Yes I completely agree with Brett. We need to let go the guilt. 

Daylight, thanks for sharing your story. Gall Bladder cancer is a cancer from hell as it is deadly and hardly medical science can do anything when it is in stage 4. My mother had the same disease. Please do not feel guilty that you did not tell her because in my mother's case I was telling her everything and it did not help. Whenever there was a blood test and I can see the disease progressing I used to inform her and it used to create a sense of anxiety in my mother. She used to think why the treatment is not working and become disheartened. Doctor already that the treatment is palliative and not curative so there was not much hope. 
Please consider that she is still with you in all your lovely and painful moments so if you have more painful moments, she will not like it. 

I would like to add that it is difficult in the first few months and even years after the passing of our dear Mother's not to have many painful moments. They come and go and seem to have a life of their own. 

This comes from my own experience of grief I have suffered since Mom passed away Feb 14th 2017.

Bluebell

Agree bluebell. Daily when I return to home from office and see my father alone I feel horrible. He used to take care of mother all day and now he has nothing to do. 

I remember when I was a kid and stayed home from school with the flu or whatever. I would always try to squeeze as many days as I could out of it. I would always tell my mom that I was still sick, even after I was better.

I'm not lying now. 2 and 1/2 years later, I still feel terrible.

Same here Brett ...

The first time I recently talked to the ER doctor trying to understand what happened, he was patient and answered all my questions.  I contacted him again and said I had more questions after thinking about what he said.  This time he was very frustrated and short, he said it was because he could see he couldn’t convince me not to have guilt.  Easy for him to say, it’s not his Mom and he wasn’t the daughter taking care of her.  He said something so cold.  He asked how much longer I expected her to live.  She had gotten chemo a week before and then we went out and had a nice dinner.  We weren’t expecting not to leave the hospital!  

Worse than my worst nightmares

Suggesting counseling or a visit with the hospital bereavement Social Worker if they have one, would have been a much kinder response. I am sorry you had to go through that.

Bluebell

Well After my mother passed away everybody walked away left me standing there by myself with one nurse they were gone.  I was like what the heck 

They asked me if they were going to have to have me removed because I wasn’t leaving.  I should’ve made them

Cruel and unfeeling. They have become hardened to human feelings or are so uncomfortable, that they can not deal the families that have just lost their loved one.

If either of you have the resources and energy to advocate for support staff or trained volunteers to listen and be with families after they have lost a loved one, I say go for it! I do not have the self confidence to under take such a thing, (not an excuse, just the truth), but maybe one of you do.

Bluebell

Virginia, it's because your doctor is not emotionally attached that he can see something that is obvious. Just like me, you are bound and determined to punish yourself. The sadness of losing your mom is more than enough to bear. Please forgive yourself.

Virginia, plz forgive yourself. It is seriously heart wrenching to hear that you are going through all these. 

I have similar feelings and want to get answers to thousands of questions. But frankly speaking those answers may not help us anymore.

I was talking to my mom's sister last night. I was telling her that I wish we (I) could have done more. She told me that there was no more to do.

This I know for sure. People do not just die. They have to be very sick. Their bodies have to stop functioning. Virginia, that our moms died proves how sick they were. I want to tell you, with all of my heart, that of all of us I worry about you the most. I see so much of myself in you. And I was in a very dark place. I thought there was no life and no happiness without my mom. I thought that I no longer had a purpose. To be honest I just wanted to die.

I'm still not happy. I still don't have a purpose that I know of. Life is just not the same. When my mom died she took my world with her. The part that I loved anyway. I used to tell people that when my mom died she took me with her. That I died, too. But I was wrong about that. If I were dead I wouldn't feel anything, Believe me, I feel plenty. I'm still alive. All I can do is try to make the best out of what is left behind. To maybe help someone. To be a friend, To find happiness where I can. We will be with our moms again one day, but it will not happen on our time.

To feel fatalistic is dangerous. Jesus said that we cannot plow a straight line if we keep looking back. We have to look forward. We will never forget, but we have to look forward. It's the only way to find a light at the end of this tunnel. I have said this before. If you want to do something for your mom... live for her. Let's all do it together.

I realize that people are misdiagnosed every day. I realize that doctors and hospitals live in fear of being sued for wrongful death. People do it every day, and a lot of them prove that they were right and the doctors were wrong. But what do they gain by being right? We just can't have our moms back. We have to make peace with the reality of the situation. Well, we don't have to. But we should sure try. Otherwise we are pulled further down into an abyss. You don't want to go there. No one wants to go there.

