Sue, thank you so much. I can see that.....  My mom lived with me on and off for 18 yrs and was always here for me when Ineeded her.  I am going thru some personal issues right now and have decisions to make and just unsure of the right decision...  I miss her so much somtimes its very overwhelming

I started going thru my mom's things this week. Two months exactly today she's been gone. I have no one wanting to help do this. Since I have had nightmares evry night. Now this morning I am feeling suicidal.. I really don't want to die, but it seems the only way to stop hurting. I go to a cosmotology school to get away and get my mind off. Then there's a girl where I'm at who just lost her dad and is having the same feelings. Somedays I want to run far away. All I have left is my sister, and son. It hurts really hurts. For the most part I have been able to bottle up these feelings now that I,m going thru her stuff it actually seems real. I feel so alone.

Hi Tammy, It has been almost 5 months since my mom has been gone and I'd like to say it gets easier but, so far it has not gotten easier. Sounds like your sister and son are great reasons to keep on! I"m focusing also on my sister and my dog to keep going. We are going to go to mom's gravesite and plant flowers in a couple of weeks. I really dread it. The reality sometimes comes crashing down so hard.  

Thank you Sandra and Linda. I just keep trying to feel better and knowing other people feel the same. I don't feel as crazy.

Easter was hard. I keep remember my mother taking her final breaths and it haunts me constantly. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other every day saying that each day brings me closer to my own passing. I am on Effexor which is a great antidepressent. It helps a lot. Not only do I loose my mother but my sisters were so horrible I had to just walk away from their behavior. I feel so alone.

Easter was awful, especially putting flowers on the grave. It seemed so wrong. Not the way for us to be. i know this is life. But, why is it so hard. I am already dreading Mother's day. My parents annjiversary is the day before. That is going to be one weekend, I don't know if i want to make it through. Too much sadness in my life and not quite sure if i have anything to look forward to.

Every day brings us closer to seeing them again.

So glad easter is over.  It seemed like the entire week just crept by.  There was one tradition we always got a kick out of each year and that was watching the ten commandments and joking about how over the top the acting was.  It started and I had to turn it off.  I got a couple of invitations to dinner but had to turn them down.  It's only been 3 months and when I went to a friends on christmas eve it turned out real bad for me.  This time around I didn't want to do that to myself.  I need to give myself some time and not be concerned about making others happy.   It just blows my mind that she's really gone.  I cringe at the thought of Mothers day coming up next.  I'll make it through.  I'll hate it but I'll make it though.

Mark...mom and I used to watch Ten Commandments together to. I couldn't watch it either this year. Mother's Day last year I made dinner at Moms house, she was to sick to eat. Stayed in her bedroom. We will all so angry with her because she didin't

"try" to come and eat. She died a month later. One of the things I am so regretful for. And there are so many things I wish I had done differently. I did go to sunrise service by myself on the beach. I miss my mother so much. But she is in a better place surrounded by her loving parents and her brother who was killed in the war.

My moms favorite was the Ten Commandments too.... my girls watched it but I couldn't watch..... I was upset and depressed enough and did nothing but cry all Easter weekend.  It was just to tough.... I think about her everyday and wish she were here to see her beautiful smile everytime I would walk into her room, just hold her hand and talk.... I remember how soft her hands felt.... I miss that

Linda,

I remmeber my mothers hands to. The day she died she stroked my cheeks and said "Why are you crying". The day she died was the worst day of my life. Nothing will ever hurt me more than that. I changed that day. My heart was broken forever. Mother's Day is going to be a day I will pretend doesn't happen. She suffered in front of me in ways that were so horrible. Now at least she is in a better place. Nothing and no one can hurt her again.

I am also glad that Easter is over I am so ready for this year to be over with. Since my mom passing it just seems like everyone has a birthday or its a special holiday or anniversary I am really worried about how I am going to handle Mothers day my 12 yr old birthday is also that day so I try to look forward to that but then I get to thinking of how mom was excited about all of my kids birthdays and it just hurts so much. I am trying so hard not to feel so angry but I tend to find myself wanting to scream at the top of my lungs and no matter how much I cry it just does not help. I often wonder if  I could have got to say goodbye would I feel different would It still hurt so much.....  

I just wish this pain would ease up and it seems like everyday is just so much harder than the first I know I need to find some strength for my family some how but all I wish to do is lock myself in a room and be alone I miss her so much

Its been 7 months since I lost my mom and I cannot seem to get the empty feeling out of my heart.  I cannot seem to find the strength to move on.  Every day is an absolute struggle.  How do I find the strength that I need to move on? 

Mother's Day is still 4 weeks away and yet, I am already crying over it. Everyday was special with my mother. But, we always did something more special, like going to a broadway show. this year, how will i deal with not having the honor of being with my mother. To make it worse the day before is my parent's anniversary.

