Monica thank you so much, I say the Divine Mercy Chaplet each night.

My faith has given me strength, somehow.

God Bless you also.

I like the idea of planting the White rose bush to give you a place to sit and talk with your mom.What a wonderful idea. My Mom was buried at a family cemetery so I do have a place to go and visit with her but its a bit of a distance from my house. I think I might borrow your idea and plant something this Spring in my yard as a memorial to my Mom. There is no easy way to get through our days without our Moms but I want to say thank you to everyone who shares their pain and grief and stories of your Moms. It helps me more than anything I've found so far because its a place where we all can bare our souls and our worst pain. It's something I can't put into words when I talk to friends and family about my Mom. I wear my Mom's jewelry to feel closer to her and she and I wore the same size in shirts so most of her clothes I now have and wear. It helps some to feel closer to her but nothing takes away the pain that sometimes hits me hard when I don't even see it coming. I want her back so bad. I want to have more memories with her but the ones I have are all I have. That is a hard reality to swallow.  

Helen I won't wish there was words to send your way..You are the only one that lived your relationship with you mom. Too me there is good in everyone...I was raised to believe that God doesn't make junk. I have imbedded that in my grown children and my grandkids. As a person I know there are no perfect people, we are all flawed in some way...your mom in my opinion was counted here on Earth and most definitely in the afterlife...you are a product of your mom...because of your mom you are alive...and sharing your broken heart in my opinion is part of your mom's will...maybe without even realizing it she gave you the courage that you display here for all of us to see and read...since my mom passed I see the good in everything now...she gave me so much love that I give it freely now...I struggle with this because maybe I should have been doing this all along because my mom wanted us to...the hardest thought I live with now is that on my own alone without my mom I had no choice but to accept that it is my life to live and I must live it. I never had suicidal thoughts ever..I have had them since losing my mom..however temporary those thoughts are...I would never kill myself and at this point in my life it is due to the power of my mom's being on this Earth...she did good things even though I am sure she had regrets for somethings she may have done wrong..she told me so...I know that counseling would never help me..but reading your comments it may be actually helping you because you are so honest and open about your feelings. I believe in so much today...possibly because I need to believe my mom is somewhere so great that she wouldn't come back given a choice...it gets me through my day..in order for me to get through one day at a time I just look for the goodness in her even if she didn't have any goodness as my mom I think I would still look for it and only that. I feel so sad for all of us...I do wish I could give you comfort...you are probably the best thing your mom ever did...these are things I want for all of to feel and believe...

I just read my last comment...I didn't mean to write "won't wish' I meant to say I wish I had...sorry if I offended anyone...

Thank you Helen for your insight on wearing my moms clothes. Sometimes it helps me feel closer to Mom and others times it makes me painfully aware that her things and my memories are all I have left. I keep her spirit alive by talking to her throughout my day and knowing that I can feel her presence. If there is any way possible that she can look over me from Heaven, I know that she is because my Mom has done that her entire life for me and my siblings. I just miss her so much and it is such an empty feeling to not be able to call her the minute I think about her and want to. Such a huge void. 

I think I just go through my days trying to make time go by.

I am glad I found this site to see I am not alone.

Joanna, Glad you were able to comment today and more glad that you found some comfort in your Mom's things. I always do. 

I'm missing my mom a lot this week. It's been two months and two days since she died. It still tears me up to even write those words. Mom knew me better than anyone and knew how to to always support me and lift me up. I am who I am because of her and how much she poured out her love. Some days I get busy doing things and then for a second I think to myself, call mom and tell her about your day. Then reality slaps me in the face again. This happens so many times during the course of the day. I'm dreading Mother's Day in a few weeks. I can't turn on the radio or tv without hearing commercials about not forgetting your mom on Mother's Day. I don't know how anyone could forget their mom anyway but its difficult hearing those and seeing the signs in stores right now. I'm trying to plan ahead with my sister some things to do on Mother's Day so we don't go through this first one aimlessly and a mess, although I think we will anyway. We plan to go to mom and dads and have a cookout with dad and my brother whose coming in from out of state. It will be a hard day for sure. My mom was my anchor. She gave me what I need to finish the days, weeks, months and years of my life and I know I will because I have too. I carry her with me everywhere I go. I miss her so much. Thank you all for listening and for sharing your own stories. They help me cope on days that hardest.  

Lisa,

The first of everything is so hard, especially Mother's Day. I dread hearing all those ads too. My mom passed Oct. 14. of 2014. My first Mother's Day without her we planted a lemon tree in her honor (she loved her lemon trees) and we all wrote messages attached to helium balloons(big hit with the kids) and let them go. We also made one of her dishes she loved. I think it helped me to have a plan on how to honor her on that day. 

I still have moments all the time where I feel the need to call her (forgetting for a moment she has passed) and tell her something. We have been doing it our whole lives. 

