Hello, I am Joe. I am 17 years old and was 16 when I lost my mum to cancer after her long battle. This is my first time ever writing about my experience and my relationship with my mum so I am a little nervous and may be quite upset whilst writing this. I feel I want to share my emotions as I’m not a very open person with dealing with my loss. I hope this can help me.
Me and my mum were so well connected as she was my best friend as well. I’ve always had a really special connection with her as I’ve spent my entire life laughing with her, talking with her and just being with her whilst she was looking after me. About two years ago was when she was diagnosed again with cancer and when I realised I needed to look after her. And to be honest it didn’t bother me in any way, I never rejected or moaned as I knew she’d been so amazing looking after me all these years. And in a way it made us even closer as I spent more time with her being my best friend. Every night for two years at 9:00 she’d be in bed, I would put an episode of Lost or Big Bang Theory or many more (we got through a lot of different series) and I’d rub her back for an hour or two. My mum would love it as it released so much stress from her, and I really just liked hanging out with her. In the day time I would sit with her as well. Later in to her illness she had a medical bed in the dining room for her as it would be trouble climbing the stairs, but I’d always be in there with her, or poking my head round the door to see how she was. We shared so many laughs and talked about so much, I’m surprised she never got annoyed by the amount of random shit I would talk about but we were so in tune that any conversation was a good one. I’ve never met anyone like that before.
Since she’s been gone, for 8 months I’ve spent most of my time alone in my bed, completely drained of motivation or anything positive. Whatever I think about always just ends up me reminiscing about my mum and me, or just feeling upset. She was such an important part of my life and now it feels like my life is half empty. I very often get bad pains in my heart and chest as well as it feels my heart is pounding and contracting. I do rely on my best friend my age to keep me company and happy, she’s been very good to me. And although i’m always apologising for being upset and having to come to her, she feels the way I did when looking after my mum, she’s always happy to do it.
Having a very close family helps a lot too, as me, my dad and my sister are very close, share a lot and do a lot of things together. My mum and dads sides of the family are all very close as well, so even though we’re all going through such a terrible time together, we’re all talking to each other and helping one another. A lot of people loved my mum. She’d do anything for anyone, always visiting them if they were in hospital, she’d cook buffets and cakes for them, and always organised events just to go out with them. She really touched us all so massively.
Now I’m not sure if anyones read this and I don’t mind, this was just a nice way for me to get things off my chest as I’m not a very open person when talking about my mum. I often try to not bother people and keep emotions to myself which I know is bad. I’m really just looking for advice though or someone professional to talk to as I feel a completely different person since my mum died, a person who is so unmotivated and unsociable. However thank you for reading this, I hope that I can help you in the future once I’ve helped myself. Shit things happen to good people.
