time to get past the anniversaries, events and milestones. Now the wisdom is a minimum of 12 months, but also one month for every year of the relationship. This was true for me when my marriage ended abruptly. It took me about 30 months to recover.
She has been a stubborn, snappish, fiercely loyal, quietly but intensely faithful and loving participant in my life, and I have to admit that reading your letter has been a bit of a help to me in reflecting upon letting her go, and already missing her.
My LO is the last of my mother’s big family, she being the youngest of “the five beautiful L………sisters”, and my mother having been the oldest. There was ALWAYS someone in the old farmhouse where several of the eight brothers and sisters had been born, until finally, my current LO was the only one left.
Right after we moved her to her cozy well staffed AL, she began to get terribly anxious because her mother and sisters (all long gone) would be worrying about her. Time passed, and her MC became her “hotel”, and she would typically be busy and involved when we came, often bringing her namesake nephew.
Then, COVID. MY guilt started then, no access to her, fears through her first COVID infection, then a second.
When I make my daily visits now, I end them by saying “I love you dearly, every day, with all my heart”. When we first resumed visiting, she’d immediately respond “You’d BETTER!!”. Now, not too often.
There are still days though. Still the side eye, when she’s awake. Still once in a while “You’d BETTER”.
Your mom knew that you loved her dearly, every day, with all your heart. Whatever you were afraid you didn’t give her, what you DID give her was beautiful and wonderful, and she knew that.
Be at peace. You are a loving grieving daughter, feeling thoughts of darkness and light that will shift until you’ve had the time to let them settle.
You we’re both rewarded greatly for having each other. Be at peace.
You already know the sacrifices you made in bringing your Mom into your home. I don't need to remind you of them. Your Mom recognized that, and she recognized ALSO that she WAS indeed a burden. That she was changing you life. That she added to your load, to your plate simply by living. ALL elders who can still think at all recognize that, and the grieve it.
When my parents died I felt relief. First of all for them, that they no longer had to suffer, deteriorate, worry about their future. And relief for myself that I didn't have to witness it in helplessness, fail to measure up to that perfections children always expect of themselves (as well as of their parents).
There were times here we bore witness to your frustrations.
Why now do you wish you had been super-human? What person do you know who is?
You aren't a felon. They are the ones who SHOULD feel guilt and they never do.
You are mistaking your G-words. You are a grieving daughter.
There will always be images for you. Let them be there. For me it was when we were moving my Mom into care, unaware she had only weeks to live, and she said to me gently, SHE who never asked ANYTHING of me "is there no way I could stay in my little home until I am gone?" And I cried with her. I wished I was already retired, not heading half the country back to a job I was due back home to. TO THIS DAY I hear her gentle voice, and think "if only. if only".
These things will come to you. Let them. Treat these thoughts with gentle respect. But treat your heroic actions in caring for your Mom with respect as well.
Any relationship is filled with pain and wonder. The wonder should in best circumstances begin to replace the pain.
Try not to think of yourself with an option for perfection. You don't have that option. You are only a struggling human being. Embrace that.
I am sorry there is any pain for you. I am glad your Mom could express to you, felt free to express her grief that she was a burden on you. SHE WAS. She needed to acknowledge that fact. SO DO YOU. And you need to know she was so much MORE than that through all the stages of your life.
My best to you. Believe it or not I thought about you out of the clear blue yesterday morning.
I try to remember this when those angry little voices in my head start listing all the little (and big) things I've "screwed up". When the night demons rear their ugly heads when I'm trying to fall asleep, I make it my mantra.
I think almost all of us here at some point in our caregiving lives could do with a little less sell-flagellation and a lot more self-celebration.
My deepest condolences on the loss of your mom. You were blessed to have each other. (((hugs)))
The human mind tends to either memorialize a deceased loved one as a Huge Saint or as a Huge Sinner, instead of the regular person they were, warts and all.
I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about: My half-sister was married to a man who was fooling around on the internet with some women from Nigeria. He wound up giving them thousands of dollars of my sister's hard earned money! Then she found condoms in the glove compartment of his car, which he poo-poo'ed away saying he had no idea why they were in there; meanwhile, he was staying in a motel for a couple weeks b/c they were fighting. Then he dropped dead one day, unexpectedly, and she found him on the floor. Immediately, Carl was a Saint! He was Such A Wonderful Husband & She'd Never Find Another Love Like Him. I was scratching my head like whaaaat???? She was memorializing this man as if he were a saint! Like she was some horrible wife and he was the epitome of the perfect husband, after ALL THE CRAP he'd put her thru. The mind plays tricks on us once a loved one dies, is what happens. It tries to make US feel guilty like 'if only' we'd have done things differently, then we'd be ENTITLED to live a guilt free life now that they're gone.
My half sister is getting married again in September, btw, 5 years after Carl died.
It's important to keep these things in mind as we go through the grief process: that WE are not Huge Saints or Huge Sinners either, just regular human beings who did the best we could with our mothers, and who are continuing to do the best we can each and every day. It's best not to try to paint them in such a perfect light to where they were martyrs while we were demons; that serves no useful purpose and isn't the truth in any way, either.
My condolences on the loss of your mother. It takes time to process such a huge loss and to feel like it's okay to move on with your own life, I know. Wishing you the best of luck allowing the process to unfold naturally.
You need to abolish any guilt, not necessary, not helpful.
Grief is OK for as long as you need to. Write journal or letter to your Mom, or make some art, think a little about your goals and retirement, redirect yourself if you can. Is it helpful to stay around feeling closer to her or would distance help i.e. nice vacation.
You are your own punching bag for sure and extorting some kind of punishment on yourself for job well done
YOU are so right. We mythologize those we loved.
I sometimes say right out that my brother has passed into myth for me. Always perfect. Always Hansel to my lost Gretel in the woods. Always there for me (and dang it, he was). That he was purely perfect.
I carry that myth with me, and sometimes I can let the real guy back in for a second. There were a COUPLE of times!
I just love what you said about the way in which we memorialize the beauty of the one we lost while at the same time whipping ourselves for our inadequacies.
And it's OK. It's all OK. It's just what we DO. How we handle this dreadful passage.
As she has always been on Forum, AsianDaughter shared it all with us. The good and the bad sometimes got all the way to ugly. So many of us hide what we really feel. Our feelings as we struggled to give care to the one we love are so strong. I think its why we all remember AD here. I hope she stays to help others. She's got so much to contribute and it would do her Mom great honor.