Menu
What's new
Troll Kingdom

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

My mum died this morning

I never find funerals are the "final goodbye". They happen so soon that you're still barely beginning to adjust to how things are now and what it means. And in my case I'm usually too numb to the whole thing to even accept the person is gone. Some people take a lot of solace in funerals, but I reckon the vast majority of people find they just stir up a lot of odd and confusing feelings that we don't know how to process.
 
^True. Sometimes I have the added distraction of doing a reading during the service, which makes me focus on not screwing up instead of focusing on my grief.

I remember at my father's wake, us 6 kids became a well-oiled machine at receiving people, each of us introducing the next one like we were on Family Feud. (We're Irish, we find humor in the oddest things). Having to play host while grieving is odd, but it keeps you alert at least.
 
Yeah, there's that. With all of the people around you're forced to focus on something other than just feeling numb. In fact that whole planning process keeps a person busy for awhile. I don't remember a great deal about either of my parents' actual funeral services, though, the personal grieving part came later.
 
You'll probably get a fair number of dreams to work it out. My Dad died of prostate cancer. Took him about a month after the writing was on the wall, but still, somehow, it seemed to work. My favorite Aunt died of lung cancer. I was living in another state, but I got to see her a couple times. She went very gracefully. Some cousins were visiting and she sent them out on an errand from her and died while they were gone. My Mom... Pancreatic cancer. And she did NOT want to die, so she held on. I flew out when I heard she was ready to go, put her into hospice and brought her home--and she got *better*. Put my life on hold for 3 months. Eventually I decided to find her a fairly decent assisted living place where she lasted another 2 months or so. For years after the funeral, I had dreams where I was home, visiting her on the farm. I was like "You're dead, right? You know that? I was at your funeral." But it was so real that I was completely confused. Even got to the point where Dad was in some of the dreams too. Very odd. Of course it didn't help that I wasn't able to sell the farm because I had to leave and my brother can't let things go so he kept sabotaging my efforts to wrap up the estate. I think my brain has finally worked mostly through the dreams though. And it probably helped that I visited the farm a couple times since my brother moved there. He's probably crazy though. :(
 
Colonel Kira's Left Tit said:
Yeah, there's that. With all of the people around you're forced to focus on something other than just feeling numb. In fact that whole planning process keeps a person busy for awhile. I don't remember a great deal about either of my parents' actual funeral services, though, the personal grieving part came later.
Click to expand...
With my mom, she was sick for months, so I did some of the grieving in advance. She was in a hospital bed in the living room for the last month or so, through the Christmas holiday; she passed a few days after New Years. But once she passed, I held it together until after I had to do a reading during the mass. After I sat down, I let go, and it lasted all the way to the end of the cemetery service. I remember sitting in the front seat of the stretch limo with the driver because it was so full of us Irish Catholics. It was awkward with me crying quietly while he was driving.

With my dad 8 years later, I was numb the whole time because he passed suddenly in his sleep. Then, a week after the funeral, I developed a sinus infection that landed me in the hospital for several days. (My body handled it in spite of my numbness.) Then there was having to deal with his will, and selling the house over the next several months. Ultimately, I think I slowly grieved over the course of a couple of years. My brother dying of a long string of illnesses due to alcoholism 8 months after my dad made things even more interesting. But all of this happened in the 90s, so I can speak about it fairly matter-of-factly now.

And yes, Volpone, my dreams were affected for a long time after each of these events.
 
Dreams can be a great comfort, I remember a few years ago having one where I was visiting my dad and brother in a big house I didn't recognise, and they had three little kids with them, the right ages to be the ones we lost though miscarriage, and they all seemed very happy, and I was left with the impression that they were looking after them for me.
 
Still haven't had a dream with her and kind of don't want to yet. Have only been getting about 3 hours a night.

My lower chest hurts right now and I'm hoping it pain from crying/not sleeping rather than anything else because I wouldn't want my sisters to have to through all this again.
 
I think that is literally heart ache, rather than a heart attack. As for the sleep, I don't know if this is something you do, but this might be a good time for alcohol.
 
Aw that is sweet. Can you take anything to help you sleep? I don't know how I would feel dreaming about someone who had passed on to the other side.
 
I was back to no sleep last night after a weird dream about someone watching outside my window (and no I don't believe in ghosts or anything so it wasn't that.)
 
The pain never actually goes away, you just learn to distract yourself for longer and longer periods of time, trick yourself into think ingyou're going somewhere, get a new routine, have some moments of happiness in between the emptiness...then you die too, possibly decades in the future, possibly five minutes from now. Should have appreciated the good times more when they were definitely here.
 
CaptainWacky said:
Should have appreciated the good times more when they were definitely here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, therein lies the rub. We never know what we have until it's gone. It's all a life changing event, but one does learn to cope eventually. Things are never the same, but the pain and shock lessens over time. From there, we just have to do the best we can.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top