Now there's a cheerful title for a blog Post!
It would seem I'm a high functioning griever. I don't think that anyone around me would be able to tell that I'm wearing my heavy cloak every day, but just because I'm not crying doesn't mean to say I am not desperately sad.
My relationship with my mother was a complicated one. She was a woman of wildly opposing sides - stingy and mean with pennies, overly generous with pounds; hugely complimentary in one sentence, then acid tongued and withering in the next, fiercely independent, yet desperately in need of constant reassurance and support. I have many good memories of her, but also many deeply upsetting ones too.
At times, over the last ten years since my father's death, I had wished that I didn't have to be responsible for mum, to deal with her unrealistic expectations of me and of life in general. I realise that I didn't grieve for my father back then because I immediately had to take on the emotional and practical support for Mum.
After her stroke in August 2014, the burden of her needs weighed heavily on me. I struggled to find ways to help her, particularly from a distance.
Her death was premature and shouldn't have happened the way that it did (whole other story!) and yet, despite its shocking nature, it was a relief both for her and indeed for myself and for my brother.
So, as you can see my grief is a complex beast and even though my Mum is no longer suffering and I no longer have seven long phone calls a day or the insults and hurtful comments, I miss my Mum enormously. I feel rather bereft in fact.
Added to this, my eldest daughter has left home again to go off to Uni and my second eldest daughter is moving to America in two weeks, it's a time of loss and change.
So I will continue to wear my cloak of grief for some time to come I imagine. For the time being it is a very heavy cloak, perhaps made of thick pile velvet and brocade? Hopefully over time it will change to one of the lightest gossamer silk and I won't feel like everything I do is such an enormous effort.
Everything I do, even the small stuff like getting up in the morning, is truly hard work when you're weighed down, but I will keep doing it because inactivity is not an option. Keep taking little steps :)
Sending you a big hug xx Little steps are the way to go, grief is a very complicated thing. I didn't realise how much I was grieving until I started to climb out of the pit and looked back into the dark hole. Just take one day at a time and be gentle on yourself. xx
ReplyDeleteThank you. A hug, even a virtual one, is much appreciated :) life can be a bugger at times can't it?!
DeleteGrief comes and goes at the strangest of times. Your mother sounds a lot like my father he died aged 86 and although he was independent to the end, he still expected me to be there when he dictated. I had guilt mixed in with my grief for a long time because I had bacterial pneumonia which he caught three weeks after I had recovered. He died from the complications of pneumonia. Keep talking about your feelings and keep busy, which it sounds like you already do. Take care.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm certainly trying to keep busy, but don't have so many people to share my feelings with. Fellow bloggers have been super supportive though which is wonderful :)
DeleteOur relationship with our mothers is often the most difficult of our lives. I sympathize with you for the emotional time you're going through.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I thought it was just my mother who was such hard work, but it seems it's a lot more common than I thought!