Erica I am with you as far as forgetting about mother's day.  It is going to be too painful to even imagine because we always went over her house to celebrate.  I really don't know how I am going to be able to handle that this year. 

Dacha I understand exactly how you feel.  My mom would want the same exact thing for me but it is so hard with that empty feeling that I have.  I will keep you in my prayers. 

My mom was not only a mother to me, she was my best friend and now trying to go on every day without her is very hard.  I try to push myself but the more I push, the more anxiety and depressed I get.  It's just so hard to imagine life without her.  

I guess for each step forward it is many steps backwards. Today, I just wanted to cry all day. I do what i have to do, but, my heart isn't in anything that i do. How do I go on like this for the rest of my life. How can I have lived with someone for almost 47 years and all of a sudden i have to accept that i will never see her again.

Marlene you are not alone.   It is hard for me to fight the tears every single day.  Like you, I do what I have to do but it seems almost impossible every single day.  It is still so hard to believe that I am never going to see her again. 

Hi.  I lost my mom a little over seven years ago, and I'm still lost without her for a lot of reasons.  First, I was closer to her than any person I've ever had in my life.  Second, right after she died, my dad got sick.  I took care of him until he died last summer.  And, then I was grieving loosing him.  Just now, I got the first season of the TV Series 7th Heaven.  I started to watch it.  The first year it came out was 1996.  I'm sitting here watching it and all I can do is cry, because I keep thinking that mom was alive when this show came out.  I don't think I've ever been able to sufficiently grieve her loss.  She was more like a soul mate than a parent.  I lost my dad last year and I love him and I miss him and I'd do anything to see him again, but even with all that pain it was nothing like the relationship I had with my mom.  We did everything together from the time I was born.  We talked on the phone every day.  We went out to eat together, we went to the grocery store, the bank, the post office, the everything together.  I realized just now that I haven't felt alive since I lost her, but I should be feeling better by now.  My body functions - I take a bath, I put on clothes, I eat - but I'm not in this body any more, and I don't think I ever will be again.

Things just seem to get worse for me as time goes on.

Marlene i also agree with each step we take forward it is many steps backwards especially with this being the year of all the first birthdays and holidays without my mommy. I did start seeing a therapist last week because of the feelings and thoughts that I was having. I have only seen her twice and I am praying she can help me cope because I just do not want to go on with life and like a lot of you nothing makes me happy or feel alive anymore. I have been thinking about mothers day and I am trying to come up with a few plans since I myself am a mother I did not think it would be fair to my children just not to celebrate it at all and then my daughters birthday is that day. So as of now I am thinking about maybe celebrating it the weekend before or the weekend after cause on the day of I think I really just want to be left alone that day and cry if i want to does anyone else have any other ideas on what i can do?

Hi all. It has been 5 months since my mom has been gone. Does anyone else feel like sleeping all of the time? I thought I was sick. I can sleep on weekends for 3 or 4 hours at a time and then go on to sleep at night and sleep for another 7 or 8 hours.  During the workweek I can hardly make it. Today I am so tired I feel like crawling to the floor and going to sleep. I would like to add that nothing makes me happy anymore - just like many of you guys. I am dreading mother's day. My sister and I visited mom's grave and planted flowers. I cried and slept for 3 hours after that.

Sandra, although it has been a while since my mom died (although I never really got to grieve her as I immediately became a caregiver and was so busy I couldn't think), my dad died just a few months ago.  He and I got very close while I was caring for him as we were together 24/7/365 as he required a lot of care - and I wanted to be with him too.  Well, since he died, I've been sleeping all the time too.  I thought maybe it was just me being exhausted from being a caregiver.  He had Parkinsons and toward the end every little thing had to be done for him like even changing the tv station as his hands didn't work.  I thought i was just exhausted.  bu, then I started having dreams.  First, my mom died, and I couldn't even really think about it right away cuz I had to start caring for my dad, then my aunt and uncle died, then my dog of 14 years died, then my dad died, and then a nephew-in-law got shot.  I started having dreams about my mom even though its been a few years ago.  I have dreams about my dad.  And, I realized - maybe I'm grieving or maybe it is a combination of the two:  exhaustion and grieving.  And, it was worse over the winter but is a little better with the spring but not much, and I've never had seasonal effective disorder before.  I don't know, some days if I don't take a nap in the afternoon, I can barely function.  Or, if my day won't let me get a nap in in the afternoon, I come home, sit on the couch and am asleep in two minutes, and sometimes I sleep all the way through from like 6 at night until 6 the next morning or even 8 or 10 the next morning if I don't have anything I have to get up for.  I am exhausted from caregiving, but I think it is really more grief.  I think it is probably normal to sleep a lot.

thanks for replying so fast Storyas. I did lots of caretaking for mom until the end and thought I was just tired from the last several years but, my sister is also starting to sleep a lot too. It helps so much for me to hear how lots of other people are experiencing the same things. I don't feel so alone. There I go again, almost crying as I write. Thanks for replying.