Choose life. Find happiness where you can. For me that could be hugging my dog. It's starts with really simple things. Give life a chance. See where you are a year from now. I'm in a better place than I was. You will be, too. It starts with forgiving yourself.

Once again... let your love for your mom be your strength and not your downfall. Our moms deserve that.

Amazing words Brett. You mention that being happy is doing small things for your mom. 

I am buying a car tomorrow because my mother wanted me to buy. In India, car is still a luxury for many people and my mother never had it. So I am buying a car tomorrow just to fulfill her wish. I will post pics as well. 

As Brett mentioned, Virginia I can understand your pain because I was in similar situation. I also felt that life is over when my mom died but then I realized that if she can see me, she would love to see me living rather than dying. 

A couple of months ago I did a "Pay it forward" for a guy at the grocery store who had forgotten his wallet. He got choked up. That made me tear up. He asked me why I had done it. I told him it was in honor of my mom, that she used to do it all the time. He said, "Your mom planted a seed and look how it grew."

That's what we are. Our moms planted seeds. What we do now is up to us. What better way to honor our moms than to live a life that would make them proud.

Well I volunteer every Friday before work from 9am to 10am for "Adoration" at church, I sit in peace and pray with the Blessed Sacrament.

I do it for her and for Jesus he has helped me through this painful time in my life.

That's wonderful Avi, can't wait to see it.

Brett that was so kind of you to do.

Virginia they just don't care they move on the next. 

I wanted answers, but there was no one to ask.

At the time they were performing CPR on my mom, the dr was standing at the foot of the bed with me asking me questions, did your mom have diabetes, NO, did your mom have HBP, YES, and other questions that I just can't remember, after he asked me do you want me to continue this, and I said is she breathing he said no, I said painfully stop please, I looked up in the corner of the room and said MOM! they left the tube in her mouth and I was like please take it out but for some reason it had to remain in there for a certain amount of time and finally I got a nurse and said take it out NOW!!!!  My mom looked so at peace her face was lit up like she saw just what she wanted to see, she looked absolutely beautiful, unbelievable, even my husband commented on it, in which he never says anything of that sort.  Crying my heart out writing this, I will never forget that moment.,,

My mom had so many close calls. I was always afraid that her doctors would pull me aside and tell me something terrible. So many times my fear was unfounded. The doctor would say something like, "We are going to admit her and keep an eye on her but she should be able to go home in a couple of days." Hearing that was like winning the lottery. A doctor can also break your heart. As a defense mechanism I was always trying to think positively. I was always trying to convince myself that mom would live for a long time, but the outcome was always obvious. If you push a doctor enough he may break your heart. I never wanted to hear about "one day." The last few times my mom went to the hospital the doctors were more frank with me. They had no emotional attachment. They did not look at my moms predicament through rose colored glasses.

I particularly disliked my mom's Hospice doctor. And I have to say that I do not envy the job she had to do. Seeing that woman was like talking to death itself. All of that happened so quickly. Basically she just walked into my mom's hospital room, gave her a six week window, and told mom that she wanted to introduce morphine. I knew that mom was going to die but hearing it so bluntly was like being run over by a truck. My mom did not like her at all. My mom asked her what the treatment plan would be. The Hospice doctor looked at her stone faced and told her that there wasn't one. I can say pretty easily that I never want to see that woman again, but I also realize that she was just being honest and explaining the reality of the situation. I felt very guilty about making the decision to put mom on Hospice. And after meeting her, my mom looked at me like, "Is this the doctor you chose for me?" It was so hard. My mom did not want to keep going to the hospital. She was worn out. Her body had had enough. I was abiding by my mom's wishes but her wishes also forced both of us to deal with the reality of the situation.

Doctors do move on to the next. Unfortunately there is no next for us.

Brett you brought tears to me with below statement.

Doctors move on to next but there is no next for us.

