Tag Archives: #grief

May 11, 2025 · 1:17 am

Mother’s day 2025…

This is the third Mother’s Day I can’t celebrate with my mom.

This is the third Mother’s Day I don’t get to call her, send her a card, cook her a meal, or do anything else that would honor her on this day.

This is the third Mother’s Day she’s been…gone.

I read once, I can’t remember where, that as we get older and have lost people we love, the holidays at first are hard. You don’t want to celebrate, or can’t, either because of physical, emotional, or psychological reasons. But as time passes, it reportedly gets easier, the pain of the loss lessens, and you can start to feel like commemorating the special days again.

I’m here to call bullshit on that theory. It’s been three years and I feel the physical, emotional, and psychological pain of my mother’s loss as hard now as I did that very first year.

Yes, there are days when I don’t think about her and how she suffered those last twelve hours of her life.

Yes, there are days where I don’t reach for the phone to tell her some good news, remembering she already knows because she heard about it in heaven.

Yes, there are days when I forget about all the times we fought and remember one incident that made us both laugh.

Yes, there are even days I don’t have a thought about her at all.

But those happen on typical days, not holidays. Not days of remembrance. Not days devoted to being a mom.

The last four years of my mother’s life, from the time Covid invaded our world, I cooked for my parents, paid their bills, bathed my mother because getting into the tub was a tragedy waiting to happen for her with her hips, and generally took care of them in their own home. They wanted their independence -as much as they could have – and there was no way I was going to take it away from them unless absolutely necessary. Which it became in the end.

On holidays, I would prepare a huge meal for them to celebrate over because my mother loved holidays. On Mother’s day, it was always the same meal: roast beef, mashed potatoes, pearl onions, and chocolate cake for dessert – her favorite meal.

I haven’t made a roast beef since she died. Seems silly, but I just…can’t. I can’t bring myself to cook something I know she loved and then not have her around to taste it.

The following quote has been attributed to the actor Jim Carrey, but the Internet “says” there is no proof he said it. I truthfully don’t care who said it. It explains my grief in a much better way than I can. My hope is that, as the quote says, I will find healing in time. On this third Mother’s Day without my mom, here, with me, in the physical world, I still haven’t been able to heal the wound of her loss…

“Grief is not just an emotion — it’s an unraveling, a space where something once lived but is now gone. It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.

In the beginning, it feels unbearable, like a wound that will never close. But over time, the raw edges begin to mend. The pain softens, but the imprint remains — a quiet reminder of what once was. The truth is, you never truly “move on.” You move with it. The love you had does not disappear; it transforms. It lingers in the echoes of laughter, in the warmth of old memories, in the silent moments where you still reach for what is no longer there. And that’s okay.

Grief is not a burden to be hidden. It is not a weakness to be ashamed of. It is the deepest proof that love existed, that something beautiful once touched your life. So let yourself feel it. Let yourself mourn. Let yourself remember.

There is no timeline, no “right” way to grieve. Some days will be heavy, and some will feel lighter. Some moments will bring unexpected waves of sadness, while others will fill you with gratitude for the love you were lucky enough to experience.

Honor your grief, for it is sacred. It is a testament to the depth of your heart. And in time, through the pain, you will find healing — not because you have forgotten, but because you have learned how to carry both love and loss together.”

If you have your mother still with you on this commemorative day to moms, be thankful. Hug her. Honor her. Kiss her silly like she once kissed you when you were a child. Do something that shows her what she means to you.And don’t let your kids ever forget their grandma is a mom, too.

I wish, with all my heart, I could do everyone of those things today.

~peg

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April 18, 2024 · 12:47 am

13 months…

One year plus one month…

Reflections seem to be taking over my psyche lately, so I thought I’d share some of them today. I think this will be the last time I blog about this because…it’s time.

What I’ve learned in the past 13 months.

I’m stronger than I ever imagined.

I can still learn how to do grownup things I never had to deal with before, like banking, selling a house, finalizing an estate.

Greif comes in waves, tsunamis, and sometimes just raindrops.

You never really get over your guilt. But you can learn to live with and accept it for what it is.

My mother hid a lot about herself and her life.

The reason she did was to protect me.

My mother was smarter than anyone – including me and her husband – ever gave her credit for.

