Posted by allisonm on August 19, 2000, at 20:01:41
In reply to Dealing with grief after loss of mother, posted by Dona on August 18, 2000, at 17:26:51
Hi Dona,
I feel badly about the rift between you and your sister. Grief affects people in different ways, I guess. It's sad, because you could have been supporting each other through this time instead of spending all of that energy being angry. I'm sorry you sister couldn't see that.I lost my mother suddenly two years ago. I have been on ADs and weekly psychotherapy for going on three years. I have dealt with a lot of the grief but it still is with me, as my doctor pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago. I had a bad reaction to something recently and was bothered by it. He immediately pointed it out as grief. I thought I was over it, but I guess I'm not. It's unpredictable and I find that extremely frustrating because I cannot control those emotions or their timing.
I don't have any siblings and had to deal with my mom's estate alone. I had some anger with some people -- the daughter of my mother's nosy neighbor, for instance, followed the ambulance to the hospital where my mom died. I live 3 hours away. She lied and told the nurses that she was a relative and they let her in the room to spend time with her immediately after her death. I never got to do that. I chose not to see her body when I got into town the next day as her body was in storage at the funeral home. It felt too late, as though it wouldn't be her anymore.
I have a lot of regrets around our relationship and her death. I lament not seeing her in the time between Father's Day and July 20 - the day she died. It's probably better that I didn't see her dead as it probably would be seared into my brain now. Still, photos don't feel like enough. I resent that Patty was able to say goodbye and will have that memory that I couldn't. My mom's watch disappeared, too. I don't know where it went, but I gave it to her and she always wore it and it wasn't on her body when the funeral home came.
I don't have any real answers. I just know that my anger has faded over time. It seems useless to let it eat me up. It only hurts me further. I cherish the good memories I have and I try to put aside the bad ones (and there are plenty of those because she was a chronic alcoholic).
I will say that I think it takes more than a year to get through the grief. I think one has to live a whole year through without a person before they really feel kind of OK. You have to go through all of the holidays and the birthdays. Even two years after her death, I get twinges of sadness. There even are some times still when someone refers to my mom being dead and I get this startled feeling inside -- like I'm surprised still to hear it and how could it be that she's dead? I don't know whether that ever will go away. I think that I think about my mother at some point every day still.
With sympathy,
allison
poster:allisonm
thread:60
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20000813/msgs/95.html