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Comment by BLUEBELL on August 26, 2017 at 12:15pm

MOM

1918-2017

"If tears could build a stairway and thoughts a memory lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."

I ordered a personalized bereavement afghan with the above embroidered on it. I plan on wrapping myself up in it and think of my Mom and all she gave me.

Bluebell

 

Comment by BLUEBELL on August 26, 2017 at 10:12am

You are not alone Janie. We are here with you supporting you during this traumatic loss. What you did was very, very hard. Cry all the tears you want and do not be ashamed or apologize to anyone for your grief. It may be hard to believe right now, but the intensity will diminish over time and the days where you feel overwhelmed will not be as frequent. For me, there seemed to be markers. After 3 months, I started to have some okay days and could function a little better. Now I am at 6 months and there are some signs of recovery. Even though I still have many, many dark days where the grief is overwhelming, I find myself trying to find ways to survive with more peace, moments of joy and being able to pat myself on the back when I have accomplished something. As I wrote "being able to pat myself on the back", I realized that I miss the positive feedback my Mom gave me about a job well done.Though her compliments were not frequent, they meant a lot to me because I had the need to feel like my Mom was proud of me. Now, even though I can not hear her voice, I want to live my life the way she tried to teach me. 

Bluebell

Comment by Brett Bowman on August 26, 2017 at 8:39am

Theresa, I think that I was probably still in shock when I cleaned out my mom's things. I still live in her house so the memories are all around. I could not get rid of enough things. There will always be reminders here.

Recently I was looking for a note pad. I found one in the utility drawer. I opened the pad. I had forgotten that my mom had used that note pad to leave me messages. Things like, "Going to the store to get some...," and "I have a doctor's appointment. I'll be back around 4:00."

It was like being knocked in the head by a sledge hammer. When mom was alive I would read these notes in a second and go on about my day. Now when I read them I just remember that there was a time when mom would come back home. I can read those notes and it's almost like going back in time. Right now it is hard to imagine that there was once a time when I could hug my mom every day. That I could talk to her, watch television with her. It is the finality of all of this that is so crushing.

Mom was the biggest and best part of my life. She's gone now. That is so hard. Too hard.

She is in heaven now. She doesn't have COPD anymore. No more cancer. She's with her mom and dad now. I do give thanks to God for those things.

But like Huck Finn said, "You can't pray a lie." I'm still here. The separation is so painful. One day I want to be with her in heaven, but I pray that God will show me a way to find some peace and happiness until that day. That seems like too steep of a hill to climb. I keep praying though. Nothing is impossible for God.

Comment by Theresa on August 26, 2017 at 5:49am

I dont' know how, but I went in my moms house like a windstorm and threw away toothbrush, etc, I was in a haze, but I did it all so fast.

I have a large bin with my keepsakes in it that she saved, the dish set that was her moms, its beautiful, her cook book and other items, but she had a pizzelle iron she used to make pizzelles  with every single Christmas, I think it was her moms, I have it and used it last year to make the pizzelles just like she did, I didn't want to but I did it.  I figured gosh if mom could do this having lost her mother on Christmas eve and her husband two weeks prior to Christmas, I can do this in memory of her.  For anyone that is Catholic my mom died on the Saturday of the Joyful Mysteries....

May everyone take a minute today and thank God for bringing us together and for preparing a beautiful place for our moms to go where there is no more pain and suffering.

God Bless everyone.

Comment by Brett Bowman on August 25, 2017 at 10:12pm

Janie, there are few things that could ever drive home the finality of death like seeing her things disappear. For me it was the little things. I felt good about donating her clothes. I was happy that some of the furniture and household items were going to family and some of her friends. The hard part was the everyday items like her toothbrush, hair brush, knowing that she would never need them again. Throwing away some of those things was like throwing my mom away. It was horrible.

But I remembered one thing that I hope you will always remember. It wasn't the house or the things that were in it that she loved. She loved me, not her things. You can sell a house. Those things go away. You still go on. You are her daughter and you go on. I can promise you that she is not in heaven loving her house right now. She is loving her daughter. There is nothing in that house that was ever treasured by your mom like you were. Your mom loves you. That can't be sold. It can't be given away or donated. It will never rust or decay. It will certainly never need to be thrown away. You will have it forever.

Comment by Janie m Snitko on August 25, 2017 at 9:20pm

Today was a meltdown day for me! Seeing my mom's home almost empty gives such a finality to her passing. Knowing that the person I loved most in this world will not be back. I am crying as I am writing this .As always I love you very much Mama!!

Comment by BLUEBELL on August 25, 2017 at 8:49am

I have  wished I was already with my Mom and have thought of helping that along. But I know if I just hang on, I will recover from this loss and recreate my life. So at night when I go to bed, instead of praying to be released from this earth, I ask God to forgive me for those thoughts and to hold me up during this terrible time. I ask for strength to carry on another day.

The past 2 mornings have been better for me. I do not know why, but it is a relief to have somehow been blessed with a reprieve no matter how long it lasts. It gives me hope and I am going to do my best to hang on to the memory of what I am experiencing now when times are especially rough.

I am not done with my grief; I know that and accept it. But there is nothing wrong with feeling better for a couple of days. It does not diminish the love I felt for my Mom. That will always be there.

