my mum died 2016 december my mums birthday was on the 4/12/2016  a few days after her 73 birthaday she had bowel cancer but got the all clear but on the boxing day i got a phone call from my step dad saying she not going to make it talk to her on the phone i am still  dissbelive that the woman i have loved and hounred is not there for me and my siblings and our family she was my rock as our mum brought us up single handed she had a anarisiam to to the brain and now she is not there still to this day i cry for no reason i can smell her in the air its not getting any easier for me and my step dad is moving on with his life and i feel so angry all the time is this normal please help as i know my mum whises is not being met and this is making me worse xx

my mum died 2016 december my mums birthday was on the 4/12/2016  a few days after her 73 birthaday she had bowel cancer but got the all clear but on the boxing day i got a phone call from my step dad saying she not going to make it talk to her on the phone i am still  dissbelive that the woman i have loved and hounred is not there for me and my siblings and our family she was my rock as our mum brought us up single handed she had a anarisiam to to the brain and now she is not there still to this day i cry for no reason i can smell her in the air its not getting any easier for me and my step dad is moving on with his life and i feel so angry all the time is this normal please help as i know my mum whises is not being met and this is making me worse xx

My mum died of cancer...

The hardest thing was that we were estranged as my father abused me severely throughout childhood and my mum continued to live with him - controlled, trapped or less than that I'll never know for sure.

It was very hard not to receive any Sympathy cards or messages because people maybe thought I wouldn't grieve my mum since we had been estranged for over a decade.

I still haven't come to terms with the loss. I try to say aloud: My mother is dead. And I just can't.

A counsellor said I had "complex grief" but counselling tried to focus more on allowing me to accept that not attending the funeral, not seeing her before she died, were appropriate choices in my circumstances.

I know they were but it doesn't make the (lonely) grief any easier. I think if I believed my mother had found happiness in later life that would make it better but I doubt she had in such a controlling relationship and having lost me whom she did love as a result of the abuse.

I can't visit the grave for practical reasons (I have a disability which would make the travel to it very hard). It's hard to find "closure", to let her go maybe or just to accept her death and the lack of reconciliation between us. So terribly sad.