My Mum nearly died from pneumonia relating to her bladder cancer which has secondaries in her ribs and legs.
We heard the news when I was on holiday on the first time I'd been out of the country in about 7 years. My fiancé had proposed to me at the beginning of the week in paradise and by the end I was in hospital next to my Mum who had big tubes shoved up into her mouth and she wasn't waking up (and the doctors thought it unlikely she would).
I am in the very very lucky position that she responded well to antibiotics and she has recovered to the extent that she's been moved to a hospice and we've been able to talk and laugh with her and take her round the garden in a wheelchair. Now it's just the case that we still know she will die. Could be days to months though I haven't had anything clear from the staff (nor is it something I want to ask as we're just enjoying that she's around).
But occasionally it just hits me in the same way as when we thought she's gone weeks ago. My Mum is only in her 60s. We love her so much and thought we'd have years left. It just keeps hitting me that she'll be gone and she won't be there to talk to or be Mum. And then there's the anger that weeks ago I was in bliss having just been proposed to and then I feel guilty for being angry when my Mum is what's important. Then I think that I won't have her at my wedding or at any point. It's a loss of my Mum, my childhood and what I thought my future will be.
So yeh, anticipatory grief won't hold a candle to what this will feel like when she's actually gone. But it just keeps hurting and I wish I had it back to when things were perfect.