Sandra,  just want you to know that you are not the only one out there feeling the way you do.  Any chance I get, I sleep.  If i'm not sleeping I am usually crying.  Losing my mom has been very hard to deal with.  I miss her every single day.  It doesn't matter how much sleep I get either, I am always tired.  It is a major struggle to get through every day feeling like this.  

thank you for replying Linda and Tracey. We all have so many common experiences - and that DOES help me a little. I was my mom's caretaker also for the last year. It was so hard. She had lived with me -i'm estimating about 10 years and we were the best of friends. If I don't get a full 8 hours of sleep i just can't make it. Last night I lost about 4 hours of sleep becaause an elderly neighbor needed some help. She had fallen around 1 am. I helped with the best grace I could, knowing mom would have wanted me to. Some terrible piece of me resents the neighbor for not having all of the health problems mom had and yet being several years older than mom. I feel terrible about that.

Linda and Sandra I feel the exact same way.  I always feel that it is not fair that other people have their mothers and I don't.  My mom was also my best friend in the whole world.  I just don't understand why she was taken away from me. 

Tracey/Linda/Sandra - thank you all for sharing what you are going through.  We are all so similar.  Linda - caregiving is so hard.  You have earned your wings in heaven by doing it for 18 years.  I did it for about ten years, but my mom didn't get really bad until the end.  And, then I had a few years where my dad wasn't really bad and we could still go out and do stuff.  The only time it was really bad like what you went through with changing accidents and stuff was the last month of my mom's life and then the last two or three years of my dad's life.  It sounds like it was that hard for you the entire 18 years, and I'm not sure how you did it.  You must be so tired on top of your grief.  But, that is not to take away from anyone.  It sounds like we were all caregivers, and no matter how long you do it - even if it is a shorter time than 18 years - it takes everything you have and is exhausting emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically - and you are never ever the same again after you have been through the experience.  It's like you are more aware of life and death for ever as well as more wise in many ways.  It changes you.  You can never go back to the naivety you might have had before the experience.   And, Linda, I've been through what you've been through.  My dad got so close to death and snapped back so many times that the last time I did not believe he would die, so I didn't stay with him that night - and that is the night he didn't pull through and died.  I will never forgive myself for that.  And, I go through that feeling (a little less each year) of being angry at people I see out with their mothers.  I think - it's not fair.  You've got your mom.  I don't.  It's not fair.  And, when I see someone out with their elderly mother being impatient or something with their mom, I want to tell them off and remind them how lucky they are to still have her, but I know it's not my business.  Also, like you Sandra, when I see older people who don't have the health problems, I get upset with them cuz I think it's not fair that my parents didn't have good health in old age.  And, I've thought about volunteering at the nursing homes, but I just can't offer that care to these strangers right now when I've lost my mom a while ago and my dad so recently.   Does that make me selfish - well, probably yes, but it is where I am right now, and I need time to get beyond it.

im sad because im pregnant again and my mom will never see this child. i need her to helpme getthrough this since my husband isnt anyhelp and he is being very selfish. my mom died on may 14, 2010 and this year its the day after mothers day and im really not looking forward to it.

Steacy - Stacy, do you feel your husband is being selfish because he doesn't understand your grief or because he is not helping you through the pregnancy or both or something else entirely?  I don't know your husband or his reasons, so I don't know much what to say.  But, I do know that after my dad died - just three days after - I was sitting on the couch watching a movie with my husband, and I started crying.  He said to me, "You can't use your dad dying as an excuse forever."  I went to a local grief support group the next week, and a lady there told me to leave my husband cuz he wasn't supportive.  The moderator pulled me aside afterwards and said, "You can't listen to her.  She thinks she has your best interest at heart, but you can't ever tell anyone to leave their husband.  She told me that sometimes men, and even some women, have a really hard time with grief.  They don't know how to deal with it, so they don't do it or do it wrong, and then their wife ends up being really hurt.  But, that doesn't mean the husband doesn't love them.  She told me to hold onto the good in my husband and find my support with grief in grief support groups until he could handle my grief or I didn't need his help any more cuz i was healing.  She also told me to never make a decision like divorce or any major life decision when you are grieving.  So, I listened to her.  My dad died one year ago - I just looked up at the calendar on my computer - it was actually one year ago today that he died.  Four thirty this morning was one year since he died.  Well, my husband still is horrible at handling grief.  I just looked at him when I realized it had been a year and said, "My dad died one year ago today" and he said, "I'm sorry" without even stopping what he was doing or looking at me.  He stinks at handling grief.  But, he does offer a lot of other good things, so I just need to stop expecting him to be there for my grief, because he doesn't know how.  He is an engineer, and he just doesn't know how.  But, the moderator of that group was right - he has other good things to offer me but helping me through my grief is just beyond him, so I find that support other places.  But, I don't know your husband.  If it is something more severe than that like abuse or anything that could bring harm to you, you really should talk to a counselor and get help.  I just don't know the details of your problem, so all I know to do is share what happened in my situation.  Best wishes on the new baby.