Our Hospice doctor does not come to the hospital. After the patient and family have been spoken to by the hospital MD about how Hospice would be an appropriate choice, a hospice nurse does an explanation of what hospice is and what we can provide. If they decide that is what they want, the consents are signed. After a few days, our Hospice Doctor comes to where ever the hospice patient is, such as their home or a Assisted Living facility. He speaks with the patient if they are alert, or talks to the family. He is direct, honest and informative, but also very considerate of how hard the current situation is for them. Then it is up to the Hospice RN to set how many visits per week is needed by a skilled nurse, how many visits per week for the CHHA for bathing, and what further medical equipment is needed. We also have a Medical Social Worker who comes once a month and a Chaplain more frequently, providing they want a Chaplain. We also assign a volunteer for social visits if it is appropriate and the patient/family wants that. We have a triage nurse on call after hours, and if she can not help over the phone, she sends the on call LVN out. Our orders for medications comes from the doctor, but it is up to us, the nurse, to make the assessment and call the Hospice doctor with our recommendations or just plain out ask the MD what can be done to help alleviate an uncomfortable symptom. The comfort medications are already with the patient, such as oral Morphine, an anti anxiety medication and a couple of others. We, the nurses decide through experience, what medication will help. No medication is ever given to the patient without them or their family being informed as to what it is and what it is for. If they refuse, then it is not given. Usually we keep the patient on the same medications they were on before they came on Hospice unless that is impossible because they can not swallow, or the patient or family wants comfort medications only.

Bluebell

For a lot of people this is where reality truly sets in. My mom and I knew what Hospice was. For us there was a transition. My mom's impending death went from "one day" to a very near reality. It can be difficult to wave the white flag. In an instant we went from calling 911 on a minutes notice to letting death take its natural course. Letting go can be traumatic. Giving up control is hard. I would have taken a bullet for my mom but I had to kind of step aside and let the inevitable happen. That doesn't mean that I stopped fighting. I wore that Bi-Pap machine out trying to keep Co2 off of her. I just understood that I was trying to hold back a tidal wave with an umbrella.

Mom had to let go, too. She didn't want morphine at first. Hospice was sort of like settling in to go to sleep. I know it was scary for her. Years of fighting were now coming to an end. She had to let me go as well. That's hard for a mom. There was no more that she could do for me. And all I could do for her was to try and keep her comfortable.

It's hard to say what the human brain experiences in a time like this. I imagine there were times when mom and I both were in fight or flight mode and we weren't even aware of it.

I'm glad that mom and I made that choice. I initialized Hospice Care, but mom had the final say so. I would have been happy if mom had decided to go on fighting, but I also realize that would not have guaranteed more time. If it had, it wouldn't have guaranteed much. Mom's quality of life was becoming almost non-existent. She deserved what peace could be given to her.

Hi All

Good morning from India. 

My mother unfulfilled wish of having our own car is completed.

Bought a car yesterday, small one but my first car. She is not with me but she will be really happy. Also incidently I got the cherry color which is her fav color so I feel her blessings.

Will upload pic soon

Brett I bought a second hand car from a trusted showroom.

Earlier I used to commute via two wheeler and using public transport. I belong to a middle class family and my mother never had privilege to travel in her own car and unfortunately I kelt on delaying it. That is what time teaches you.

I wish she was physically present here on earth to travel in her own car. 

Theresa,

I can’t believe they were asking you those questions while doing cpr!  Heartless!  I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

Avi,

congratulations on your car and glad you got your mother’s favorite color. 

Brett,

  I don’t understand how you could have guilt.  It sounds as though you did everything right.  I keep saying I could write a book of my mistakes and add something I remember everyday.  The reason I can’t forgive myself is because I did so many things wrong and they were big things.  Things that may have ruined her chances of getting better.  I quit my job and had the most important job, to take care of her.  She gave me life and took care of me my whole life, only for me to fail her when she needed me.  But what do I do with this guilt?  How do I punish myself?  

I saw my therapist today.  I was telling her most of the time I am feeling strange, like I don’t have emotion.  Then I get upset about it.  Do I forget my memories?  Do I not care about my Mom?  She said it’s the “numbness” I keep reading about, that especially happens in the first year.  I can be crying one minute then numb the next.  I hate it all.  I just want her back. 

Virginia, I never, ever want to give anyone the impression that I did everything right. And I got way too much praise through mom's illness and after her death. I knew better. They were right about one thing. I sure loved my mom. I could have been a better caretaker though. First on my list is sleep. I'm a night owl. I always have been. Mom rarely slept past six in the morning. Even when she was on Hospice I tried to transition her to my schedule. I slept very close to my mom's hospital bed, but I would wake up when I woke up. Mom, being who she was would have wanted me to get some rest. I imagine there were plenty of times when she would wake up but wouldn't wake me. She may have been thirsty, hungry, and I know she wanted that Bi-Pap off of her. But she never woke me up. I should have adjusted to her time. I knew that mom would call me if she needed me. That's why I slept so close to her, but my mom would not have wanted to be a bother. She always waited patiently for me. I sure wish I had that time back. My mom waiting for me. What a dream come true. To know that I could wake up and see my mom.