She lashed out when she felt: threatened, hurt, or like she was being taken advantage of.

Her capacity for love and forgiveness was truly God-like.

Things that got me through the hard days…

Watching TikTok videos of screaming, drama-queen Huskies behaving like Huskies, or puppies doing puppy things on Reels on Instagram. They made me laugh and smile for a few minutes.

Staring at pictures of my grandson.

Hugging my grandson.

Taking care of my dog.

Crying. Yeah, I know this one is a little counterproductive, but sometimes you just have to let it out, you know?

Blogging about my struggles. Even though I am an insanely private person – despite being in the public eye – writing about what I was going through truly helped me compartmentalize and deal with the emotions flooding through me.

Hugging my dog.

Watching mindless Housewives Reality TV. Don’t judge me, lol. It really helped take my mind off the grief.

Here’s what didn’t help me get through those dark days…

People close to me telling me to get a grip. That everyone dies. That no one can live forever.

People telling me that I should just think about the wonderful long life my mother lived. It’s obvious they didn’t know how she struggled in it.

People telling me it was “her time” to go. Like that made it better, somehow, knowing there was some cosmic plan for her sudden death.

Isolating myself.

The uncomfortable looks people gave me when my emotions got the better of me, or if I answered honestly when they asked how I was doing. If you don’t want me to be truthful, don’t ask me because I don’t lie.  Hence, the isolating.

People saying things like, “The grief will lessen with time,” or “you’ll feel differently in a year.” It’s a year…still feel the same.

Things I’m taking into the future with me…

Life goes on. Cliché, but so very true.

There really is something beneficial to getting out of bed every day, making it, and moving one foot in front of the other even when you have no mental energy to do so.

I’m not the only daughter to ever lose her mother. I am, though, the only daughter to lose my mother. Even so, we, the motherless daughters, now belong to an exclusive club and can empathize with everything we’ve each gone through like no one else can because we get it.

People die, but memories don’t.

Having faith helps. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in God, but having some thought of a power greater than yourself does make the bad things easier to deal with.

It’s okay to cry for no apparent reason and no one should judge you when you do.

Understanding that the price you pay for loving someone is the emptiness you feel at their loss.

I’m going to butcher this quote, but I do remember hearing it, somewhere. “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

And I think that’s the most important thing I’ve learned during these horrible 13 months.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Miss you, Mommie ~

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March 18, 2024 · 12:15 am

One Year…

How is that possible? I asked myself this when I woke up this morning. It was just yesterday she died.

It’s said your life can change in the blink of an eye, a single heartbeat, the flap of a butterfly’s wings, once.

All true.

What’s never discussed is how that change impacts your life.

A year ago I lost the person I was more closely connected to than any other.

The very first heartbeat I heard was my mother’s.

The very first voice I heard and recognized was my mother’s.

The very first smell I recognized was my mother’s natural scent.

I grew inside her. She was, truthfully, my everything for the nine months I gestated. Her body fed me, and nourished me. Her heart beat for me. Her lungs breathed for me.

Without her, I simply wouldn’t be.

And there’s something I’ve never thought about or considered until today.

She truly was everything to me; my very existence.

She was there for me every day thereafter, guiding me, caring for me, feeding me, and keeping me safe. Until I didn’t need her help any longer. Until I was able to do all that for myself.

Or until I thought I was so grown up I could do it for myself without any help.

How is it possible it’s been a year?

But then, I remember everything that’s happened this past year, all the grief, all the horrible moments of indecision and mental clouding; the pain – physical and emotional; the way I had to grow up in an instant at the age of 62 and do things I never thought I’d need to do as someone’s child.

Or wanted to.

I look back on this year – God, is it only a year? – and think of everything my mother missed. The birth of her great-granddaughter; her 56th wedding anniversary; the way her husband bounced back from his 2 surgeries.

I look back on this year and think, I can’t believe in the span of three weeks I buried my mother, faced a second surgery in as many weeks with my stepfather, sold their house, assumed guardianship financially and emotionally of my stepfather, settled my mother’s estate, as small as it was, got rid of all their possessions – except for the ones that meant something to me – made all the financial decisions for both of them, which I will continue doing until my stepfather joins my mother, and managed to still write 6 books and not lose myself completely in paralytic grief.

