Shouldnt It Be Getting Easier?

[lostheart87]

I am 24. When I was 18 my mom was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Everyone told me she would be ok and that cervical cancer was easily cured. Well, she died only 4 months after her diagnosis. Meanwhile I was partying it up away at college thinking she was going to be fine. I moved back about a month before she passed. Everyone still lead me to believe she was going to be ok. It wasn't until the end of my first week back, when my mother went to the hospital in the middle of the day that I realized how bad it was. She was in ICU. I went in the middle of the night and states with her. The next morning I woke up to her crying. She told me not to worry and that she was going to be fine. My aunt, her twin, came in and asked me to come in the hall. She had been crying. She brought me out and shut the door. She then told me that the doctors gave my mom just a month to live. I fell to my knees, hysterical. The nurses had to carry me into an empty room. I was devastated. My mom and I had JUST started getting close, she had JUST become my best friend. How could I lose her when we had become

e so close for the first time in my life?

The hardest part of that is when I look back. I cried hard, but I only cried for a little while. Then I stopped. I didn't cry anymore. They sent her home the next day and set up hospice. The next week she fell into a coma. After that, I started readingtje bible to her. At that point, she would take breaths every 30day seconds or so. It was hard to watch her suffer. One night, I read for a little while, then I put The Book down, held her hand, and begged her to let go. I lay ny head on her shoulder listening to her raspy, short breaths. She'd breath out, wait about 30 seconds, take a quick short breath, exhale and repeat. As I lay there holding her hand, she exhaled. I waited....... 30 seconds..... a minute.... 2 minutes. My aunt walked in and sat on the futile. That was set up next to the hospice bed. I looked up at her from my mothers shoulder and whispered, "she's gone" my aunt asked me what I just said.... a little louder I said it again, "She's gone". I then said it louder and louder u til I was screaming, "SHE'S GONE!!!!" My step-dad came running in. He yelled to my aunt to get me out of the room. They tried to calm me... it took two pills... still not sure what the were.... but it took two of them to make me fall asleep. I didn't cry anymore after that nig

A year later, I was out of town meeting my new boyfriend's friends and family. About 9pm my phone rings. Its my half sister. She is crying and saying over and over how sorry she is that this has happened to me again. I knew. My dad was dead. He had gone to collect rent from one of his tenants and was drug into the vacant apartment next to it and stabbed over 30 times. I cried very hard that night. And I didn't cry much after that.

Here is my dilemma. It has been 5 and 6 years now, and instead of getting easier, its getting harder. I don't know what to do. The last couple months it gas really come down hard on me ... for no reason... someone please tell me, how do you make it hurt less instead of worse?? I am completely lost right now and my husband doesn't know how to handle it. So I don't go to him. I just cry. Any tips? I am open to all advice.

[MartyT]

Dear One,

I'm so sorry to learn that you've lost both your parents to death, especially when you yourself are so young. From what you've described, it seems to me that you've never really allowed yourself to mourn these losses ~ as if your grief has been put on "hold."

Rest assured that it is never too late to do the work of mourning. It's also good to know that you don't have to travel this journey all alone or without support and guidance.

You might begin by doing some reading about grief that is delayed.

I encourage you to read the following (and be sure to follow the links you'll find), in hopes that doing so will shed some light on what you may be experiencing and why:

Delayed Grief

Anniversary Date of Brother's Death

[Ron B.]

Lostheart,

I'll try to help. There is no way I know of to get around grief. Can't ditch it. It's just keeps comes back and the pain can be horrible. But there are healthy ways of coping. You just have to go through grief. You need to mourn. And that can be hard to do! Sometimes we are stuck, feel numb, and just can't emote on demand. So the question is, how can I, we, you go about a healthy kind of grieving?

OK, here is my answer: 'legacy'. Your parents may be gone, but their legacy lives on. You are, literally, your parents' legacy. And you may have legacy memorabilia, photos, documents, and other physical things from your parents. I encourage you to honor your parents in any way you can. Just putting a photo of parents on a desk or a wall is a great start. I lost my Dad 10 year ago, and my Mom 2 years ago. All I've got now to connect me to them are photos and other small things. So these things from my parents have become important to me.

Here's an example of my own 'grief-work'. My uncle, who lives in Vancouver BC, has no family photos at all. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I have all the family photos. So, I am currently digging out photos for him. Some of these photos are of my mother. And I spend a lot of time with these photos, cleaning them up in Photoshop. And I cry as I work. And the crying is cathartic. It helps me heal.

Everybody has different things that they do to work through their grief. This grieving forum can be a great help. Just talking about grief, as you've done in your post, is exactly the right thing to do. Discovering that others here have been clobbered by grief helps us know we are not alone. And you'll see how others here negotiate their way through grief. Many of us have gone in for professional psychological counseling. That can be particularly effective for the most difficult grief.

Perhaps because I am older, creeping up on 60, I realize that my time is limited. If I don't face my grief now, when will I? So I've waded deeply into family photo collections. Helps me answer the question, Who am I? And it's that connection to my parents and other family that tells me most strongly who I am.

I don't want to minimize any of the pain and trauma of your grief. There is tragedy in your grief, particularly in the loss of your father. I can not begin to fathom that. And yet we all have no choice but to somehow accept the loss of our parents and move forward with our lives.

Perhaps you can reorient your thinking a bit, by focusing on healing. Find a healing activity, something that addresses your grief. Healing is just as much a force of nature as is the grief and pain. Healing happens. You can foster it. I suggest that you can find something, anything, that connects you with your parents. Eventually you will be able to memorialize your parents in your own mind as they deserve to be remembered. Some of the trauma and pain just lifts away. And eventually all the good of your parents, their values and their cares, will come forward to guide you as you move forward through your own life.

I hope some of this makes sense.

Ron B.