When mum died in December last year, I thought I would be broken forever. I tore through the house shouting and screaming, howling, begging for her back and making several million deals with the Devil and threatening to kick God in the nuts*. I thought I would never be able to cope with the pain of her loss.
I turned to the internet googling marvellous things like 'mum died' and 'when does grieving end' and found an awful lot of despair. The main theme seemed to be that even a year later the grief was still as strong, that these poor people broke down every day and couldn't cope with their lives. My reaction to reading these posts was that my grief would not lessen, that I would be that desperate forever. Those posts did not help me at all.
I couldn't have lived like that. I wanted to read that people were desperate at the time but that it got easier, not that it stayed the same. No one was telling me that it got better and that's all I wanted to hear.
You will get through this. It will not be this painful forever. Those words would have helped immensely.
At the time, I wanted to climb into my brother's house and not leave. I wanted to be with my family all the time, only I couldn't be. They had their lives. I felt I'd lost mine. My boyfriend was amazing, so understanding, and he spoke so much sense. I don't know if his counselling training helped or if he's just naturally awesome like that. He'll tell you the latter. He told me it would get easier.
He was right.
I still miss her. I still cry at times, but nowhere near as much, and the times that I do are short and I manage to shrug them off, although I don't think shrug is the right word. I cope and I can smile and look forward again. There are moments. Last night I heard of someone who had just lost their mum. It brought it back. The difference was, four months on, I shed a few quiet tears but then I fell asleep and when I woke up, I carried on living my life. I didn't rage at the ceiling and send the neighbours cowering under their beds thinking I was going to tear through the walls.
This new life is different, it's the same, it's a million different things, and I'm okay. My hope for this post is that if someone grieving finds it they might find a tiny bit of hope that they will be okay to.
*and I'm supposed to be agnostic.
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