Steacy - your mom will see the baby.  My mom was do definitely there when my niece had her baby.  Everyone felt her.  The nurses who didn't even know my mom's name kept calling the baby that was on it's way by my mom's name.  And, my mom's birthday was 2/23 and the baby was born at 2:23 pm.  We felt my mom around the baby a lot.  And, when Chloe (my grand-niece and my mom's great granddaughter) got old enough to talk and walk, she would see my mom in their house.  Once she chased "the lady" down the hall and when my niece went to Chloe's room to see what was happening, Chloe said that she saw a lady and was trying to catch her before she left.  She described the lady, and the lady looked like my mom.

Steacy - a few minutes have passed, and my husband just came back and said to me, "It's not a good weekend for anniversaries.  Tomorrow is the anniversary of when my sister died."  Then, he walked into the next room.  It was that matter-of-fact.  But, some place inside him he feels the grief or he wouldn't have come back and said that.  He doesn't comfort me through my grief, but he won't let me comfort him through his either.  He doesn't know how to open that part of himself up, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care.  Again, blessings on the new baby.

I am fortunate to have a very supportive boyfriend.  He lost his mothers 4 years ago so he understands my grief..... Sometimes I don't think he understand the depth of m y lose tho.  May 5th is going to be my mama's memorial/funeral services back home in the midwest. Mama lived in seattle with me the last months of her life .....  whereever I lived she lived with me....  the closer to the services and then mothers day the more anxiety I seem to have.... makes me just cry and cry.... I have to put together the rest of the services including a poster of pictures of mama and different people and jsut looking at the pictures makes me miss her so much, I miss her so much it physically ache...  I never imagined it would be this difficult.  I also need to write a ulogy and I can't seem to do it.... its like doing these things will make it more real... even tho I know she is gone.... after her services in my mind she will really be gone forever....

everyone tells me she is still with you, in spirit and in your heart... that may be true but I can't see her, I can't touch her, I cant feel her, I cna't touch her.  Its not the same as when she was here with me before she died.  How do I live 44 yrs and have her with me everyday of my life then booom she is gone.... what and how do I go on now? 

Erica - two months is not that long.  It is very okay to cry at any time in our grief process (I cried like crazy yesterday at my mom and dad's grave site - my mom's been gone seven years and my dad one year today), and I'm not going to apologize to anyone for it.  Two months is very very early in the grieving process, so please don't feel bad about doing what you need to do, which for you right now is cry.  I have an acquaintance who leads grief support meetings, so she's done a lot of clinical research.  She said that one body of research says that grief tears have a different chemical consistency than regular tears, so obviously God gave us tears as part of our grief, so we could clean out the grief hormones (adrenal glands more active, etc.) and toxins.  Besides, you lived how many ever years old you are now with this woman in your life, and now you have to learn a new way to live without her.  I still remember those first months and even years after I lost my mom - things I'd always done with her were horrible.  We did our shopping, banking, everything together, so to have to face doing those things alone was horrible.  And, it's been seven years and there are still restaurants I can't eat at and probably never will be able to eat at again, because I used to go there with her.  You have to live a new normal for you, but it sure doesn't seem normal.  I remember that feeling, and it is horrible.  God Bless You.

I think about the last couple months and how I have tried not to ever think about my mama cause I was at the point where I wanted nothing more than to just go be with her.  I wasnt able to sleep, eat and function.  I just wasn't able to go on like that.....  I started having dreams about my mama and her memorial/funeral services are coming up and I have had to take care of all the arrangements so it has brought ALL those feelings back and just not sure how to deal with them?  how does everyone get thru this? 

Linda, it will be too overwhelming to think of everything. It is so trite, but take it one hour at a time. That's the only way. I'm so sorry about what you are dealing with. This is the hardest thing I;ve ever gone through. Sounds like it is for you, too. Please hang in there.

Linda.  I have also been trying not to think about my mom, but it is virtually impossible.  I have the utmost respect for you to be able to prepare everything for her memorial/funeral services.  There is no way that I would be able to do that.   Every day I just want to curl up in a ball and cry.  It is so hard to function every day without her.  I try and try and try but every day gets harder and harder.   Stay strong.  That's what I am trying to do.