Jill,

Thank you for your suggestions and sharing how you got through it. I think I just might adopt a few of those ideas. I like the balloon idea especially for the kids. thanks so much. Everyone on here says it doesn't really get any easier but somehow we just learn to live without them. It just really takes a toll on ya. 

Joanna,

I find that when I am most busy doing my normal work thing, carting my son off to soccer and taking care of things for my dad that I too don't get emotional and cry as much. But, at the end of the day when I finally get to slow down is when it hits me that Mom is not here anymore and I can't talk to her about my busy day and tell her everything that happened. I don't think there is any rule book that says how much or how little we cry and grieve that is normal. We all have to find our way through this horrible time in our lives in our own way. Whatever helps you the most, is what you do and its ok. I am glad you got your moms contact and web page back on your phone. I would have been infuriated at that. I held in or was just numb to moms passing during the first few weeks because of all the things I had to get done to make arrangements for her funeral and to take care of legal things after the fact. I cried a lot but I actually feel the loss much deeper now and it's been a little over two months. It sets in that this is a permanent thing and not just a thing that just happened. It hurts bad and there's no cure. There's no way to fix it. That is the hardest part for me. I have always found a way to make things better in my life in any situation. But this one I am powerless over. 

Mother's Day coming next week, what makes it even harder is that I used to go every Sunday to my moms.

Some days I feel so sad and I try to remember the good times, but sometimes I just can't hold back the tears. 

It feels so strange not talking to her every day, or the last time I heard her voice. I have saved her voicemails, but I am afraid to listen to them.

The last words she said to me were you know which hospital right, I said yes mom Bryn Mawr, she said ok let me hangup I'm getting a pain in my shoulder, that was at 7:40am and by 8:40am, with me standing there in the hospital looking at her as they were doing chest compressions the dr asked me a bunch of questions like does she have diabetes, no, did you know she has a clogged artery in her leg I said yes, then he said does she have an aneurysm and I said yes an aortic he said do you want to continue doing this and I said is she breathing he said no, then he stated time of death 8:40.

She was not sick, her heart just stopped, her doctor said it was hypertension as the secondary cause, primary cardiac arrest.

I miss her, I hope this gets better for me.

I apologize if I already said this story before, I just feel better saying it  to people that will listen, my husband is not much on this kind of stuff.

Oh Theresa, I'm so sorry.  I know that pain.  I left the hospital at 10:30pm talked to my Mom at 11:15pm when I got home.. said I loved her, hung up, and at 11:45pm my brother called and said the hospital called and my Mom had had a stroke.  How in that little time did all of this happen :(  She never recovered and we lost her a week later.

I'm so sorry about the pain of your Mom, I know it too well.  It's okay to repeat your story, I guess it's how we heal.  It's impossible to hold all this pain in.  

Hugs

I lost my family as well as my Mom.  Soon after my Mom passed my oldest brother turned his ugly horns on me.  I've given up trying to find the underlying cause.  Soon after my sister decided to not help in going through my Mom's things... cleaning out her house etc.  I merely texted her and said 'it's not fair that I'm doing this alone'.  She didn't like that and has since quit talking to me.  I have one brother who is decent.  I cry that my Mom would be so sad as to what has become of her 4 kids, but I've done my best.. and I can't fix it.  Some days I just cry so hard for all that I have lost :(   I miss my Mom so much. It's going on 19 months :(

Jane

My gosh not a good situation, but you've managed to get through 19 months.   We just have to keep living our lives.

I am sure that when my time comes to go home, my mom will be waiting for me.

I also miss my mom so much, its going on 5 months......

December will not be a good month for me, on the 14th my dad passed, on the 19th mom and the 24th my grandmom. 

I feel for all of you on here. I lost my mom six years ago, and the pain is still with me. Since then I have pretty much lost all the family I had left, both my mother and father in law, my Dad. Now my best friend is dying of cancer, and even my dog needs to be put to sleep, if I can get the strength to go do that. I feel like overnight I went from having a fsmily and friends to virtually no one.

Hi Rhonda,

Last year was my first Mother's Day without my mom. I planned a few things that day that helped me get through the day. My mom loved lemons and lemon trees. So we planted a lemon tree in her honor. We also cooked one of her favorite meals that she loved to make us growing up. We also got helium balloons and we wrote messages to her. 

This year I plan on doing the same...I think I am going to get an angel for my garden. I have a spot in my yard that has some of her plants. 

It is a hard holiday to endure. I will pray for everyone here. 

It occurred to me yesterday that I will never again have the chance to make memories with my Mom. All the memories I have with her is all I am ever going to have. That was a hard reality. My Mom loved me in a way that I can only compare as being as close as the love of God will ever be. She poured out love and tenderness to me and my brothers and sister. My Dad is so completely lost that his grief has made him rude and hateful most of the time. He had a lot of this before Mom passed but now, we just want to be able to call him and get that same kind of acceptance and unending love that Mom gave always and he tries but its just not the same. He would do anything for us kids but he does it complaining and that's hard to handle. We want to help him and just be with him but its hard. I guess I am looking for something that just won't ever be again in my life. Its that complete and utter acceptance from Mom. 

