Grieving General - Let Kiwifarms lower the gun from your temple.

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

So my mom just died last night and I'm still rather floored at how fast it happened. From "I need a bit of help, I'll call 911" to dead in 5 days.

Any Farmers able to help or share stories of their own to help me or other Kiwis through their most difficult time?

 

[Orange Tabby]

I’m sorry this has happened to you. Hopefully your mom has a will or at least something written down saying she wanted a funeral or not.

You can take all the time you need to grieve, and I don’t mean to sound callous, but at some point I realized that I didn’t have any more time or energy to be sad, stuff had to get done. And ultimately, that’s what your loved ones would want- for you to go and live your life; there are so many things worth living for.

 

[The Last Stand]

My phone is dead. I don't know what to do anymore.

 

[Dust & Bones]

So my mom just died last night and I'm still rather floored at how fast it happened. From "I need a bit of help, I'll call 911" to dead in 5 days.

I've looked at this a few times and see our "hearts". Please don't think there are no reply's because we don't CARE about your loss. I promise "we" just don't know what to say.
AH! As I'm here it looks like someone else has posted, I'm glad.
Truly, I FEEL for you. I AM the mom, I'm certain YOUR mom would have wanted more time with YOU.
Whatever the relationship you had with your mom- she LOVED YOU.
I know "I'm sorry for your loss" sounds trite, that doesn't make it any less true. I hope you have enough friends and family to share memories.

 

[Hrafn]

I know how you feel OP, mine went 2 years ago and while it's been a long couple of years I still have a hole in my heart with her gone. She was ill for quite a while, then she was told she had a year. She was gone less than two weeks later.

I'm not sure what your mother's wishes were for when she passed, but I hope any funeral arrangements go smoothly for you and your family and that she's laid to rest exactly how she would have wanted to be. It's a difficult time and the next few days will probably be hard, but I promise, it's ok to cry, it's ok to be upset, and it's ok if even in a couple of years you feel that grief creeping in just a little bit in the corner of your heart, because if anything, it's proof that you love your mother. It's not gay and it's not cringe. It's human.

All I can advise is that you take it as it comes. You'll make it eventually.

 

[The Magnificence]

Some people might try to tell you it will get better.

They are lying.

But you will, eventually get used to it. You will learn to live with it.

It will still hit hard occasionally - it will somehow come to you out of literally nowhere and strike so hard it will take your breath away, five, ten, even twenty years from now. But you will absorb the blow.

You are not alone.

 

[Lifeguard Hermit]

The most important thing right now is to take some time for yourself and distance yourself from what's happening.

Set a time 2 weeks from now where you will start going through things. There are services that you can use to gain access to her cell phone if you need to to get images off of there that she may have taken that will help you grieve.

The most important thing I will suggest to you will be to find all of the video and audio you have of her.

Being able to hear her voice again will feel so good when you need it. One of the most important people in my life passed before we regularly recorded things like this so it took years to remember what their voice sounded like.

I preemptively saved a few voicemails from my loved ones that are getting up in the age to meditate this. (Everyone should do this)

I hope this helps you grieve.

 

[Brenda Holiday]

Fuck man, I just got news today my own mom who has been on hospice fell and probably won't be around for another week. I'm so disassociated it doesn't feel real yet I feel guilty for continuing my day like normal. I'm waiting on updates of when I can go see her. I'm so sorry man. Do you have that hazy feeling too? I wish I had some comforting words.
It's hard to give advice or comfort a situation that is so intense and personal. We're all randos on the internet but my heart really hurts for you. Grief I think is something we can only truly come to terms with alone, and when our brain decides it has been long enough, and that time is different for everyone. It will always hurt, but the grief process is important in being able to pick up and continue on, which is what any family member would want their loved ones to do.

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

Do you have that hazy feeling too?

Everything felt like I was standing on Jello when I got the news.

 

[Leech Gang]

A book that comforted me during a period of grief is, The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder.

 

[The Gene Genie]

I lost a childhood friend, basically a brother, to suicide a few years ago. I don’t really think it ever gets better, OP, I think you just stop thinking about it over time. Whenever I think about him there’s this unending feeling of loss and incompleteness, and it’s the same since I found out he died and the same feeling at the funeral, it’s just become something that goes from “the only thing I think about” to “every couple days, whenever I’m reminded of him” to “on his birthday and the day of his death.”

Nothing really helped but time, in my case. There’s not really much anyone can say, and I’ve found that when people die and the randoms come out of the woodwork to offer their condolences it feels hollow and fake more than anything.

 

[Silver Lining]

Even though we knew my mom was dying it was still a big shock when it happened. Everything just felt so heavy and surreal for a very long time. There is no easy way or only one way to grieve the loss. You just have to muddle through it in your own time.

It's true, you will learn to live with the fact she's gone, but for me the grief is always there beneath the surface. I can't tell you how many times I picked up the phone to call her and then cried when I remembered she wasn't there to talk to anymore.

I've lost a few good friends and other close relatives, but I never really experienced such a depth of loss until my mom.

Just take it one day at a time. Having been there, I truly feel for you. I hope you will be kind to yourself when you need to.

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

It's true, you will learn to live with the fact she's gone, but for me the grief is always there beneath the surface. I can't tell you how many times I picked up the phone to call her and then cried when I remembered she wasn't there to talk to anymore.

Even tonight "Hey, I should tell Mom that I'm on my way ho -- oh yeah. Fuck."

Now I have barely anyone to be responsible to, to tell "I'm on my way home" or "I arrived at X site safely"

 

[Tsukasa Kadoya]

A Coworker I considered akin to an uncle died a month ago, and it still doesn't feel real. I want to go in his office and tell him things, or I'll wait to see him come into the bank, but he never shows up. It's a strange, ethereal feeling knowing that you never got to say goodbye.
As for you @Sneed's Feed And Seed, I'm genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, sorry you're going through this. I'm not prepared to lose my dad, and I feel when he goes I'll probably either off myself or go into the looney bin. I don't want to live in a world without him.

 

[Starscream's Loyalty]

My grandma died last Christmas, a bit before the day. I've accepted it, but it still feels odd...

She had been going downhill for a few years though.

 

[MsFrancisFoster]

My great aunt Betty passed during the first year of the Covid Pandemic, when everything had restrictions and shit. Metastasized breast cancer and sepsis. Couldn't even hold her hand while she was dying. She had to die alone in hospice surrounded by strangers who didn't care for her. Not really. Not like we did. She wasn't really lucid in her last few days, the nurse told me. She kept mistaking the nurse for my cousin Allen, her son, and asking where her mother was. She was seventy-five and had undiagnosed dementia. They cremated her even though we told them that was against her wishes, but covid restrictions said everyone had to be cremated cause fuck people's religious values. We buried her ashes with her mum and dad. All she wanted when she was having her moments was to go home to her mummy and daddy, so mum and I did what we could to make sure she got back to them.

Losing someone is the worst thing in the world. Grief will sneak up on you and hit you with the memory of the person you miss. But it gets easier to deal with as time goes by. Time won't heal those wounds, but it will lead to you accepting the change, as somber as that sounds.

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

Hopefully your mom has a will or at least something written down saying she wanted a funeral or not.

I found the directives a couple of days after it happened and followed them to a tee.

Gonna see the attorney to get everything transferred over into my name at the start of next month, house has been paid off for 2 years and it looks like I'm getting everything because I'm the only one named. That'll make everything hurt a little less, but now I have all this house and only one person in it.