Jay,

There is nothing to prepare you for the kind of pain you feel when someone you loved dearly leaves you behind.  We do not understand how this could be.  How can they no longer be here with us?  And where did they go? 

Then your brain kicks into overdrive and since it can give you no answers for your questions the feelings take over and erupt in all sorts of ways.  You cry, over and over.  You lose sleep because your body chemistry is overrun with an abundance of cortisol.  You either eat too much or have no appetite at all.  You want to talk about it but when you do you start crying again and then the brain synapses start shorting out.  You forget words.  Believe it or not this is all normal.  It is the brain beginning a process of rewiring.  Learning again how to walk, talk and act because you live and you are missing the person that was a large part of your everyday living.  

Or at least that and much more happened to me when I lost my husband of 35 years.  Thing is, there is nothing you can do but take tiny baby steps.  You do whatever you can on each day that you wake up.  

If your father is still alive he will be having a time of it too.  Try to be gentle with each other.  

I have found my biggest issue is I have always gotten answers for whatever I wanted to learn throughout my 63 years.  I now cannot get one answer for death.  There are none.  Nothing is known for sure.  So you either go on faith, physics, coping systems that are available or a combo of  these or whatever else works.  It is very difficult so try to give yourself lots of room.  Don't expect too much of yourself in the early days but if I am guessing right you have lots of years left.  I don't need to tell you what your mom would want to see you do.  You know that.  So go towards those goals you would have set if she were still here and share them with her by talking to her in the privacy of your home.  She'll be listening.