My lovely Mum died last September and I don't think I've posted on this forum since. I was a bit of a mess at the time and was lucky enough to find some support at our local hospice with a bereavement counsellor. It did help me enormously, mainly to sit with my feelings and to be comfortable with questions being unanswered.
More recently, I've felt unsettled about the emptiness and feeling like I'm just going through the motions. Like breathing in and out is just a motion I have to try to work at to do.
Sometimes I write my thoughts down in the form of a journal and I just did that and wanted to share it. I'm not sure why, maybe to get some kind of validation that I'm normal.
Some of it was sparked by things that friends had said to me. A friend the other day was asking me for bereavement recommendations for a friend of hers, saying she needs to work through the grieving process and stages because she needs to understand the set stages and when you move onto the next one. But it's not that simple. And that sparked these thoughts.
Grief is not linear, neither is it a process. A 'process' is something that has a destination or an end point. Grief doesn't have either, you just learn to live differently.
Sometimes I'm ok, sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I long for more recent good memories of Mum. Or for better memories to be at the forefront of my mind,
I look at pictures and don't remember much about the time they were taken - what was I feeling? What was I thinking? Was I taking it all for granted? Was I feeling the love and warmth that comes across from her?
What would she be like now? What was she like before she had cancer? Was she as complex as I thought or was that just a layer? A thick layer that I never chipped away. Or did I? But my head and my heart is filled with so much sadness that I can't remember.
I still can't believe she's not here.
I think people expect me to be at X point in the grieving 'process' but I don't think it works like that, not for me anyway. Maybe it's too soon. All I know is I don't like moving further away from that day I last saw her, spoke to her, touched her. The last day we both said 'I love you'. I'd like time to stand still in the hope that moving forwards will eventually be easier when it starts again.
Another friend was quite dismissive at the time of Mum's death - she said everyone has parents that they lose, as if to say my grief wasn't unique, that what I was going through is the same as everyone else. But it isn't. The relationship and connection I had with my Mum is totally different to the next person.
But I get up everyday and if I'm going out, put the mask on to hide my inner most feelings and thoughts for the rest of the world, so they don't have to feel my pain. It almost feels like I'm doing a disservice to her memory, covering it up like that and grieving alone.
I just wish I could reach out to her and ask for her help in navigating this.
Sending love and strength to you all....grief is unique to everyone of us..there are stages but you don't work through one&then move on to the next....if only! You can swing from several in a day.....I've shared this several times....but I do find it comforting. Xx
