@socal2010,
socal - I read your post when you first posted it and I didn't respond because I empathized so much with your sadness at losing your mother that I didn't know if I could say anything productive about it to help you.
I haven't yet lost my mother or my father - with both of whom I have a very close and loving relationship - they literally are two of my favorite people in the world, having always made me feel safe, loved, admiring of who they are and happy to have been born into their family- so when I read how you feel the same toward the person your mother was to you, I related.
I know I won't have them very much longer and am cognizant that that's just how life works, and even though I know that logically, emotionally, I can't seem to come up with any sort of picture of how I'll just go on with my life when they're gone. But I know I will have to.
Quote:Didn't you feel an onslaught of sadness? I'm just asking because I'm getting the feeling you're all thinking my grief is greater than what should be expected.
The only person in my family to die unexpectedly was my brother. And I can tell you that for years afterward, I was overcome with sadness at the most unexpected times when I'd hear a song or see a picture that reminded me of him. My son was two years old when he died, so I wasn't able to sink into the grief - I had something and someone to distract me - but if I hadn't had him, I can imagine it would have been much more difficult to turn away from it to focus on other things.
But what I saw my mother do and how I watched her cope with his death was something that I think might help you. My mother was born to be a mother and my brother was her youngest child and the only one who had learning difficulties to the point that he couldn't function normally in the world. He was always very special to her. He committed suicide. It devastated all of us - it was only the second time I saw my father cry, and we were all inconsolable - but it was my mom I most worried about. Because I think she felt that she should have been able to have prevented it or kept him from that. Anyway, I didn't think my mother would ever recover or be the same. I literally despaired of ever having my mother back as she had once been.
But instead of disappearing into her grief, she threw herself into volunteering for a suicide hotline. She worked thousands of hours a year for this organization (Contact -We Care) to the point that she was cited and singled out for recognition. She worked for them for years until my father would no longer allow her to drive into Newark and spend the night in their offices answering the phones. I sincerely believe that that productive effort (her sense of doing something to help others who may be faced with what my brother was feeling or what our family had to go through in the aftermath of his death) brought her out of her grief, helped her pull through and back to all of us and the rest of the world.
And the world needs people like her. Now, since she doesn't drive, she mans her phone from home to work for an organization that takes calls from destitute people needing emergency food and/or clothing (FISH).
I don't think eleven days or even eleven years is too long to grieve for someone you loved. But I also think David is right to an extent. Sometimes you DO have to just get up and say, 'I am so sad - but today I am going to accomplish so and so....' just one outside thing that means something to you and will help you build new memories and create different ways to place your energy and other things to think about. And slowly, you may feel yourself begin to heal.
I wish you the best.
