Lost My Mom 1 Week Ago Today

[MysticBlndMist]

I am new here, just decided to search for a online support group to help with losing a loved one and found this one. Have read a few people's stories on here and believe I may have found the right place as so much of it is exactly how I feel right now.

I lost my mother one week ago today, my mom was also my best friend . She was also another mother to my children, right down to the fact they called her mom to. She was only 68 years old. (I am 30)

On October 4th she took a heart attack was taken to a hospital that dealt with heart attacks and a stent put in, she was released from the hospital on October 7th, came home and everything seemed normal again but on the afternoon of October 10th she took a stroke. She suffered a left side middle hemisphere stroke, That day completely changed my life , I went to the hospital every day to see her and talk with her, after about a month she was able to get off the feeding tube and placed on a softened food and thickened liquid diet.... she was starting to get the small ability to move her left leg again ( nothing with the right arm though) but she kept coming down with infections and Pneumonias, I had one call days after her stroke telling me they were moving her to ICU and that the end was near, got to the hospital and her condition hadn't really changed from the day before. But again one after another infections she kept coming down with. She was to be moved to Continuing Complex Care after she was able to get out of Acute Care but never made it to CCC as she kept getting the infections.

It was extremely painful to see my mom the way she was , she had gone from being healthy and lively to being bed ridden and in constant pain but her mind was still fully there with very little to no confusion.

I took her stroke very hard for the first 3 weeks but then read about recoveries of so many people and it gave me hope that she could get better ( or at least better then she was then) and that she was still alive. Well the doctors had figured that she was never going to be able to return home ( we lived together with my children) and that a nursing home would be the best place later on, they told me it was going to be a very long road leading downhill.

I was unable to get to see her much during the month of Jan because of so many issues I had to deal with and felt really very bad about it especially consider I had gone to see her pretty much every day for the 3 months prior. Anyways I had gone to see her the Monday prior to her death and she was high spirited and very chatty. Again due to other issues I was unable to get to see my mom for the remainder of the week. On Saturday Feb 12 afternoon I received a phone call letting me know she was having "a bit of a rough day". I was at home with the kids and unable to get to the hospital and told the nurse that and that I would be in the next day they said no problem and I figured I would make it in the next day ( they had called me in the past letting me know she was having a bad day before and everything was fine). At 4:05 AM on Sunday morning I received the phone called I didn't want to hear that my mom had passed away. I never received a phone call letting me know her condition was getting worse and that she was not going to make it or anything.

The Monday before I had told my mom I had been sorry for not making it in as often as I was before because of other issues but my last words to my mom were basically that I would be in the next day but again unable to I never got to see her again before she died. I feel I lied to my mom.

I sit here and wonder if my mom felt abandoned because I hadn't been around as often ( I was basically the only one that went to see her), I have not heard how she died, she did not have an infection or anything at the time of her death and am now starting to seek answers to the questions I have.

I know its probably a blessing as she is no longer suffering or in pain as she had been for the 4 months and 2 days before her death, and I feel selfish in how I am feeling by missing her so much and knowing I will never see or hear or get advise from her ever again. Just flat out missing my mom!

I've made the memorial arrangements ( This coming Wednesday is the service) and I've had to deal with this on my own, its been very difficult and emotional doing so. I really don't have any family as 2 sisters and my father and step father have all passed away. Alot of my friends thankfully have not had to go through this. And I honestly don't know how to cope or grieve. People ask me how I am feeling and I just say ok, when on the inside I'm just broken and so lost.

I guess if anyone has any advise I would appreciate it.

[sunstreet]

Dear MysticBlndMist,

I am so so sorry for the loss of you Mother. I am sorry for the reason you found your way here but I want to welcome you. I want to assure you that you found a wonderful safe site and wonderful people who sadly know your pain. Myself being one of them.

I hear you when you say you feel like you lied to your Mom. I want to encourage you to try to let that go. Circumstances made it so that you did not see your Mom before she died. Nothing you did wrong at all.

All the feelings of wondering whether your Mother felt abandoned. I believe these all to be so normal but you did not abandon your Mother. I imagine your Mother is encouraging you to let that thought go too.

My advice is to seek out a grief counselor perhaps, keep coming here and venting all your feelings. Let it all out, for when we keep it all bottled up, it just grows and is more painful. If you feel tears come, let them come, try not to fight it.

Another thing that you may find helpful is Marty T's website: www.griefhealing.com Marty is the moderator of this board and I have found her site to be both a wealth of comfort and information about loss.

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[DebFromLodi]

I am so sorry for what you are going through. I went and saw my mom 2 days before she died. That was Thursday Jan 31, 2008. I took advantage of my sister and brother going to see her the next day, Friday. I just wanted a break. Well, Saturday Feb 2,2008 we got a call that she had taken a turn for the worse. That was around 6 a.m. We all gathered at her side and at 11:34 a.m. she passed away. Why did i not go to see her on that Friday? When i visited her on the 31st, she was up and talking and i went in. She said "i love you, i love you, i love you. I am hungry" thank God i had brought a meatloaf sandwich which she ate completely. Why did i not stay longer that day?

