Category Archives: mother

Understanding

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Thank you for your response. ✨

It’s been a while since I posted on here.  I’ve been shocked and saddened by some reactions to this Blog.  I thought I’d keep silent for a while, whilst the dust settles.  But I realise the dust will never settle.

I don’t understand what possible offence I could have caused.  First, these are my thoughts and feelings, but more important, everything on this Blog is motivated by love for my mother.  She wasn’t a saint, but she was a remarkable person, and someone who lived with me for the past eight+ years and whom I’ve loved deeply all my life.

So, I’m really sorry to those who dislike what I’m doing here, but you don’t need to read this.  This is my own way of communicating and sharing experiences about my mother.  At times the format will be a kind of conversation, speaking directly to my mum.  I see much of this as a dialogue and it’s how I feel – just continuing the conversations we’ve had, and which were interrupted.  I know she’d have a laugh and maybe say I’m being fanciful, but I hope she would approve.

Anyway, it would have been mum’s birthday on Friday 25 April, and I decided to create a planter of lovely flowers and start a new lavender pot in her honour.  Now, I’m not one of life’s natural gardeners, so it’s not the best creation, but I made it.  I thought we’d have a very different birthday celebration, but even I can’t control everything.

So, mum, for the lack of any other place to talk to you, here is your planter and lavender pot.  I’ll try to do better next time! 🙂

Wish you could read my short story entry for the Bristol Prize, but I’ve managed to write it and have submitted it.  I know you read the first one in this series which won a different competition.  It was supposed to be published on the date of your birthday, but alas the publishers told me there’s a slight delay.  But at least you read it, and knew I’d won.  I will post the link on here when I receive it from the publishers.  I know you can’t read this, but who knows!

I’m going to post some photos of things I like and know my mum liked.  But here are your birthday flowers.  ImageImage

 

Grief – The constant mugger  

In Toronto for her grandson's wedding

In Toronto for her grandson’s wedding

Just when you think you’re on top of it, grief creeps up like a mugger in the dark.  You’re calmly walking along your road – looking to the left and right – then this cruel and cowardly ‘me-jacker’ creeps up from behind, knocks you to the ground,   and attacks you from behind.  They tell me all this is normal.  Is it normal to suddenly burst into tears when you look at your online bank and realise you have to remove your mum’s name as a payee?  Or, see her handwriting on a note of something she was planning.  My mother liked making notes and records of things.  Maybe that’s where I’ve got it from.

The most bizarre case of this grief-jacker was when I started crying over a pot of rice pudding I took out of the fridge, shortly after she died.  My son was astonished that rice pudding could set me off.   Poor guy, what he didn’t know was I had bought some little pots of readymade rice pudding for mum, when she wasn’t feeling like eating much.  I knew she might enjoy a tiny little amount of the creamy confection.   I guess I could have made it myself, but it wasn’t the same as almost bite-sized little bits.  I guess I have to expect these sudden tears for some time to come.

Now the weather is getting warmer and the sun’s shining, I think how much mum would have enjoyed going up the road to see all the Spring flowers in Regent’s Park.   She always liked going there.  So, I’ll have to go on my own and write it in my journal.  Maybe I’ll take some pretty photos and post them here.  We used to sometimes go to the restaurant in the park for tea, or lunch when the weather was good.    Not a bad idea, Susan – off to the park with your notebook and camera.

Whilst I’m on the subject of grief – when won’t I be, I hear some say.  It’s taken this to happen for me to really understand the weird taboo that is anything to do with death or grief.  People just don’t know what to say, or how to be.  So, on the whole, they pretend it’s not there, hasn’t happened.  Or worse, they avoid you.  I know I’ve been a bit guilty of this myself in the past, when dealing with someone else’s loss. You kind of don’t want to say anything that you think will upset the grieving person, but the truth is: They Are Upset.  So, showing that you feel for them, acknowledge the loss and allow them to be sad is a good thing.  There are neighbours who knew my mother well, liked her, know me, but whose eyes side-slide me.  I know they are embarrassed, and I want to say, it’s okay, you can say the unmentionable.  My mother died.

On the other hand there are others who could not be more supportive.  Some of these are people I don’t know well.  Alternatively, others are my very close friends and those who have also had a parent who has died.    An example of the first is the regular postman. Yesterday he stopped me in the street and said how shocked and sorry he was to hear that mum had died.  It was the first time I’d seen him since.  He reminded me that he was there when the ambulance came to take us to A&E the day before she died.  Such a kind and thoughtful man, who really only knew my mother – and me – from delivering our post.  It made my eyes prickle with tears, but also made me smile with love.  So, it’s not a bad thing to do.

Someone who is a very close and dear friend of several decades warned me of this reluctance  to acknowledge your loss – as if it were catching.  He also said that 32 months after his mother died, he can still see something that makes him want to cry.  Then another close friend whose mother died over a year ago, rings me constantly to check, and knew that Mother’s Day would be an issue.    They say the ‘firsts’ are the most difficult.   But alongside the grief and pain, I have happy memories, treasured thoughts and knowledge of the power of my mother’s love.  Not just for her children and family, but for so many others.  But those stories are for another post.  Below is a photo of mum in 2012 when she was 91 and she and I travelled together to Toronto for the wedding of one of her grandsons.  She looks so radiant.  I was afraid of her making yet another transatlantic journey at her age and tried to stop her.  I’m so glad she would hear none of it!  ‘Over my dead body will anyone stop me from seeing my grandson get married.’  Those were her words to me.