I look back on this past year with surprise and real regret when I think about how much I didn’t know about my mother and my stepfather’s lives, both before they were married and after. About how much I missed because she kept things so close to her vest and never thought saying them aloud was the right thing to do. About the secrets that unfolded, slowly, but assuredly, after she died. About how much she suffered, mentally and emotionally, throughout her life.

Real regret. I think sometimes it edges out the grief.

But then…grief returns.

A year, in the big scheme of things, isn’t that long. Considering the average person can now live beyond 90, one-ninetieth of that seems so small an amount of time.

But then, consider all that’s happened in this year and maybe, not so small after all.

I was asked how I feel today, one year since my mother died. How am I doing? How am I handling the anniversary?

I’ll tell you how I feel, how I’m doing…I’m…surviving. That is, after all, all I can do. One foot in front of the other; one day at a time. All the ridiculous cliches that mean nothing and everything.

I’m surviving.

Every day I’m a little stronger; a little more able to get through the day without blackness circling my heart.

Every day I move through the pain a bit better; faster. It doesn’t incapacitate me any longer. It doesn’t paralyze me, or make me numb. Some days, the pain is actually just a memory, not a living, breathing entity.

And every day I get back to being just a little bit more…me.

One year…

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February 18, 2024 · 12:56 am

11 months…

Here’s what they don’t tell you happens when you lose your mother.

  1. the grief is, at times, physically debilitating to the point you can’t move, breathing is difficult, and you lose all mental focus.

2. you will reach for the phone too many times to ask your mom something, only to realize at the last moment she is no longer around to answer your question. Same goes for when you have something fun you want to share.

3. internal anger builds like a volcano, bubbling and churning and getting hotter until it needs to release and erupts into the air, covering you and everyone around you with the ash of incapacitating emotions.

4. things you never worried about before now become looming, potentially life-altering events, so much so, the worry begins to blind you to reality.

5. you will lose sleep ruminating on everything you ever said or did to make your mom angry and wish you could take back every single word.

6. you will have entire conversations in your head about past moments – both good and bad – with your mom.

7. Foods, smells, and certain phrases will trigger you into a downward spiral of emotions.

8. the holidays are awful.

9. Mother’s Day is soul-crushing.

10. you think you’ll never feel like a normal person again, or ever be able to get your joy back.

11. the worry and dread that you will lose another loved one, suddenly and without warning, is overwhelming.

I’ve gone through every single one of these phases so far, these past 11 months…some, multiple times during a single day.

Would I have been able to deal with them better had I known they would occur? Most likely, not. Sometimes, forewarned isn’t forearmed because you simply don’t know how you are going to react to a situation until it is upon you.

Grief is a living, breathing, all-consuming entity that takes over every aspect of your life. Tack on guilt to that and you’ve got the equivalent of an emotional tsunami.

There have been so many times in the past 11 months when I’ve gone through a gamut of emotions in a single day. Hell, a single hour. Rage. Horror. Guilt. Crying jags – really ugly ones. The kind no other human should witness you go through.

I’ve been mean to people when they ask how I’m doing and I just want to scream at them, “HOW THE F**K DO YOU THINK I’M DOING??!!”

I’ve pulled out of author and book-signing events at the last minute because I knew it was going to be too much for me and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself with my unscheduled crying.

I’ve pulled away from friends because I didn’t want anyone to ask me how I was doing because…see above.

I’ve had difficulty writing my happy, love-forever stories because I just can’t find the happy in me, or on the page, some days.

I’m astute enough of a health professional to know that the best friend of grief is depression and the two hold hands more often than not when one is dealing with loss. I’m also enough of a stubborn bull Taurus to not seek help but to attempt to resolve that depression on my own.

And right now the logical part of my brain is asking, “How’s that going for ya?”

11 months… unbelievable.

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January 18, 2024 · 12:23 am

10 months…

I’ve finally started going through all the stuff I saved from my mother’s house before I sold it. I packed a box of things I intended to go through at one point to see if they were keepers or tossers. Up until now, I haven’t had the emotional fortitude to sort through it all.

Today, 10 months on, I figured it was time.

I already went through all the photographs last month. The box now is mostly filled with a few books she and my stepfather had accumulated throughout the years and some odds and ends.

