My mother passed away in November 2021 after a 4 year battle with melanoma.
She had lived with me, as her only child, since April 2018 until she went into a nursing home last year in March, when we were told the cancer had spread to her brain. At that point we were told she had 2 weeks to 2 months left, so we decided the kindest thing to do was to stop treatment and let her live the last few months of her life being cared for. I still stand by that decision, but seeing her slip away mentally over the last few months was cruel for all of us.
We didn't have the best relationship and she could actually be very cruel, but she was still my mother and I loved her. She was the only parent I had left because cancer took my father far too soon 26 years ago.
Her 69th birthday is coming up next week and I am sad... not just for the loss of my mother, but for the loss of what could have been. I will never get the loving mother/daughter relationship I had craved when she was alive, and I will never again get to call someone 'Mum'.
I feel guilty for grieving when we didn't have a good relationship, and I feel lonely because I have no siblings to share this with. Not sure what the puprose of this post is, but I just needed to get my swirling, disorganised thoughts out of my head and into writing, if that makes any sense?