Rhonda; this will be my first Mother's Day without Mom. I will be in church (most likely crying) just like Mom and I always was before on Sunday mornings. Then, I'm going to her house to have a cookout with my dad and brother and sister and plan to plant an azalea bush in her honor. I will also be visiting her grave site at the cemetery and I hope to install the garden bench by her grave that she requested in a letter to me about her wishes if she ever passed. Last weekend, I laid a cement foundation for the bench and the bench itself is laying in my living room floor. I feel like it's one of the last things I can do for her. She wrote that she wanted a bench at her grave site so that her kids could sit and tell her about our lives. So, that's what I am going to do. That evening, I am going out to eat with my husband and his mother though I don't feel much like celebrating. I'm feeling a little guilty already about that and the fact that I am not traveling to my kids's dad's to pick them up as I always do. It's 3 hours away and usually I get them on Friday and take them back on Sunday.  This year I'm just not going to travel on Mother's Day. I'm hoping that my teenage kids understand that. I don't know if they do. 

First thing on my mind when I wake up is my mom, and my sadness.  At night the last thing on my mind is my mom.

My mothers death has changed me, I hate my job and I am annoyed by everyone.

I pray for strength and calmness

I feel heartbroken all the time I try to keep busy, but I have to stop sometime.

My blood pressure is high, which it never has been.

I am trying really hard to process that I do not have my mom here on this earth any longer.

I am sure God has prepared a beautiful place for her, but I miss her so..especially because I never go to say goodbye to her.

David

You don't know how lucky you are that you got to have those last few moments, and most of all you told her you loved her.......

So yesterday was five months for my mom, it was a difficult day, well everyday is difficult. 

Hope everyone is doing ok...

Monica you said it exactly go to bed thinking about her and wake up thinking about her.

I am just trying to do what she has said to me many times, you have to live your life......

I lost my Mom two months ago and I don't think time healed anything.  I've gone from a numb feeling to profound grief.  My Mom was 91 and I am 52 so I guess I should have moved on and started my life long before my Mom passed.  But my Mom was my friend.  I was the youngest and I think we shared that special bond.  We talked about everything, not just the normal mom-son talk.  She told me her worries and fears and confided in me with thoughts she never talked to my siblings about.  My Mom's mind was sharp as if she was 18 but her body was failing her.  She had difficulty walking and eventually required constant care.  My siblings and I worked with our schedules and ensured my Mom had someone with her at all times while at the home she loved.  She was prone to UTI's and had been hospitalized a few times in the past for them.  She wasn't feeling quite right two months ago so we took her to the hospital.  As expected, she had a UTI and was under treatment.  I figured this would just be another week in the hospital and then she would be released but I was wrong.  Somehow she had aspirated food into her lungs and developed pneumonia.  They had to take her to the ICU ward where they had to put her on a ventilator.  The critical care doctor gathered all of us outside her room and went down a list of probable things that could happen to my Mom and the scary future we would be facing from this point on.  I got the impression that they gave up.  The doctor kept saying that she was 91 and seemed almost angry that we didn't see the facts in front of us.  Yeah, my Mom was 91 but she's not a text book.  She's a person that gave me life and here was this doctor telling us to give up.  My siblings decided and I guess I eventually decided not to put her through all of the horrors previously discussed.  The doctor estimated she would last about an hour off of the ventilator.  They removed the device and we gathered around the bed.  The hour of life the doctor estimated estimated came and went.  All of my Mom's vitals were normal.  We all started to talk among ourselves when my Mom woke up!  She wasn't able to talk but she was focused and seemed to recognized all of us.  She moved her mouth a few times as if she was talking but we couldn't hear a sound.  She drifted off to sleep about an hour later and we decided to leave her for the night.  The next morning my sister called me and said my Mom wasn't doing very well.  I rushed over to the hospital but my Mom was gone.  I wasn't there to say good bye.  I stayed with my Mom and talked to her, hoping she was hearing my words.  The next few days were a blur to me.  Family members arriving, schedules to be made, and just over all a frantic mess.  And then it was all over.  My Mom was gone and everybody went on with their lives.  I'm trying but I lost half of my life two months ago.  I don't find joy in anything.  I'm a robot that goes to work and then back to home every day.  My Mom taught me everything I ever needed to succeed in life but she didn't teach me how to live without her.  Now I am lost.

Three months, seems like three years ago that I lost my mom. Its so hard to know how to live in the world where she is not. Mom was such a huge part of my every day life. She was my rock, my best friend and my biggest supporter. I miss her so much. Sometimes I don't know how to just be. be without her. Even in her death, I want to share that with her too. I always went to her for guidance in life and support. Mom will always be in my heart. I carry her still, everywhere I go. I think I will always talk to her as though she's right beside me. Some may think that's strange but I know those on this site completely understand. Thank you all for listening and sharing your stories too. Heartache has no end when you've lost your mom but I am glad to have all of you to comfort me.