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Losing Mum

1
It’s been a while since I wrote. I’ve been wanting to and I’ve tried a few times and then I’ve stopped. However, lately, the urge to write has become quite annoying like a nagging toothache that just won’t go away no matter how I try to ignore it. I’m searching, to share my experience, find others who have felt this way and survived. I’m learning to find my new identity, what it feels like to be me. The before version of myself no longer exists and now I’ve been metaphorically pushed into the next phase of my life, I’m trying to get a footing
SelfishMother.com
2
and walk again in these new slightly heavier shoes. I think that’s the primary reason I started to blog, to share my experience and find comfort and release in connecting with others.

To be honest I don’t even know what I’m wanting to write. Words don’t have the same meaning anymore and I struggle to make sense of how I’m feeling. 12 weeks ago my world was ripped apart and my heart was broken when my Mum died suddenly and unexpectedly in front of me following 24 hours of illness. She was there, present, alive, breathing and then she wasn’t. She

SelfishMother.com
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was my Mum, my bestest friend, the centre of our family. She was woven into the fabric of my daily life, we text, spoke and saw each other all the time. And then she disappeared. That’s the thing with sudden death. It’s sudden. You don’t see it coming and then on a Thursday when you’re getting dressed as normal, unbeknownst to you in two hours time your Mum is going to die and they’ll be nothing you can do about it.

I’m writing now to reach out. To anyone, anywhere who has lost their anchor too. I’m 36, I have three beautiful children aged 5, 2

SelfishMother.com
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and 6 months, this shouldn’t have happened to me. I wasn’t ready. My children weren’t ready. We had so much more to share and rejoice in and now I have to learn to do all that without my Mum. I feel like a child again in many ways, I needed her guidance and that reassuring hand to help me in the only way your Mum can.

Grief is nothing what I imagined it to be. Not that we like to think about losing someone close to us but I thought I would just cry. And then stop for a bit and cry again. I thought normal life would cease to exist and I would just

SelfishMother.com
5
crumble. For me, in the initial days and first weeks I cried a lot. We hibernated and clung to each other. As time has continued to pass which it weirdly and continually does, each day brings new levels of emotions that I never knew existed or could even start to describe. Some days I cry and sob and yearn to pull the pain out of my body and the next day I’ll function and laugh and gain strength from the memory of my Mum, the pragmatist, ever strong and matter of fact about life and death. She was a nurse all her life, always the carer, a gift she was
SelfishMother.com
6
born with to make you feel loved and looked after. She shared that with everyone she came into contact with and I sometimes think of the hundreds of patients my Mum will have nursed and the comfort she would have provided them.

Today I feel a peace, sat watching my baby sleep, at the side of a lake, the rustle of the trees and the chatter of the birds overhead. It’s a rare window for me to sit and be still before the current of my life whisks me away again to chaos and noise and distraction. I’m riding the waves and sometimes I manage to keep

SelfishMother.com
7
floating and sometimes the water fills my lungs and I can’t breathe. Whatever happens each day I just get back up again and keep moving.

My Mum lost her own Dad suddenly too, at my age. I had just turned one and my brother and sister were 11 and 9. I’m taking strength from the fact I know my Mum survived that, she told me when I was older that you don’t ever get over losing someone, you just adapt. Your life grows around the hole they leave and you learn to live alongside it, eventually the pain moves and isn’t the main emotion of the day. At the

SelfishMother.com
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time I didn’t have children and she said it was us that got her through as she had no choice but to get out of bed and change nappies, play games and cook tea. Having three of my own now I truly understand what she meant. Their faces and smiles pour oil onto my aching heart and I keep going for them. Maybe one day that will spread to me doing it for myself too. My Mum said ’You live for the living’ when someone dies and that is what I’m trying to do. x
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- 11 Jul 18

It’s been a while since I wrote. I’ve been wanting to and I’ve tried a few times and then I’ve stopped. However, lately, the urge to write has become quite annoying like a nagging toothache that just won’t go away no matter how I try to ignore it. I’m searching, to share my experience, find others who have felt this way and survived. I’m learning to find my new identity, what it feels like to be me. The before version of myself no longer exists and now I’ve been metaphorically pushed into the next phase of my life, I’m trying to get a footing and walk again in these new slightly heavier shoes. I think that’s the primary reason I started to blog, to share my experience and find comfort and release in connecting with others.

To be honest I don’t even know what I’m wanting to write. Words don’t have the same meaning anymore and I struggle to make sense of how I’m feeling. 12 weeks ago my world was ripped apart and my heart was broken when my Mum died suddenly and unexpectedly in front of me following 24 hours of illness. She was there, present, alive, breathing and then she wasn’t. She was my Mum, my bestest friend, the centre of our family. She was woven into the fabric of my daily life, we text, spoke and saw each other all the time. And then she disappeared. That’s the thing with sudden death. It’s sudden. You don’t see it coming and then on a Thursday when you’re getting dressed as normal, unbeknownst to you in two hours time your Mum is going to die and they’ll be nothing you can do about it.

I’m writing now to reach out. To anyone, anywhere who has lost their anchor too. I’m 36, I have three beautiful children aged 5, 2 and 6 months, this shouldn’t have happened to me. I wasn’t ready. My children weren’t ready. We had so much more to share and rejoice in and now I have to learn to do all that without my Mum. I feel like a child again in many ways, I needed her guidance and that reassuring hand to help me in the only way your Mum can.

Grief is nothing what I imagined it to be. Not that we like to think about losing someone close to us but I thought I would just cry. And then stop for a bit and cry again. I thought normal life would cease to exist and I would just crumble. For me, in the initial days and first weeks I cried a lot. We hibernated and clung to each other. As time has continued to pass which it weirdly and continually does, each day brings new levels of emotions that I never knew existed or could even start to describe. Some days I cry and sob and yearn to pull the pain out of my body and the next day I’ll function and laugh and gain strength from the memory of my Mum, the pragmatist, ever strong and matter of fact about life and death. She was a nurse all her life, always the carer, a gift she was born with to make you feel loved and looked after. She shared that with everyone she came into contact with and I sometimes think of the hundreds of patients my Mum will have nursed and the comfort she would have provided them.

Today I feel a peace, sat watching my baby sleep, at the side of a lake, the rustle of the trees and the chatter of the birds overhead. It’s a rare window for me to sit and be still before the current of my life whisks me away again to chaos and noise and distraction. I’m riding the waves and sometimes I manage to keep floating and sometimes the water fills my lungs and I can’t breathe. Whatever happens each day I just get back up again and keep moving.

My Mum lost her own Dad suddenly too, at my age. I had just turned one and my brother and sister were 11 and 9. I’m taking strength from the fact I know my Mum survived that, she told me when I was older that you don’t ever get over losing someone, you just adapt. Your life grows around the hole they leave and you learn to live alongside it, eventually the pain moves and isn’t the main emotion of the day. At the time I didn’t have children and she said it was us that got her through as she had no choice but to get out of bed and change nappies, play games and cook tea. Having three of my own now I truly understand what she meant. Their faces and smiles pour oil onto my aching heart and I keep going for them. Maybe one day that will spread to me doing it for myself too. My Mum said ‘You live for the living’ when someone dies and that is what I’m trying to do. x

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