You see, we all have regrets and questions, but we must move forward. Had we known, we would have been there 24/7. But we did not know and we cannot kick ourselves constantly. We must forgive ourselves as our moms have forgiven us already.

Be kind to yourself during your journey and please know that you are not alone

[ColleenRe]

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Your mom loved you and she thought you were a wonderful person. I can tell from reading your post. Your mother thought the world of you. She knew you came to see her whenever you possibly could. It's so painful watching a parent go from lively and active to ill and bedridden. And it's so difficult to have a parent you regarded as your best friend just taken away from you. Again, I'm so sorry for this loss. When my dad died in early January it hit me like a ton of bricks. All of the feelings you are having are normal. Please be kind to yourself and recognize yourself for what you are--a very loving and giving person.

[beakerj]

Dear MBM,

I am so so sorry for the loss of your Mum - mine had been gone about 3 months now. Lots of people here will have much better advice to give than me, but I just wanted to say what everyone who reads your post will be thinking - you did NOT lie to your Mum. (Unless you deliberately wanted to mislead her & were never going to show up the next day, which is not at all what you were doing.) When you told her that you fully meant it - what happened was that circumstances conspired to mean you weren't able to do what you wanted to. That comment turned out to be sadly unfulfillable, through no fault of your own. So please give up on that one - the facts don't support your feelings here, though I know how easy it is for that to happen...lots of people feel guilt over things over things they wish had gone differently if only they'd 'known'.

Again, I'm so sorry for your loss, keep coming back here as people will listen thoughtfully.

Becka

XXX

[MartyT]

Dear Mystic, I'm so sorry to learn of the death of your dear mother, and especially sorry that you're feeling as if you lied to your mother. As you continue to read the posts in this and other forums on our site, you will find our members often telling one another that each and every one of us did the best we could with what we knew at the time, and now I want to say the same to you. This may not ring true to you just yet, but I hope that in time it will, as you gradually come to terms with this. Surely your mother knows how very much you love her, and surely she forgives you for not being able to get to the hospital that day. If anyone would understand that your first obligation is to take care of your children, would it not be your own mother?

I also want to share with you what I hear repeatedly from the hospice nurses with whom I have worked for many years. This particular passage comes from a lovely book written by Kathy Kalina, a certified hospice and palliative care nurse in Ft. Worth, TX. As she says, her theory "carries the weight of first-hand witness":

I believe that patients will time death so that the people they want to be there will be there . . . Some people love a crowd and will not die until every last relative is gathered in the room. Other people are very private and will wait for everyone to drift off to sleep before they go. One man, whose wife never left his side, waited for her to go to the bathroom and then slipped away . . . If someone is not present at the time of death, it doesn't mean they've failed or that they've loved less than the ones who are there. The patient may have believed that seeing the death would be too hard for that person. Or, perhaps the bond was so strong between them that the person's presence would have made leaving harder. Whatever the reason, remember: no one ever dies alone! Unseen friends from the other side, angels, and God himself assist the soul at the time of passage.

-- Kathy Kalina, in Midwife for Souls: Spiritual Care for the Dying (Revised Edition), pp. 50-51

[niamh]

hi MysticBlndMist,

I am so sorry for the loss of your Mom, I wish there were words of comfort, sorry just never feels like enough to say but the words just don't exist.

I'm sorry for all the pain you had to go through watching your Mom get sicker, I cannot even begin to imagine what that must feel like.

oh hun, I wish I could take away the feelings you have like you lied to your Mom, the feeling of wondering if she felt abandoned. I have no doubt your Mom knew how much you loved and cared for her and no part of her felt any way abandoned but that's easy to say, the point is you do feel like this now and it's not a simple switch to just turn those feelings off no matter what anyone says to you. So all I will say is just allow yourself to feel whatever you feel now and know that there is nothing wrong with it, no matter how crazy the feelings and emotions are there are all perfectly "normal".

I feel guilt on and off about taking my Dad to the hospital he never left, in my mind they screwed up not monitoring and checking him properly and I wonder what if I had taken him somewhere else. Those feelings still come and go and I think they always will but today they are not as magnified as they were in the beginning, it's like now they have just become a part of me and I try to live with it all as best I can, it's all anyone can do.

Wow, you have lost so many family members, I'm so sorry hun, I wish there was a way to take away all the pain and just bring them all back to us.

I read at the beginning about grief being the best companion I would come to know and to trust grief fully, that it knows the way so to just follow it's lead, I've come to believe that fully. So just know that there is no wrong way to grieve for your Mom.