The hospital. My mom spent a lot of time in the hospital. I visited her every day and every night, but I have to admit that the hospital just bored the crap out of me. Mom did everything she could to try to make it more fun for me. She would hand me her television remote (like it was about me). Being a mom, she would even try to give me her food. If it looked good I guess she thought that I might want it. I never took it. I actually looked forward to when they would put mom to bed because it meant that I could go home. I took my mom for granted because I had always had her. I lived in fear of the day that I would lose her, but I still had many selfish moments.

Years ago I was knocked down the street by a car. I was walking my dog and a car hit me from behind. For weeks my mom was my caretaker. She was there when I woke up and she was there when I went to sleep. Now there was a caretaker. I didn't match up.

I have lots of reasons to feel guilty and I do, but I also know that I loved/love my mom more than I have ever loved anyone. And I know that punishing myself with guilt is not what my mom would have wanted. In her eyes I was doing the best that I could do. And Lord knows, mom knew how much I loved her.

Here's the reality of the situation. Even if I could have mom back and do it all over again, I would still have selfish moments. We are all very human.

"I quit my job and had the most important job, to take care of her.  She gave me life and took care of me my whole life, only for me to fail her when she needed me.  But what do I do with this guilt?  How do I punish myself?'

Virginia,

Quitting your job to take of your Mom was a very selfless thing to do.Remember that when you are getting down on yourself.

In my opinion,  guilt has a life of it's own and a timeline of it's own. My suggestion is to just let the thoughts come, but let them pass through you. Do not analyze them or dissect your feelings of guilt. It will lessen with time. You did nothing wrong. You did what you thought was right with the knowledge that you had. You did not know that your Mom was going to die on the day that she did. With her disease, life is fragile and unpredictable.

Your guilt is unfounded and intensified by your grief over the loss of your Mom because it is so horribly fresh. There is no need to punish yourself. It was your Mom's time and there was nothing you could have done about that. God called her home and she went to be in his house. You will see her again when it is time. 

There is no need to hurry that time up. Your Mom loves you and wants you to live, have children if you want to, get married if you find the right person and be a success.

Being successful in life has a different meaning for everyone. You have to decide what it is for you. Maybe right now it just means that you get up in the morning, brush your teeth, get dressed and eat breakfast. Maybe it means that you are still breathing and are putting one foot in front of the other to go sit on the couch. Maybe it is keeping busy, working, and taking care of what is most important to you. It is whatever is right for you now. 

You are not going to get the answers to what you want from the hospital doctor or your Mom's doctor. They are on a different plane than you are. I think therapy is a good choice and I hope you find one that you can develop a trust with and who also gives you comfort. A therapist's office should feel like a safe place to go and be whatever you are on that particular day, because right now your emotions and thoughts are going to be all over the place.

Hugs,

Bluebell

Great words Bluebell.

I did not even leave my job as you and Virginia did so I have more reasons to feel guilty. I did not even tall to her enough before her illness.

But as Bluebell said guilt has life of its own. 

This is a link of me speaking at my sister's husband's Celebration of Life party. I hope it opens for you.

Bluebell 

https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcvws.icloud-cont...

If we each go every detail of our lives with our mothers, each one of us will find ample reason to feel guilty. But what would be the point? None of us would be on this site if we didn't love and miss our mom's with all of our hearts.

Virginia, there is one thing that I hope you will understand. I am not a doctor but I am a Nutritionist and I have a good understanding of what depression is. There was a time, about a year after my mom died, that I was in a very dark place. I wanted to die. I just wanted to die. I would never hurt myself, and in a way that only increased my depression. There I was wanting to be dead, yet knowing that I probably had a long life in front of me. That's no way to live. I went to see a therapist. That didn't work for me. I went to see a psychiatrist. That helped greatly for the simple reason that she could prescribe medication that would correct the chemical imbalance that I had. Please understand what this means. When you are suffering from depression, seratonin is reabsorbed into your brain without utilizing it. I have a friend who committed suicide. He had been addicted to meth and his brain could no longer make dopamine, another feel good hormone. It was physically impossible for him  to be happy. His doctors were trying everything possible to correct this imbalance, but he was so far down in the dumps, at such a loss for hope, that he rarely took his medication. He did not give himself a chance to live. He shot himself in his mother's front yard. He never would have done that if he had been well. Now his mom has to live with the visual of seeing her son's dead body, bleeding on her driveway. His brother had to scrub the blood off of his brother off of the driveway.

