My mom passed away unexpectedly a few months ago and I’m still struggling with the grief process. I know that grief is not a linear process, yet for some dumb reason, I expected things to slowly get better without sliding back into the heavy and dark emotions of those initial days and weeks. And for a while, I did slowly get better and each week was a little less hard than the week before.
Yet here I am, caught off guard and unprepared to find that I have backpedaled. I think about her every day and I’m back to crying regularly. I miss her and it surfaces sometimes in the most unexpected ways, often catching me off guard.
It’s like there’s a disconnect between knowing that I can’t talk to her or see her ever again versus feeling it, if that makes sense. My emotional brain is not in sync with my intellectual/logical brain.
I’ve been thinking of it kind of like motion sickness where the eye perceives things differently than the rest of the body and this creates a sense of disorientation and disequilibrium that is so strong that it can make a person physically ill.
This is close to the feeling I get every time I think “Oh, I need to call Mom to see how she’s doing today” or when the phone rings and I think it’s her calling me. Or when things happen in my life that I just want to talk to her about and it hits me again – this knowledge, this ugly fact – that I can’t call her, that I can’t talk to her about my day, that I can’t ask for her advice or opinions.
I feel untethered, set adrift, lacking some essential rudder that I didn’t realize I still needed at my age and stage in life.
And much like a wave of motion sickness, grief sweeps over me and overwhelms me in its intensity. It leaves me almost shocked and gasping as I re-absorb the fact that she is gone. Over and over and over. Every day, often multiple times a day. I’m sitting here crying as I write this.
I know eventually things will get better but I also have a level of dread that I will feel this void in my life forever. I suppose in a way that’s a good thing. It’s a sign of a life well-lived to have people miss you when you’re gone.
wendy {dot} blog 
I’m so sorry for your loss, Wendy. The sudden loss of a parent is devastating. It was over half my life ago that my dad died, but it still hits me at times and makes me sad. So it changes over time. I can promise the void won’t always be so huge and dark and terrible.
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Thanks Pam. I’m sorry you lost your dad so young – I imagine that has to be exponentially more difficult. {{hugs}}
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Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think you can even compare. Am I sad he never met my husband or kids? Of course, but I’m glad they were spared the loss, if that makes any sense.
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Yes that makes total sense. A friend of mine once told me years ago something like “grief is grief” and went on to say that all grief hurts, regardless of the exact circumstances of your loss. I’m trying to focus on being grateful my mom didn’t suffer, particularly when I’m really sad about not getting to say goodbye. So I get how you take comfort in sparing your family the loss but are still sad they never met him. ❤
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