You are not at all selfish for missing your Mom so much, I wish my Dad was back here every single day ........if he is in some afterlife/Heaven or wherever and he's happy then yeah that's great of course but it's still not right to me, here with me is where he is needed most and should be.

I'm sorry you've also had to deal with the memorial arrangements on your own, of course it's so difficult trying to do all that on your own when you entire world has just been completely smashed up and it sounds like you have made the arrangements so HUGE well done to you for being able to do this.

Please know that you can come here and share with us and you don't have to say that you are ok. None of us have any expectations of each other, nobody judges, people just get it and it just "helps" (I use the word lightly) to know that there is someone else in this world who can relate to how you feel and you realise you may not be as alone as you feel right now.

sending a ((hug)) to you and sending you much love and comfort for the service tomorrow.

Niamh

[BellaRosa]

Mystic, I am so very sorry about the loss of your mother. I, too, lost my mother (last November) and can relate to so much of what you said. I am 29 and my mom was 61. She passed from lung cancer complications, and it was very difficult to watch her decline. I know what you mean about reading stories online and finding hope that things will get better. I held on to slivers of hope right up until the end.

I can see why you feel like you lied to your mom, but you really didn't. You had every intention of going to see her, but unfortunately other circumstances prevented you from doing so. That doesn't mean that you did anything wrong or that you didn't care. Clearly, you loved her very much and wouldn't have done something to intentionally hurt her. I'm sure she knew that.

In the early weeks of my mom's passing, I questioned many things that we did and didn't do for her. Maybe we could have taken her to a different hospital. Maybe there was a better doctor/treatment/test/something out there that would have worked and cured her. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and beating ourselves up about things that happened in the past is pointless. It won't make us feel better and it certainly won't bring our mothers back to us.

I'm glad you found us, although I'm sad as well. Post as much as you need to. The good thing about this site is there is always someone who can relate, and we never tire of hearing how everyone is feeling and what they're going through.

[Chai]

Dear MysticBIndMist,

Please know that you are not alone. You are not alone in the miseries that grief brings us through, such as guilt. The thing with grief is that it tortures us with these feelings of guilt and pinpointing things we think we did wrong, but...our loved ones, like your dear mother, knew and know that we love them, and that if circumstances prevented us from being at their sides or from visiting them more, it is not our fault.

You visited your mother a lot, and you also had children to take care of. There is a saying that we can never repay our parents, because they have done so much for us and love us so much. Your mother's love is forever, forever with you, and I am sure with all that love she has for you, there is no way she felt abandoned, or that you lied to her.

These feelings are a natural part of grief. They will pass. But to try and force them away or to dwell on them excessively is not going to help. Like niamh and other members have said, it is best to just let it flow over you, through you. Perhaps some journaling will help you to process your thoughts, and in time you can go back if you like and read what you have written here and in a journal, and see how you have grown in your grief journey.

After my father passed away from cancer in November 2008, I felt a lot of guilt like you are feeling now. I felt horrible for not having visited him more. I felt horrible for not talking with him more about him, instead of just me, me, me, both during his illness and during my time with him in general. But later I came to understand that, I did nothing wrong. I was a child, and a teenager, and it is natural for one to be self-centered at a young age. My father loved me no matter what, and he did not feel abandoned or like I did something wrong. His mood was of love love love, always. So now I have been able to go on without guilt; it has especially helped that I recently scattered my father's ashes. I have gotten a lot of relief from guilt after doing that.

Your mother's love will always be with you. You did nothing wrong. It will take time to not feel guilt anymore, it will be hard sometimes...but you are not alone. We are all here to support you. Over time, it will get easier.

many, many (((((Hugs))))) to you,

Chai

[MysticBlndMist]

I want to thank everyone who shared their stories and all the kind words. I really appreciate it. I have read each and find myself spending a fair bit of time on this site doing reading and reading how certain feelings are so common to feel after one's passing... I have been through several family members passings..... (2 sisters, my step dad and bio dad being the closest even a fiancee who died serving) But my mom's death has just been so hard but I am slowly trying to let some of the feelings go...which I know will take quite some time but I am trying.This afternoon is my mom's memorial service.. Again I thank you for your response, means alot.

[sunstreet]

Dear MysticBlndMist,

I will be holding you in gentle thought and prayer today espeically.

Blessings and Courage, Carol Ann

[niamh]

will be thinking of you today Hun,memorial service is hard to say the least

sending lots of love and a big hug your way

Niamh

[MysticBlndMist]

A poem the minister read at my mom's memorial. Somewhat comforting.

MISS ME - BUT LET ME GO

When I come to the end of the road

And the sun has set for me

I want no rites in a gloom-filled room.

Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little--but not too long

And not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love that we once shared

Miss me--but let me go.

For this is a journey that we all must take

And each must go alone. It's all a part of the Master's plan

A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick of heart

Go to the friends we know

And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.

Miss Me - But Let me Go!