I'm not mad at him for what he did. He didn't know better. He was in an incredibly dark place. His rationale was the he would be better off dead. You couldn't convince him otherwise. You certainly couldn't convince him in the frame of mind that he was in.

Depression is a disease. What starts out as grief can become full blown Major Depressive Disorder. When that happens, the person who is experiencing it is at an unfair disadvantage. Their greatest advocate (themselves) only sees darkness, a lack of hope.

What you are experiencing right now defies reason. You are determined to blame yourself for just about anything that has to do with your mother's death. What should be happy memories just cause pain instead. We start thinking that we can only be happy if we are with our moms. We know that we will not see them again in this life, and the pain of that is too much to bear. And we don't have the patience to wait around for 30 or 40 years, living in misery.

I'm not saying that you would hurt yourself. Only you know that answer to that question. I do know that you are living with tremendous grief, and that is no way to live. You don't have to live that way. Just taking an anti-depressant opened my eyes. It gave me the tools to fight back against the grief. It's not a cure all, but just giving your brain the chemicals it needs to feel like a regular person can start to lift the clouds of despair. Therapy can be an important tool as well.

I just want you to give yourself a fighting chance to be happy. I wouldn't tell you these things if I didn't care. Believe me... I care. I wish I could just hug the snot out of you and be your best friend when you need one, but sometimes we need even more help.

It's natural that we feel great sadness after losing our moms, but the guilt that we heap upon ourselves is is just a self inflicted punishment that we heap on ourselves. It's almost as if we feel like we don't have the right to be happy again. And what's so odd about that is that, as a people who love their moms so much that we are on a grief forum, we are not honoring their wishes for us. That we go on. That we live happy lives, even without them. 

That is so hard to do. My mom would tell me that she wanted me to be happy after she was gone. I would say, "Mom, how happy would you be if I were the one who was dying?" She couldn't answer that question. Who knows? Maybe if I had been the one who had died, my mom would have been even more sad than I am right now. I would not want that for her. I couldn't be happy knowing that my mom was so sad. I also know that my mom had no reason to beat herself up. She loved me. She told me. She showed me. I would have left this world knowing that I had a wonderful mom. And I know that our mom's left this world knowing that their children loved them with all their hearts.

We should let that be enough. I hope and pray that we will.

This is what I know about you, Virginia. You love your mom. That is also what I know about Avi, Theresa, Bluebell, Crystal, Daylight, Joy, and everyone else who has contributed to this thread. If anything rings true, it's that. We are a collection of wounded people who love their moms with all of our hearts. I honestly do not think there is a place for guilt in all of that love. 

Brett, amazing words. It helped me a lot. 

Bluebell, saw your video and felt amazing. It is great that you have such celebration of life. It is not very common in India. 

Avi,

I was really scared to get up there, but I am glad I did. Not everyone here has this type of Celebration of Life. But my sister's husband was very involved in the well being of his neighborhood and also loved a good get together at his home and a block party with the neighbors. So did my sister. He would have loved it. I like to think he was watching and was as present there as much he was allowed to be.

Bluebell

The blond women I was hugging afterwards was my sister.

Bluebell

Bluebell, it was nice to put a face to a name. I always have these pre conceived notions of what I think people will look like. With you, it's the name, I saw you as having blue hair and cat glasses. I was wrong on this one. 

"I saw you as having blue hair and cat glasses."

Hahahaha! That is so funny! I chose the name Bluebell for this group because I like flowers.

 I can honestly say the hair color in the video is mine and does not come from a bottle. My sister, on the other hand, was born a blonde. She inherited the gene for it from a relative on my Mom's side. My parents both had dark hair as do my 3 brothers.

Take care Brett.

Blue haired Bluebell with cat glasses. Hahahaha ;)

That's wonderful Bluebell, don't worry he was watching..

Brett that was a good one!

