h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I need to write about my mother. I feel the need of it. Probably because I´ve been writing lately most of my feelings only in English, here in h2 and because this is the main ,no to say the only community of dear people I´ve been with during last year ,(because of a health condition I haven´t been able to work or go out much) it seems that here is the place for me now to let my heart get open. I need to talk, I need the precious closeness and distance h2 allows, at least for me in this moment.

I´ve spent the month of July with my mother at hospital. She died last 25th. She was 80. Last years have been very bad for her: a heart desease that affected lungs, kidneys… during last year she got worse. When I first arrived (From Madrid, where I live) to Granada I found her very weak and saying she wanted to die. She kept all the time saying she wanted to go home and die there.
I´m not sad because of her death, but because she has suffered a lot, and not only now, all her life has been very hard.
She and my father raised seven children in hard times, during the Spanish post-war and the dictatorship. Very hard economic conditions.

They were proud of us. Four of their seven children went to university, something unthinkable for people of low-class.

My brothers, sister and me haven´t had time to sit and talk about what has happened. I guess that it will come little by little.
The funeral took place in my home village, where my mother had lived all her life. You would say it was a typical Mediterranean Picture. I remember my sister and me advancing through the church to go out and people over us kissing us saying their condolences. I felt like pierces in my stomach whenever I saw the friends and neighbours of my mother. She was very dear in the village.
Out of the church we follow the funeral car with the coffin and the flowers, behind us the rest of the people. My father felt like a strike of pain when the coffin was pushed into the niche. We observe in silence the workers putting the bricks to close the niche.
She could have got enearthen with her parents, but we still hate them so much that we decided to buy a niche for her.

The day before her death I went to arrange the funeral. I never thought it would be so soon her death, despite we had been told by the doctors, and despite I had wished it to her. She was having morphine and I was about to ask the doctor to put a big shot for her to finísh it all.
I was sat near her that afternoon. One of my brother was drinking water and a medicin and I got up to kiss her. I thought to kiss her before she were gone, even if she didn´t notice. I took her hand and kiss her face, I notice an earring was missing and thought of putting it, I reached for it in the drawer, when I turned , she was gone. I kissed her, combed her beautiful grey hair and called for the nurse.
I don´t know how to describe how I felt then. A kind of sadness mixed with relief for her.
Before coming back here to Madrid, I´ve spent about a week with my father. First days I noticed her absence, I looked at her clothes, the pictures… and felt sadness, but couldn´t cry much. I´ve been refraining all this time. I told to myself to keep serene to help the rest of the family and do all the burocracy and formalities these things need.
I wonder how much of this serenity comes from refrain and how much from the Fact that I´ve had time to get prepared to accept even wish her death.
Am I cold? Why I´m not crying all day?
I feel like a void now, a void I can´t name.
My mind now is busy with my coming operation that I had postponed, I also have to study for september exams… I have my daughter and husband to care for…I have to find a job… I have my life…
I know all this is going to take time for me to settle. I´m slow. When my brother died at 23, I was 16, it took me a month to accept he was dead. This is different, but I need time to mourn her, she was my mother, my dear mother and I know a have a lot of tears inside me yet.

Para tí mama

We all grieve in different ways, just allow yourself time to deal with it.

Thanks Titania for your words, and thanks also for opening a space like this. It has started to help me. More than I can say.
Last night I dreamt of my mother, the first time since she went. It has been a positive one.
I´ve cried this morning, I´ve been thinking of many things about her. I´ve started to relief myself. I needed it.

Gracias Titania

María

Positive dreams about loved ones lost is, I think, a beginning of healing and a step forwards.

I know this void, and feel it still, and still cry when overwhelmed by the loss. My dear father feels close yet far beyond my reach, almost like he's a part of me now, on the inside.

My mother is 90 next month and relatively well, although her memory is poor and she is hard to deal with sometimes, I wouldn't want to be without her.

almost like he's a part of me now, on the inside<<

Dear GB, I´m crying now, maybe should wait to calm down... but I felt those words so deeply in me... I want to say so too, I will soon, I hope...
It´s taking me more to ...which word? fit? assume? get used to her absence, that is. get used to the void.

I´m sure it will happen. I had a strong connenction with her. Funny things about dreams. YOu know my ideas about religion, etc. but She had a kind of six sense about our feelings.
It´s funny that my sister and me dreamt of her the same night and with the same content in our dreams. I won´t put my rational analitical mind to test why, I only know that my sister and me were talking about that and felt the same, it helped us to cope with it a bit more. We needed, we had seen her suffering so much.

And now, I only expect that time will help to feel her inside me as you say.
Thanks a lot dear GB. I´m so lucky with having you all here.

I think you have to get used to the void, and it does help to talk. Never, ever withdraw, or suffer in silence. It's been almost 3 years and still painful but I've got used to the pain and it's never going to leave, like a broken heart with no glue, but you leanr to live with a different life, without that person. I would have never made it through my darkest moments without all my friends here, there's always someone who knows how you are feeling, and says the right thing or just offers Just knowing someone is there means you are not alone and that helps.

My sister and I are also very close and felt the pain as much. We also dream of each other, and they have been prophetic dreams. I also *knew* things about her life before they happened, some I told, others I didn't. Strange things happen that I connect with my Dad, but it's my sister who dreams of him. When she was in hospital she felt him there and a woman nearby told her next day that she saw an old man with white hair standing over her bed. I've no doubt the spirit lives on. My Dad lived a happy life with his lovely wife and loving family, he did not want to leave us, but he had cancer and was suffering, although he fought it all the way and outlived the doctor's prediction. In the end he looked dreadful and I was relieved as well as devastated. We are not used to such a conflict of emotion. Dear Mar, you have been traumatised as if in an accident it hurt your body, your soul has been ripped and needs time to repair. You may mend in time, but you'll never be the same again. You'll carry your mother within you, and her memories always

Dear GB, I feel the warm of your words.
I feel today that my heart is open to let me cry. I find relief with your words. All this time I felt like closed, trapped...
I´ll think of my mother as you do with your father, feeling her memory in me. It´ll be a positive one, a smiling one, as I saw her in the dream.

Dear GB, feel this sure you can feel it, is a heartfelt one.

As I was helped, so I help others. Of course I feel your and I'll be your virtual shoulder while you cry. Crying is a release of some of the bottled-up pain, it doesn't heal, but it lessens the pain.



I hope you will remember your dear mother with a smile on your face soon, as that is what the loved ones would want, for us not to be sad, but look forward, and have happy memories.

I still have black moments but there's always someone to talk to, whether in real life or here, someone will respond and share your grief

and

Thanks GB,