I'm so sorry for your loss. 

In some ways I can relate to what you have put. I know friends find it hard to talk to you and they always do try and fight the right words to say, but there isn't any words to say. But at the same time you just don't want to feel alone. That's what I'm sceard of being alone when my mum dies. I know my mum says when she goes these people who will be there for me but it's not the same as your mum. Mum's always know what to say because they you inside and out. How do you adjust to the little things that become the big things like your mum jokeing  laughing picking up the phone just dropping by for a coffee. How do you get by each day. I don't want to adjust we shouldn't of had adjust full stop our mums should be here with us. I just have a heavy heart atm. It feels like it will never heal. 

How did you cope with the feelings as they came along, how are you know and dealing and comming to terms with everything. 

Xxxxx

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.

Another one of those nights where I’m lien in bed at 3:30 in the morning crying myself to sleep as the reality just hits me out of nowhere that your gone mummy, I start to ask the unanswerable questions, how did you get cancer? Why did it have to me you? You just retired after 25+ years working for your family,  you and daddy planned to live a long happy retirement? And why did you have to die? I try to think back to where it all went wrong and I can’t, it was all good until the day you were told you had cancer. The 6th of Febuary 2016 this was the day we were told for sure but I could feel it, I already knew so did you. I remember you crying to the doctor saying you knew there was something wrong during my throat appointment and he knew to we could see it in his eyes he told

me I was going to have to be there for you, but he wasn’t allowed to say, we didn’t know how much this would affect us all as a family, 2 years 2 months and 18 days to be exact the 6th of September 2016 , the day you were taken from us your amazing smile, you had the voice of an angle everything about you was perfect. You done everything and more for us and we never got to repay you,  I couldn’t wait to the day you seen me get married or seen my children and it kills me to think I have to enjoy these experiences without you. There’s days I’m fine and have a really good day and I think I’m getting on ok today, I’m coping but then you have the bad days, these are the days you can’t get up in the morning because it’s another day without you, cry into your pillow so nobody can hear you and find yourself staring into nothing when really your trying to remember the good times and trying to remember your voice because sometimes I start to panic and think I might forget, I have a recording of your voicemail I listen to every day at least once and it’s scary to think that my life is moving on without you.

 My mummy was my world, I would do anything to have her back, one last visit would be enough because I would hug you that much I would never let go, go hug your mummy tell her you love her and spend time with her, she is precious. I would do anything in this whole world to have mine back. 

And for those who think it gets easier, it doesn’t it never goes away, you just find a new normal which is pretty damn hard.

I am so sorry for your loss I know exactly how you feel.  I lost my dad to bowel cancer 5 years ago and I still miss him everyday. Mid 2018 my mum was diagnosed with rogue breast cancer, basically she has breast cancer in her bones.  It has been a long road, while she was in hospital for 6 weeks at first they thought she had a broken bone in her back and then they found that a tumor had caused the bone to break and things went from there.  It can be hard and lonely supporting a parent with cancer.  Nobody explains that the only time you really feel like a grown up is when your become a parent to your parent. And that can be lonely.  I know what it is like to lose friends after a bearevement.  My best friend of 20 years (we went to high school together) abandoned me because my own chronic illness got worse after this and between the two and having to deal with a bullying manager, and my beautiful little dog who was like a substitute daughter dying a few months after my dad. I could no longer make small talk, I was ill and supporting my mum throughout.  Now that I am a carer it would be nice to have some support of people who understand.  I am glad you have your husband but please if you have any friends who want to be there but don't know how encourage them and talk to them cry on their shoulder, its ok.  Tell them that you are feeling lost and lonely. A real friend would be there for you, with a kind ear, a cuppa and a hug. If they don't want to be then they aren't real friends.  Real friends are there for you through thick and thin and you should be there for them too.  Even if they havent been through it some people do understand and care, those that are, are thoughtful and selfless.  I wish I had someone who wanted to spend time with me and cared about what I was going through. Maybe you have other relatives you could talk to about your mum.  I know how nice it was for me and my mum to go and visit my aunt (my dad's big sister) and to talk about him and her memories. She was my surrogate gran,  unfortunately she died last year. I like to think that she is with my dad now,  She died of dementia it was a quick kind though and she was nearly 90. However since my dads death I have lost another uncle (dad's brother) and two cousins on my dads side to cancer. Three other cousins have also died in this time of other things.  Its been a hard few years. 

