Grief one year on.

Hello Anonymous1

What you feel is normal and not unusual. There is no time limit as to when you will get over your grief. Some may get over it quicker some a little longer and for some it can take months sometimes years and some just learn to live with it. Good that you are trying to reach out for help though and keep doing that. Come here too if you need to as we will all `get it` here whatever issues you may be going through be assured there will be someone here who can resonate and then there are the MacMillan phone lines who you can call to speak with someone. MacMillan run phone counselling sessions too arranged by Marie Curie. You get 6 free sessions and you can decide when you want these sessions either weekly, monthly fortnightly etc it would be up to you. I did them and they helped. Just having someone who understood phone you to check in on how you are was a great help just to talk to someone and offload your worries and issues to. I am just speaking about the experience I have had with MacMillan and they have helped a lot. 

I lost my husband to bowel cancer last June (2023) after an almost 2 year fight and at one point he went into remission after his operation to remove his tumour in January 2022 only for it to return 5 months later and decided it wasn't leaving without him a second time. I was where you more or less were back then when he was going through his treatment I began to feel desperate in that I didn't want to be here. My attitude was if he's not going to be here in the near future, then neither do I but luckily for me that was as far as I got `only thinking about it` and managed to reach out to different helplines including here at MacMillan reaching out showed me that there was people here who needed me. I have my son and his partner and my little granddaughter and my older sister.  After my husband passed two months later my older sister got a bowel cancer diagnosis but luckily her's was caught in its very early stages and her tumour was very small so they were able to take her in and just cut it out without the need for post chemo or radiotherapy. Ironically 5 years ago she got breast cancer too and again she recovered from that. She has learning and mental health issues also she did know that she had cancer but don't think really comprehended the seriousness of it. I am her carer /next of kin. She can be independent up to a stage she can go out on her own but needs me for certain things things in authority like banking, paying bills etc she struggles with that and I do online food shops for her as she is still recovering from her cancer operation and can only carry so much home from shops. She lives within walking distance from me in sheltered accomodation also. 

I'm now almost 17 months in from losing my husband and it is just now it has really hit me. Last year I was still I would say on autopilot and still processing his loss so I was going through the motions you could say. I see myself as now being somewhere in the middle. I have began to accept he is gone but at the same time still can't believe it still feels weird at times talking about him in a past tense.  At the beginning I couldn't cry for him but did enough when he was going through his treatment and thought I would never stop. I have little `outbursts` of crying now and again and feel this is it coming out now and when it happens it feels like a release and relief in a way as if it is something I have been waiting for to happen. I can't tell you you will get over this because everyone is different in how they deal with grief but just know that you are not going through it alone and just come here when you feel you need to. Take Care of yourself and my best wishes to you moving forward. 

Vicky x

Hi so sorry for the loss of you're mum,.

I know how you feel, I feel lost and alone without my mum.

I lost my mum to stage 4 bowel cancer, and I had to watch her just vegetate there was nothing I could do.

I feel big emptiness, she wss my best friend, I would see and speak to her everyday.

Life is not fair, and is cruel to good people x

Hello Vicky,

Thank you so much for your response and I am also so sorry for your loss. Grief truly is one of the hardest things and I hadn't gone through it until I lost my Mam last October. From the moment I found out she had passed, I had this pain in my chest that just wouldn't go away. It becomes so difficult to do the same everyday things when a massive part of your everyday is someone who is no longer here.

I think as time goes on it does get worse because you start to realise that you are further away from the last time that you seen them and it reminds you that they aren't coming back. It definitely helps to speak to someone and I am currently in therapy. I think just chatting about the feeling of this "new normal" and how hard it is really does help because it means that I am facing it head on rather than just running from it. My Mam truly was my best friend and talking to her somehow made everything easier, her advice was always spot on and she had this way of calming me down when I got anxious about silly little things like exams. I think it is just difficult to approach situations like that and not have her voice telling me those things I need to hear. 

What you are doing for your sister is amazing and she is really fortunate to have you and you her! I definitely think my other family members have made this process that bit easier because they also understand it and can keep me plodding on while I do the same for them. This sounds like the case for you with your son. Thank you so much for offering your support and reminding me that I am not alone in this, I really appreciate even just being reminded that the feeling of grief is normal and that I am not silly for feeling it so severely at times. 

Hello,

I am so sorry for the loss of your Mam too! I understand your feelings exactly when you say that you feel lost and alone. A mother truly is the light and guidance that you need sometimes, the voice giving you the advice that you need, even if it isn't always what you want to hear. I too would see my Mam every day and took a great sense of comfort in our conversations, it's so difficult not to have that option of having coffee with her and nattering on about all sorts of things. 

It is definitely difficult watching someone you love so deeply suffer because of cancer. It is certainly more difficult wishing that you could help and not being able to do so. I remember cutting my Mam's hair for her so that she could donate it and just thinking that I wish there was something that I could do to make things different altogether. Unfortunately that just isn't how life goes...

Life is really unfair, I agree strongly with this. Not only did I lose my Mam and best friend but the world lost a shining star with a heart of pure gold. Everyone who ever met my Mam spoke so highly of her because she was so compassionate and kind. I am sure this would have been the same for you with your Mam. I know that they are looking down on us though and wanting us to make them proud by following in their footsteps, even though the grief is really difficult. 

A quote I take great comfort in is from Winnie the Pooh and it goes 'how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.' I like to think that grief is all that love that we have left to give that just doesn't have anywhere to go.