Sometimes I wonder how come every night when I drive home from work I cry and say mom  I sure hope you can hear me, I tell her I don't know if I can wait to see her again to get the one answer I need, why did you go in cardiac arrest? What happened?  

My mind makes up many reasons, a blockage, a rupture of her Aortic Aneurysm, her blood pressure, a massive heart attack,  they are the only ones I can even think of, but then sometimes I say I bet it was something else.......

The question is like a dark cloud in my mind that hangs around.  I just wanted to grant one request to my 70 year old brother not to do an autopsy because he says it was "just mom's time".  Ugh what, but I live with that question in my mind what was it?

How bad is this when I was pulling in the hospital, and they called me to say your mom is in full cardiac arrest do you want us to do CPR, I was like of course yes, but my mind went blank thinking she had a mild heart attack, not that her heart stopped, it was like my mind was saying what, cardiac arrest what is that, it was like I was coming out of my body and there was two of me one couldn't move the other had to get by the people that were trying to keep me from getting her bedside, I sat down with some lady on a couch in a room for one minute I called my brother and then got up threw the phone at her and said I need to get to my mom and I pushed by her and ran straight and how I got to the right bed is unknown to me, I was looking at her like come on mom wake up they are doing cpr why aren't you breathing?, from that point on it was all downhill...I was numb...

This is what I think about every day, and at night when I get in bed I cry and say I'm ok mom.

I still get horrified when I remember the last few moments of my mother in ICU. I was literally numb and could not do much other than let the doctors go their best. I guess panic does not produce the best out of us. 

Tears are in my eyes for both of you Avi and Theresa. I just cannot even imagine how intense the panic and maybe fear must have been.

Today would have been my Mom's 100th birthday. I wish she was here so we could celebrate it with her. I and my Mom were blessed that she lived to the age of 98, I know that. But I still miss her just the same. 

Though she had her health problems at age 98, she still had her wits and was able to walk with a walker. She was able to get in and out of the car to be taken out to lunch or what ever else she wanted to do, such as get her hair done every week.

Happy Birthday Mom. I love and miss you.

PS: I still laugh at Brett's description of me :)

Happy Birthday Aunty Ji (bluebell's mother)

Happy birthday Bluebells mom!  Bluebell my moms birthday is this month also on the 29th she would’ve been 95 she drove went to church every day and had more energy than I ever will.  I hope God is resting her soul And all the souls  of our deceased loved ones for everyone here

Thank you Avi. You were so close to her real name which was Janice.

Blue haired Bluebell

Theresa

God is resting their souls.

Bluebell

Theresa, you were in shock when you saw your mom. The blood vessels in your brain contract and you do not get adequate blood and oxygen. You experienced a trauma. You witnessed something horrible. You have created a pattern now when you drive home. After a busy day you finally have time to let your mind focus just on your mom. Also, I believe that your time in the car is a trigger because that was when you used to call your mom. I know it's hard. The only comfort I can possibly offer you is just to tell you that your mom is at peace now. Maybe one day your drive home will bring happy thoughts about your mom. I sure hope so.

Bluebell, I wish your mom a wonderful day in heaven. And I hope that today will bring happy memories of her.

Thanks so much Brett.  :)

Theresa, I wish I could do more. We all have different stories. We can tell each other not to feel guilty about so many things, but I realize that you cannot un-see what you saw, and I realize that just the timing of your mom's death was beyond unfortunate. There was no way that you could have known.

Something else that I thought about today... I wish so much that my mom had lived as long as Bluebell's. If she had lived that long, I would have had her for 17 more years. What a dream come true that would be, but I also realize that is of no comfort to Bluebell. Once you lose your mom, she is gone. There is no easy way out of this. We all have scars.

I guess if my mom had died when I was 80 or above, I could at least think to myself "Well, I'll be along directly." I wasn't that fortunate. I don't know how much longer I have on this earth. It could be a long time. And it's a shame that makes me as sad as it does. My mom was my partner and my constant companion. I just don't know where to go from here.

Yesterday night was not great for me. I was thinking that my mom went early, she was only 66 when she died. I also cried in the morning after almost 4-5 days. Sometimes you just want do anything other than feeling grief. Day has just started and I hope it goes well. 

I hope it goes well, too, Avi. I still have a long way to go but I can tell you that crying is good. At least it was for me. It's a release and also an expression of love. I think I feel closer to my mom when I cry. Even if not closer to her physically, I feel closer to her memory.