DeleteThat cloak is a strange one, you can be almost crawling from the weight of it and a breath of air as light as a feather will whisk it away. Of course the opposite is all too true. I still miss my Grandfather who died in 1970 as much as my Mother who died in 2004, sometimes more. It will ease and there will be whole stretches of time when the cloak will be folded into the tiniest space. Hugs. Pam
ReplyDeleteI will keep inching forward in the hope of a good patch soon then! Thank you for the hugs :)
DeleteIt is so true that time is a great healer. Everyone deals with things in their own ways. All we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep going and as the days go by it gets a little easier to do. This week is going to be a very difficult one for me but I have reached a sort of 'acceptance' and I just have to get on with it, but you know what, I will, and I will be ok. Much love to you. X
ReplyDeleteThank you. It sounds like your troubles are recent and raw too? I know there will be an end to this and I will start to feel better, but for now it's bloody hard going! Sending you hugs right back :)
DeleteReading your words, sending warm hugs and encouragement to just keep plodding on - having lost my mother when I was 24, I remember the grief which became overwhelming, and I had to have medication and therapy. Losing my grandmother in 2002 wasn't the same, but my husband's death last year has affected us all in different ways - and we had been prepared for it in a way that we weren't really for my mother's - she had been suffering from cancer for a few years, and we knew she was struggling with that, but a stroke claimed her life in less than 18 hours one February day. Our relationship with our mother is a very complex thing - it challenges us, comforts us, encourages us, but also expects so much of us, and the absence of her presence leaves a yawning chasm. Be gentle with yourself xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. You are so right in your description of mothers and daughters. I miss her terribly :(
DeleteYou have obviously suffered much grief already so I will follow your sage advice and keep plodding :)
I understand this so well.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I can tell you is that the cloak of grief stays the same weight .... but the ties that hold it onto you become easier and easier to untie. You can slip it off for hours, days and then weeks at a time and then suddenly it is there weighing you down and choking you up again. The periods you can go without it will vary and will rarely be regular but they do come. Some days you wake and it feels as though it's gone for good, then a song, a book, a turn of phrase, the look of a strangers back, and whoosh it wraps itself round your shoulders until your knees buckle and your breath comes short and shallow.
We all have complex relationships with our Mums, as daughters it is more intense than it usually is for sons, but we all have one and we make the best of it when we have them and have to learn to do likewise once we lose them.
Just know there are lots of us out here thinking of you and looking out for you ... and don't be afraid some days to chuck that weighty old cloak in the wash and escape your life for a few hours. A cup of coffee, a read of the paper and a spot of people watching in the local Costa is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.
Thank you so much. Wise words and kind sentiments! :)
DeleteJust sending you a hug and some restful thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteIt's very early days yet, allow yourself time to grieve. I've had a very difficult relationship with my mother too, not helped by her marrying and divorcing several times. I then decided to find my real father in my teens and was just starting to get to know him again when he suddenly died when I was 21; I felt as if I'd lost him twice. Shortly afterwards, I met my husband and weeks after we got married, his lovely father suddenly died. It all felt a bit too much.
ReplyDeleteTake care of yourself and be kind to yourself xxx
Life has a nasty habit of piling more on when you are already down, doesn't it?! Still, I have to trust there will be better times ahead!
DeleteThank you for your support :)
Grief is a strange thing, no two people seem to experience it in the same way, and death and grief seem to be taboo subjects with many.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea what to expect when my Dad died 20 years ago, suddenly, unexpectedly at the age of 55. I was 14 weeks pregnant with my younger daughter and I wonder now how I got through that time, when the grief was overwhelming and all-consuming. There are still times that I am weighed down by it, and by the reponsibility of being there for my Mum for the last 20 years, something that falls solely to me.
Be kind to yourself.
Goodness, that must have been so hard to deal with the mixture of emotions - joy at your pregnancy and such sadness and shock at your father's sudden death. You must be a very resilient person.
DeleteI think the ten years of supporting my mum altered our relationship forever and not necessarily in a good way. It felt as if I had inherited a needy and wayward teenage child! I guess, looking back, I lost both parents in some way when my father died. Tough old times, but they will get easier.
Thank you for your kind thoughts :)
What you are going through is all completely normal, give yourself time lots of it, every day I think of my parents I lost them both when I was in my 40's my mum and me had a very difficult relationship but I still loved her and her passing was a blessing to me, I was no longer tied down with the responsibility of her care, but I still grieved not only for her but for my dad who I had lost a few years previous, I will never stop missing them they had been part of life for a very long time good and bad. :-)
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, we were shaped by both the good and the bad to be who we are today. I certainly feel as if I am now grieving for both my parents. As an adopted child, I had already lost both my birth parents. Between Mr D and myself, we have now lost six parents!
DeleteThank you for your kind thoughts and taking the time to comment :)
I have only just found your blog today and I happened upon this post you made just a few days ago. I am so sorry to read about the grief you are going through. Sometimes things do all seem to come at once and the loss of your mother, together with a much emptier house must be hard to take. Look after yourself.
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