Brett

The fact that you are seeking outside help to get through this horrible time is wonderful and shows me you want to do more than just breath. You do deserve to have a life where you can experience moments of happiness or at least feel okay living in your own skin. Like me and probably the rest of us, it is not going to happen over night. It will take work to survive and find some peace. 

For myself, I pray for the courage to carry on and live my life to the best of my ability. Part of my goal in life has always been to help others. I will find ways to do that. It will help me feel more worthy of being on this earth. Today I am going to pay someone a sincere compliment. It is a small thing, but it is a start.

Bluebell

Comment by Brett Bowman on August 24, 2017 at 10:10pm

Continued: I know that I have. And though I may not have the energy, I would like to find myself again. I have started to see a therapist. She wants me to see a psychiatrist. It does embarrass me but I sure don't want to live the rest of my life Like this. 

As I wrote earlier, a part of me has died, but I am sure not dead. Dead people don't feel pain. I feel plenty. If I am going to live another 30 or 40 years, I don't want to live it like this. My mom sure wouldn't have wanted this for me. The suns going to come up every single day regardless of how I feel. I would rather face the day as my real self, not as a shell of who I once was.

I want that for all of us. There is nothing in the world wrong with being happy. It may not bring our moms back but it will sure make the road a little easier to travel until we see them again.  

Comment by Brett Bowman on August 24, 2017 at 9:58pm

Bluebell, I thought about that when I posted that passage. I wasn't being completely honest. I would want to be as close to my mom as possible. At least until I realized that she wasn't going to ever leave me again. I imagine that once you get to heaven you realize that pretty quickly.

I agree with Joy. The bible wasn't written about me and my mom. Sometimes I worry that I have lost my focus. Grief will do that. My hope is that God will forgive me for wanting to be with my mom so badly. I am sure that if anyone understands the love between a mother and her child it is God. That's the cool thing about heaven. We will get to be with our moms and the one who created us. I haven't forgotten that he is the reason that I had her in the first place. He is the reason why she had me. The love between my mom and I came directly from the heart of God. I will praise him forever for that.

Also, I talk about depression for a very real reason. I am certainly not a doctor but I do realize that grief can evolve into clinical depression. And it is enough for each of us to battle grief without having to do so with a chemical imbalance. I have had PTSD ever since I was in a car accident in the 90's. I can tell you from experience that depression can make it so much harder to climb out of the pit of hopelessness. I was fine and dandy while mom was alive. The PTSD would cause occasional panic attacks but I learned how to control those. My mom had always been my security blanket. As long as I had my mom I knew that I would be okay. You know what happened next. My mom died.

I realize that I am not dealing with grief that I probably should be. I mean, it will always hurt. I will always miss my mom. Life will never be the same as it once was. But each of us should be able to find happiness while we are here. We should be able to find peace. I remember how sick my mom was. I remember how she suffered for such a long time. I should be happier that my mom is in heaven instead of sitting next to me right now watching, "Everybody Loves Raymond." I am not happy though. I want my mom back. I have to come to grips with the fact that is not going to happen in this lifetime. If I do not come to grips with that I will just sink deeper and deeper into a pit of depression. That is no way to live. I mean, really live. It's not what my mom would have wanted for me and it is not what I want for myself.

People on this board are pretty honest. As well they should be. If you are grieving the loss of your mom, this is the right place to be. We all understand. We are all living it.

My concern is that not everyone is comfortable admitting how bad their grief has become. For me that means wishing that I could be in heaven with my mom. I pray for it every day, usually through tears. I pray to die. That scares me. I know that many people who grieve do more than pray to die. They consider suicide. Some actually go through with it. That breaks my heart. I just wish that if anyone reads this, and they are considering suicide, that they will please give themselves a fighting chance and ask for help. Depression is a disease that can have deadly consequences if left untreated. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. Your moms love you. Please try to love yourself as well.

Suicide may be the extreme reaction to grief but there is more than one way to harm yourself. I don't even like to leave the house. I would rather stay home and cry and pray. I don't really laugh anymore. I stopped going to the gym. It's hard for me to gather the energy to go to work. I have a lot of trouble sleeping at night. I don't like going to the grocery store. People have stopped asking me if I want to go out to dinner or come over. They know better. All of these things are harmful. You can die to yourself without actually dying. You can lose a great big piece of who you were and still are. 

Comment by BLUEBELL on August 24, 2017 at 10:55am

Quote from Brett "Jesus said, "In my father's house there are many rooms." I want a room right next to my moms."

Me too Brett. But I will go one step further. I want to be in the same room with my Mother and Father. They gave me love and a safe environment to live in. I would like that back.

I purchased a paperback book on Amazon and got it yesterday. It is call "The Courage To Grieve" by Judy Tatelbaum. One of my patient's daughters who lost her Mom shortly after I did told me about it ( yes, we are still in touch by text to support each other). There is so much in it that I and the rest of you are going through that it amazed me. It even addressed the depression and suicidal ideations some of us may be having as a normal process of grief. It is also a hopeful book because it addresses that we will get through this and recreate our lives. It is just a suggestion from me to look into getting this book. I am finding it helpful.

Love you all,

Bluebell

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