Hello Shopaholic and a warm welcome to our forum, 

I am so sorry for your loss and wanted to send you our sincere condolences on behalf of the Cancer Chat team. Coping with Grief is by no means easy and is very personal and involves going through a range of overwhelming emotions. I just wanted you to know you are not alone and so many members of our community are sadly going through a similar grieving process at the moment and I hope that you can talk to one another here. It is normal to feel numb and as if your life has stopped, the feelings of anger you describe are also very common and I hope that with time and support you will gradually feel a little better. Take the time you need to grieve though as there is no right or wrong way to grieve. I thought I would mention MelissaDaisy01 's My Beautiful Dad thread and don't hesitate to respond to it if you would like to do so - this members sadly lost her dad very recently and was describing how she is feeling, the numbness and difficulty to cry even that can also be very much part of grief.

If you feel like you can't cope and find it hard to function, do give your doctor a call as I am sure they will be able to help you and give you some suggestions to help you feel a bit better.

We're thinking of you and your loved ones during this difficult time. 

Best wishes, 

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator

Thank you for your kind words and I think I may contact my Gp as I'm finding this all too much to deal with.

Hello Shopaholic.  First of all, my condolences on the loss of your Mother.  What you are feeling is a very normal part of the grieving process.  I was 33 when my Mum died of cancer, and she was 70.  Like you, my Mum's death threw me in to a tailspin.  The only thing I can tell you with any certainty is that you WILL get through this.  That doesn't mean to say that you will get over it.......I don't believe that we ever truly 'get over' losing the people we love, I think that somehow, we simply learn to live with it.  The anger you are feeling is something that all bereaved people go through at some point.  We feel that it is so unfair that the person we loved so much has been taken from us, and as you say, even though your Mother was 88, it simply wasn't her time to go.  I always think that it doesn't matter how old the person is who has died, because for the people that are left behind, it is still absolutely devastating.  There is never a 'right' age to die.  We all cope in different ways.  For me personally, I threw myself in to my work.  For some people, grief counselling helps them enormously.  My cousin had grief counselling when her Father died, and she told me that it helped her a great deal.  I still miss my Mum, even though she has been gone for many years now, but it is no longer painful and raw.  Losing our Mothers is one of the biggest losses we will ever face in life, and it is so hard, but please believe me when I tell you that eventually, your overwhelming grief will ease, and although you will always miss your Mum, you will find that you are able to process it and return to some semblance of normality.  Once again, I am so sorry for your loss, take care, xx

Losing parents is always hard, my parents had to go through losing their own parents and I always remember my mum lost her parents as she was thousands of miles away from them in the UK as they were in South America and I don't remember her doing anything different - she was distraught but I never saw it and I don't remember being much help but she kept it in and now looking back - I don't know how she did it - she went to work, made our tea etc - when I lost my mum, I was in China and it was hard and I took a month off work and I realise how lucky I was to do that - but it was hard being so far away because I never got to say goodbye to her because there were still no flights in or out of China but now - I know my mum is with me and I can feel her presence in my life - I live with the fact she isn't here as she was but for me - she is still here and I talk to her and ask for advice and in the physical sense, there she is - I am mum's son - you see me and you see her - I am her flesh and blood so she lives on in more ways than one.

My dad is now 89 and he is still in pretty good health, excellent health for his age to be honest but I remember when my parents turned 70 that I realised that there was an end game in sight and I had to prepare mentally for the day that they wouldn't be here anymore - that day is always going to come around and we have to prepare and we have to do the hard yards of grieving but they had to do it for their own parents - the only way I could get out of grieving for my parents is for me to go first which would have destroyed them - my mum would not wanted for me to go first because I would have escaped the horrible business of her passing - it is something most of us have to through - an awful but probably necessary rite of passage and though we would wish that our parents would all die in their bed peacefully, the universe doesn't always gives us what we want. We have to remember our overall relationship with them and that we knew they loved us and we loved them and that they knew that on the day they left and that of course, they're always looking over us. I truly believe that is the case but it does get better - two years and counting - I know my mum is around and she is looking after me, why wouldn't she? And it will be the same with you.