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Posted

Okay, everyone, I don't know if this is normal...

I have all these conflicting feelings on death since I've lost Mom. On one hand, I am now terrifed of getting cancer, and dying in general, because losing Mom made me feel my mortality...and mostly because I have three small children, and I think something clicks on when you give birth that makes you completely selfless. Your biggest fear of dying is leaving your children behind without you. I don't feel sorry for myself when I think about it as much as I feel guilty and horrified of leaving them without a mother.

On the flip side, my fear of actual death has decreased in a way, because I feel like my mom is waiting for me and I will go see her again when I die. Even despite my serious doubts about the afterlife, and is she really out there or just GONE (I wrestle with that every day)...despite all that, I still have this feeling that she will be there for me. When she was in the ambulance going to hospice they almost lost her, and she whispered to my sister "They're waiting for me", meaning her Mom and Dad.

God, I just miss her so much, and I have such pain now because I feel like I am getting more used to life without her than life with her. And that hurts even more. How I HATE it. She's becoming a memory...

Posted

I so wish i had the answers here but I don't. Prayers and hugs for comfort and support. I will always listen though.

Posted

I do wrestly with those same thoughts.... scared that cancer is in my genes and just waiting for that shoe to drop.... BUT, the night Daddy died, I suddenly became unafraid of dying myself. For the same reasons as you... I knew I would get to be with him again....I think its all a pretty normal response. Sometimes, I just wish I could turn back the clock to a time when these thought NEVER even entered my mind!!!

Posted

Michele

I understand the feelings of her becoming a memory. I feel that too. Some nights I go to bed and then realize that I havent thought of my mom all day and then I am so sad beacause I am afraid that in some way I will forget her. We just passed the 1 year mark so we have done all the birthdays,holidays and seasons without her here and it seems so wrong to be moving on without her but I guess this is the new normal and we cant change it.

Posted

I understand about being afraid of getting cancer. I was afraid of it before mom was even diagnosed. Now the fear is even stronger. I am afraid of suffering as my mom did. She had so much pain at the end. But mostly, like you, I fear leaving my children behind. That is my worst fear. I just can't let myself even go there. I remember my mom saying many years ago when I was a child myself that as long as she saw her kids grow up she would be happy. It brings me a strange peace to remember her saying that because she did see us all into adulthood.

Posted

Michele,

My children aren't here yet, so I can't really comment to the fear for them yet. However, my thoughts about death have been rapidly changing since I lost my dad. The fear of death doesn't seem as scary as it used to, not sure why but it doesn't. I was never a believer in signs, but some things have happened that are making me question that now. Doing some real soul searching as to what exactly I believe now.

Not sure if I'll truely get used to him not around, but I make a point of "talking" to him almost every day. It may not do any good, but seems like as good as a substitute as I have found to keep him in my life. Either that or I'm losing my sanity.

Hang in there and wishing you the very best.

Posted

I am all over the fear of the gene...and leaving the kid/kids I haven't even met yet.

I am also all over the thought that at least I'll be with MOM...if she is infact somewhere. I too wrestle...but the universe can't be that ironic, could it? You care and build and work and love and learn...to have it all just...go away? Nah...can't imagine.

Also, I do believe in God...this all doesn't just exist for existence sake...we cease to believe in santa by a certain age, and the easter bunny. And yet something in the way we are wired continues to have us drawn to the fact that we didn't start with conception and end with death...or else don't you think we'd be even MORE frantic about prolonging life instintively...and yet we don't? A little gift from God in the "code" we all have written into us? So we don't SO worry about death. Some may insist they beleive in the non existence of the hereafter...but that has always felt like a protest against an internal truth...

I'm so philosophical today...

Either way. Have faith your mom is more than a memory. Look in the mirror, listen to the inflection in some of your words, notice what you do in certain situations...I know when I do, I see my Mom.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Thanks so much, everyone, for your insight. It really helped. And Nick, what you wrote about the afterlife, it really, really spoke to me. You said things I never really considered, more big picture stuff that really makes sense. Thank you.

I do believe in God, my mother believed in God, my family believes in God...I guess when I say I have doubts about the afterlife, I guess I don't really mean it. I'm just so cranky and cynical about that since I lost her. Frankly, it's unbearable to think she no longer exists on any plane of consciousness...

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