 

 

 

This is a Blog tells the story of my feelings about losing my mother very suddenly to an unexpected death in January 2014. I don’t know if my thoughts and feelings will resonate with anyone, but they are mine. I don’t want the blog to be too sad and gloomy. Mum was full of life and vivacity and was always smiling. She loved life and loved people. I want those sentiments to shine through. But I hope you’ll understand that I miss her dreadfully and so sometimes it will be sad, but stick with it. There will be smiles. Speaking of smile, that was one of her favourite songs.

This is a Blog tells the story of my feelings about losing my mother very suddenly to an unexpected death in January 2014. I don’t know if my thoughts and feelings will resonate with anyone, but they are mine. I don’t want the blog to be too sad and gloomy. Mum was full of life and vivacity and was always smiling. She loved life and loved people. I want those sentiments to shine through. But I hope you’ll understand that I miss her dreadfully and so sometimes it will be sad, but stick with it. There will be smiles. Speaking of smile, that was one of her favourite songs..

Life after mum – learning to cope

It’s now two months and 6 days since mum suddenly upped and died.  I don’t know which stage of the five-step grief process I’m in, but I suspect it is going to last for a long time.  I think my mind has done a bit of a loop. First was total shock, then numbness as I organised the funeral, then overwhelming sadness and sense of loss.  But now I’m back to shock and disbelief.

I suppose for anyone stumbling across this Blog, I need to fill you in with a few details.  I don’t mean this to be a morbid blog, nor one that reduces people to tears.  But I suppose it is about losing my mum, so it’s going to have sadness.  But I also want to have some light and smiles.  After all, that was the kind of person she was – always smiling, as the photo shows.  I haven’t mentioned this Blog idea to any of my 3 siblings. Maybe they will have an issue – we’re a kind of ‘keep-things-private-family’, but they are my feelings, and my memories.  Maybe there will be some catharsis for me in writing them.  I also hope that anyone else who is going through/gone though a similar grief will find some comfort and maybe want to share some of their own feelings on these pages.

But here is what happened.  Okay, I know mum was old, she was 92 when she died on January 31, and would have been 93 on April 25 2014, BUT, she was so full of life and nobody would ever have known this was her age.  Mum lived with me for the past 8 years, so I saw her on a daily basis.  She was planning to visit my sister in Luxembourg in the second week of February.

She’d been having a lot of pain in her spine and hip recently and we thought the pain was related to her osteoporosis or the old injury from when she fell a couple years ago and shattered her femur (but had a successful hip replacement).  She’d been on a lot of pain medication, and increasingly since beginning of January. On Thursday, 30 January 2014 she was in so much pain that the physiotherapist thought she should be admitted to hospital for scans and pain management.  They called an ambulance and Mum and I spent the day in A&E that day.  She was admitted to the acute medical ward that evening.  The following morning, I went to see her;she didn’t look great, was feeling sick, and still in pain. She was also dehydrated and on a drip.  The doctors spoke to me about altering her pain medication and probably transferring her to a different ward after the weekend, where she could have some rehab and physio before being discharged – probably at the end of that week.  But in the meantime, they would do some CT scans that afternoon.  The hospital pharmacist came to see me to ask me to get her local pharmacist to call him to discuss the changed medication.

So despite her looking ill and seeming agitated, which were unusual, I assumed there was nothing life-threatening.  I told mum that I’d pop home to make her some soup to bring back later.  Lunch had looked disgusting and she said it was tasteless.  So, I though I’d make one of her favourites – split pea and ham soup .  Furthermore, my sister was due from Luxembourg to visit that afternoon and was going straight to the hospital from the airport. So I thought they could have a few moments alone together.

Before I could finish making the soup, I got a call from the hospital telling me to come immediately as my mother was gravely ill.   I knew that could only mean one thing – she was dying.  For a moment, I was frozen on the spot, then started screaming.  Nothing made sense. They’d taken her for CT scans, returned to the ward and she vomited.  How could someone die from that?

I rushed back to see her. It was pouring with rain; couldn’t get a taxi immediately, but luckily my husband arrived back from a meeting and drove me there.  Only ten minutes away.  But ten minutes too late.  I rushed to her bed to find my sister, but not mum. At least not the mum I’d left a few hours earlier.  She’d died a few minutes before I got there.  Her body was lying on the bed, as if sleeping, but she had left it behind.  She’d gone where I couldn’t follow.  She’d gone where no words could reach her. No more wondrous stories or megawatt smiles from her.

I couldn’t even say goodbye.  Little did I know that my farewell to her, was me saying:  “I’ll see you later.”  However I have the comfort of the memory of mum cradling my head between her hands, then kissing my fingers before she blew me a kiss as I left.  If I’d known, I would have caught that kiss and zipped it in my pocket forever, instead of letting it brush me casually.  It was if she’d left in the middle of a conversation.  I wanted to scream, “We haven’t finished!”  But that was not my call.