What I typically call junk.

There was an ancient health and diseases book they must have picked up at a garage or tag sale. The copyright page is missing but the book looks old enough to have been printed in maybe the 60s or 70s. Several afflictions were outlined in yellow marker. Prostate disease; low magnesium; shaking legs syndrome; digestive issues; lower flank pain. I could tell, just from these, it was my stepfather who used this book as a health bible.

I’ve mentioned this previously, but my mother hadn’t seen a doctor in almost 50 years before she broke her first hip. She wasn’t hypochondriacal like my stepfather was. Is.

Another book was one I’d given them several years ago about cats. It was mainly a picture book. This one I know was my mother’s. The woman adored cats. If they’d been able to care for a pet, I’m sure they would have had a few. As it was, they could barely care for themselves.

I moved on to the pictures after making a book toss and donate pile. The health book went in the toss one. No surprise, there.

My mother’s living room wall had been awash in photographs of me, my daughter, and my grandson. I told you last month about the scotch tape issues. I’m still shuddering at all the tape I had to remove. So many pictures had to be trashed because they were damaged from the tape.

My mother was – if not a full one-blown one, then a mild– hoarder. Mostly, it was tchotchkes that had no intrinsic value, items she found at the Senior Center for twenty-five cents or at a garage sale for a dime.

She always said to me when she got something new, “This is worth so much more than I paid for it. Look it up. You’ll see.”

I had no idea where I was supposed to look up the value of a coffee mug of Garfield the cat with a visible chip in the handle.

Or where I could find the resale value of a postcard of the Statue of Liberty someone had put into a plastic frame from the Dollar Store.

And just why did she think a ceramic dinner plate with the slogan Don’t Worry, Be Happy and a smiley face was worth anything of monetary substance?

It finally dawned on me the value of everything she’d bought had worth to her and that was how she – in her mind – justified it.

She loved cats and when I was growing up we had several, including a red ginger cat named Buff. Hence, the Garfield mug.

Her parents came over at a time when they had to pass through Ellis Island and stop at the Statue of Liberty to legally enter the country. Hence, the framed postcard.

Despite her horrible life, she always had upbeat expectations and loved to smile. Hence…well, you get it.

I wish that at the time I was so concerned about all these THINGS junking up her small trailer and which I told her were doing so, I could have had the insight I do now to her motivations.

She’d lost so much in life – her father at a young age, one sister to suicide, her first marriage, a baby in utero; multiple jobs and financial setbacks; and the legitimate practice of the faith she adored. It was no wonder she attached value to worthless (in my eyes) items.

In hers, they were priceless.

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November 18, 2023 · 12:54 am

8 months…

All this time I’ve been waiting for my stepfather to release his anger at me – the anger I know he holds for me putting him in the nursing home; the anger I know he holds for believing my mother died of negligence; the anger he holds because of the loss of his independence.

I’ve been waiting for him to unleash it all on me, and today I realized…I’m the one who’s angry.

Furious, truth be told.

I never got to say goodbye to my mother.

If not for my husband rushing to her bedside when I couldn’t get there, she would have died alone. I am so furious at that.

So furious.

I’m furious she spent her life in what most would believe was a poverty state. Never having any money for anything other than the bare essentials; never doing what she wanted with her life instead of always having to find a job she could physically and mentally perform when she was so damn exhausted it was a wonder she could stand upright most of the time.

She bought clothes and shoes in the local Goodwill – shoes that were always the wrong size for her. Her foot measured at an 8 but she bought whatever she could afford, many times, squeezing into a 7. And she wondered why her feet always hurt.

I hate the fact she only saw her great-grandson once and that she’ll never meet her great-granddaughter.

I could scream at the top of my lungs about how unfair life was to her, how people took advantage of her – even those who claimed to love her, myself included. I could smash something against a wall and shatter it with the amount of fury inside me for how her own mother mistreated her for her entire life.

Who am I kidding? What I want to smash is my grandmother.

I’m so damn angry she never got to see Ireland – her dream.

I’m so damn angry she never knew how much I truly loved her – loved her – despite our tortured our relationship was at times.

And I’m so, so mad I never told her the extent of my love.

