Thank you Serapine8 for your reply, it's horrible isn't it, I'm so sorry you lost your mum too.

The tears catch you unawares; I was speaking to a person from my employers support line earlier today and I got upset just saying that I wanted to enquire about counselling due to a bereavment. Anyway, turned out they only offer telephone support and I need to see someone face to face. She did mention that was covered by my BUPA policy, so hopefully I will be able to get some advice/help, struggling with the 'could I have done more? anything differently? did mum know how much she meant to me'? and the gasping for air at the end was something I find difficult to forget. As you say actually processing the loss...it seems harder now, as whilst I wouldn't have seen mum when away on holiday, this is the longest time; I can't get my head around that I won't see her again, how is that possible?

That's heartbreaking when you describe the flock of birds, people do say about signs, my brother saw a butterfly in my parents house not long after mum died. He said when he held it in his hands and took it to an open window, it just stayed in his palm for a while and then flew away,he doesn't believe in 'signs' but he was visibly moved when he told me.

I think you're right, the pain will never go away, we have to find a way to live with and accept it.

We each had a pendant with mum's fingerprint, sounds odd doesn't it, it was the Funeral Director's idea, I hold it close, I used to hug the cardigan my mum wore the day before she died, but her scent has faded away.

There are a lot of recurring thoughts I have about the loss of my mum. One of them certainly is her last couple of days wearing the oxygen mask and suddenly stopping breathing for a few seconds...I really have to push that little memory to the side because it's just too painful. I tend to try to think of her actual passing as being somewhat "other" to what she was in life. Like a completely foreign process that I can't fully understand. A journey that she took, bravely...It was actually a very intimate experience to witness that (I wasn't strong enough to stay and watch the final moment - but I can imagine what it was like).

I also think about what I could have done differently...or at least I dwelled on it a lot in the beginning. Lot's of little things, like, did something happen because the nurses weren't doing their job? Or I wish I could have gotten her into a home where she could have enjoyed a better quality of life for her last few months. Or I wish that I had been a more cheerful person in her life, like a breath of fresh air instead of complaining about trivial things to her all the time. But overall, I feel like I was a good daughter and really did try to make her life better, and actually, I really did do many many things that helped her in so many ways. 

I don't think we can base our entire relationship with our mums down to how it was in those final hours/days/weeks etc. Going through that kind of trauma where we see our mums going through so much, we just can't predict how we will be in that situation. In the end, I feel that my mum knew I loved her. Because I did a lot for her when she was alive. I showed her that I cared for her. And I know that she would have wanted me to visit her as much as I was able to in her final days - like, no more and no less than what I was comfortable with. She knows I loved her. And I know she loved me. And in fact, even though she is no longer here in body, I know that her love never actually went anywhere. She hasn't abandoned me because she stopped loving me. That does give me a very small bit of comfort. 

I too struggle with never being able to see her again. Like I said, I still haven't/can't fully process this loss. So in a way, she's still around, somehow, because it's just too abstract and crazy to try to fully understand the permanent aspect of this. I'm not quite there yet. But that's ok. I know that grief is different for all of us. 

I hope you find some counselling that will help you. It really is quite enormous for us to try to tackle on our own.