I am so sorry I started trying to be supportive to you and started talking about my situation, I am sorry I have been having a down day. But I really hope that you are finding your way.  It can be slow progress, grieving comes in stages and it can take a long time.  You think you are ok then something happens an event, a smell, photo food and it washes over you again. I had people (one of whom was an uncle) only a couple of months after my dad died tell me to get over it. The thing was I hadn't even started grieving yet. I didn't make a point of moaning to anyone.  For my mums sake and to get on with work (I had to go back the day after the funeral) I just put things in a box in my head for a while.  I had a bullying boss at work and then my own physical illness started playing up.  I only started really grieving after those situations had got a bit beta. This took a couple of years. After it stopped then things came flooding in and I would just start crying.  So don't let people tell you how to grieve.  Yes you can do some things to help yourself but only you will find your own way to cope and your own path through.   I hope that you will find your way through and hold on to all your wonderful memories. There is nothing to stop you still talking to her I  know some people do that, my aunt did.  I gave some of my relatives a canvas picture of my dad the first xmas after he died and my aunt said she would talk to it occasionally when no one was around and tell him stuff as if he was still here.  It made her feel comforted. Take care, my thoughts are with you.

It doesn’t get easier. I wish I could say it does and to be honest for me it hasn’t. It’s 12 years today and I’ve been looking all over the internet for things to help me this morning. Your post I can relate to, as my mums cancer spread to her brain and I watched her fade away to nothing. 

Hi Nalkate,

I am also 34 and mum is 73. We have just been told there is nothing more they can do for her liver which metatsied from her thyroid cancer. I'm struggling beyond words.  She is my rock and my best friend to me and my three year old. It breaks my heart she won't see him grow up. How did you get through it? Will I forever have this sadness? My heart is broken and I don't want to lose my mum. 

Losing someone close is possibly like being reborn into a new world. I am in the midst of saying goodbye to my very recently passed mother, and I still think that I feel less grief than I thought I would.  But her individual circumstances may have prepared me unknowingly for this.   Maybe she somehow recognized this .  But before I go any further, can I offer you a hug?  Despite my cynical leanings, I feel in my bones that love is THE primal emotion.  Everything else is secondary.  It doesn't depend on religious beliefs, although religion often employs it.

Your bitterness and denial are , surprisingly good friends. Despite our human frailties, these emotions, along with all other emotions, are our friends.  Bitterness is a contruct of humanity that relates to humanity's continuous battle with nature, and it's all purveying apparent regulation of our biological selves.    The reality is hopefully more comforting.  Ourselves, our loved ones (ancestors and descendants) are part of a wonderful procession of creative, vital, necessary and evolutionary undeniable footholds on the universe.  My unavoidable passing will hopefully be seen as a plea to all to accept love.

Hi, I read ur post. I’m not dealing very well with my mum being gone. It’s been over a year and I miss her so much. Can u get in touch?

Hi Jbj1986,

I am so sorry that you’re having a hard time. It’s tough, isn’t it? I am thinking of you. Losing your Mum is so painful.

This week was the second anniversary of my Mum’s passing and I found it hard. 

It’s been 2 years now and even though I feel better than I did a year ago, and the raw feeling of grief has been replaced by gentle sadness, out of the blue the feeling of grief can come back for a while, and then settles again.

But I would say that time has helped and I now have more good days. I think of my Mum every day, but I can manage to remember good times and talk to my children about her without crying(not always!).

Hang on in there, and take one day at a time. I’m here whenever you want to talk.

Take care.

Chloe2008