My grief over my mother's death

[Catkins]

Pulisa that must have been so tough.

I think Christmas is a tough one generally for a lot of people, because it's the time when familys come together (or it is traditionally believed so). It seems to not work out that way for a lot of people.

I think it will be particularly hard this year. My mum's house was the gathering place for Christmas dinner and I've spoken to my sister and stepdad and none of us know what to do. Plus with the added complication that I don't think it will be possible to put my sister and husband in the same room at the moment.

Last years Christmas was a disaster, I had to isolate, so did my sister, so there was no normal family Christmas. I also organised a family Zoom thing as a surprise for my mum and had my brother, sister and me on the call. It ended up with my mum in a strop with my sister and her refusing to look at the camera. Ridiculously hilarious though.

[Carnation]

I made my first Christmas completely different the first year without. We didn't even have a turkey dinner or present exchanging. I'm not saying anyone else should follow suit but I did what I felt was right for me at the time. You might want to go out to eat. There are options.

[pulisa]

That's a good idea, Carnation. Whatever you do it will be hard..My dad always used to say "it's just another day" but it was always day with a capital D and that was his way of coping. He talked to her every day for 24 years following her death until his own death in 2014.

I've always been crap at doing Christmas. My mum loved hosting our family Christmas and I could never hope to be anywhere near her standard.

[Catkins]

It's also my son's birthday, so it's always been kind of extra special. That part of it won't change.

[Carnation]

Your son's birthday will be a focus for you catkins. x

[Catkins]

It's nine months ago today since mum died, so for I took my dog up to the graveyard this morning for her walk and said hello to my mum. It's such a lovely graveyard and has such a lovely view.

I think I'm accepting that she's gone more, it doesn't feel so in my face now. I still miss her and wish she was here, but I think it's getting easier to deal with.

The visit also inspired me to clean my fridge. She'd have had a fit if she'd seen it!

[Carnation]

I love visiting churches and it's surroundings catkins, because you do feel closer to the people you have lost and in a way it is therapy healing and a feeling of serenity.
It somehow energises me too if that makes any sense.

[pulisa]

It takes time to accept and be at peace (if you can call it that) with bereavement. I'm glad that you felt at peace today.

[Catkins]

Thank you both.

[Catkins]

I've just been into town to collect a posey of flowers to put on my mum's grave tomorrow, yellow carnations and other yellowish and cream flowers and lots of greenery, so as the flowers fade, the green will still look nice.

Tomorrow it'll be the first anniversary of her death. I honestly never realised how tough it would be when she died. It's been an incredibly tough year and this week the lead up to the anniversary has been really hard. I have struggled with my moods/sleep this week. It's strange but even though I knew the anniversary was coming I didn't really connect how I was feeling to it. I guess I'd had a couple of weeks feeling really good so for some silly reason I expected to feel fine and didn't acknowledge I wasn't and then felt disappointed in myself.

So I still miss her, it's not as in my face as it was last year, but I feel like I have some distance from the pain of it. I still have my moments, a colleague was talking about her elderly mum being unwell and I was suddenly back in the moment of sitting beside her on the floor of her living room and stroking her cheek as I said goodbye to her. In that moment I could remember exactly what her skin felt like, it's smooth softness. She wasn't particularly cold either, she did honestly look asleep, it was only the very slight bluish tinge to her lips that let you know she wasn't.

So tomorrow we'll visit her and drop her flowers off. If it stops raining it will be nice to sit there a while and have a flask of coffee. The way things are today, that might not be possible. But tonight we're going to see a performance by a saxophonist, it's not Clarence Clemons who my mum would have given her right arm to see, but it's nice to think about how my mum would react when we told her - she would immediately start talking about Clarence Clemons and how amazing he was.