All this time I’ve been the one sitting on a mountain of anger, waiting for it to unleash.

And it finally has…

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October 18, 2023 · 12:18 am

7 months…

On TikTok the other day I saw a video and had to stop and watch it. After I did, I saved it because it spoke to me on so many levels.

The video was the 7 questions you should ask your mother before she…dies. I still have trouble saying, writing, and thinking that word in relation to my mother.

These are the questions:

  1. What is your happiest memory of us ( either you and your mother, or the family as a whole)?
  2. What is the nicest thing I have ever done for you?
  3. What is the one thing you always want me to remember after you are gone?
  4. What was the first year of motherhood like for you?
  5. What do you wish most for me?
  6. Is there anything in our family that is a secret?
  7. What are the best and worst things about getting older?

Here is the saddest part of this entire exercise: I only know the answer to one of these questions. And truthfully? I wish I didn’t.

I can certainly speculate on the rest of them, but I’ll never have a definitive answer, which, for the control freak in me, is just devastating.

7 months…feels like yesterday.

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September 18, 2023 · 12:09 am

6 months today…

August 18, 2023

6 months today.

I’d like to say it’s gone by quickly.

I’d like to say I’ve started moving on from my grief and guilt.

I’d like to say I’ve accepted everything that happened and am now at peace with it.

I’d like to say I still don’t have periods where I suddenly burst into tears, or feel my heart pounding like a drum line marching o n a football field.

I’d like to say I am moving on. That I’m not paralyzed at times with indecision, or making choices I will either come to regret or instantly do.

I’d really like to say my life has finally gotten manageable again.

But I can’t.

I can’t say any of those things and be telling the truth.

What I can say is that I am taking it one day – sometimes one hour – at a time.

What I can say, truthfully, is that talking about it helps. Saying my feelings aloud not only validates them but fills me with a strange sense of purpose.

What I can say, is that each day is slightly better than the day before.

What I’ll never be able to say is that I don’t miss my mother.

Because I do. Every hour of every day.

Despite our tortured relationship…maybe even because of it…I miss her.

Terribly.

I miss the crazy malapropisms she unconsciously made almost daily.

I miss the way she’d ask me a thousand questions about the same thing.

I miss the way she referred to herself in third person when she was speaking hypothetically.

Does it make me sound crazy to say I miss fighting with her? Verbally sparring with her? Getting her to understand a different point of view than just hers?

I’m sad she only got to meet her great-grandson once.

I’m sad she’ll never meet her great-granddaughter when she arrives this winter.

I’m sad she’s not around to cook for anymore.

I’m just…sad.

6 months today.

The time flew by in a blink and yet dragged mercilessly.

6 months today…

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June 17, 2023 · 12:05 am

Serenity…

This was the first week where I didn’t cry every single day. I cried, don’t get me wrong. Just not daily.

Progress?

Maybe. But more, I think I am finally starting to emotionally accept what happened. My logical, nursing-educated brain understood my mother’s death the day it occurred.

My heart and my emotional brain? Not so much.

But the absence this week of the daily tears, the heartbreak, and the guilt I was experiencing, and at the oddest, most inopportune moments, has abated.

For now.

I know that doesn’t mean I’m done caring about my mother. The furthest thing from it. I live with the daily wish I could have been there, held her hand, and told her I loved her one last time. And done everything I could to prevent her from dying.

But I wasn’t, and I didn’t.

What this suspension of daily waterworks means, I think, is that I’m coming to terms with my mother’s passing, knowing nothing I could have done would have prevented it. Nothing I could have done would have altered the course God sent her on. Nothing I could have done would have made what happened any less horrible – for her and me.

Accepting her death, how it came about, and what it means for those she left behind has been a tortuous road these past 13 weeks, one which I wasn’t prepared to travel and have been having a great deal of trouble navigating through.

I always assumed being a nurse, having watched so many patients die over my career, would have prepared me better for the end of my mother’s life.

What’s that old saw about assuming something? Yeah, joke’s on me, isn’t it?

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened. Or for losing her. Nothing. I think I am finally starting to understand that.

With a little time, a little self-reflection, and a little emotional distance, I think I’m starting to fully accept it and am learning to move forward.

As I do, I’ve been reciting The Serenity Prayer during those times when I find myself falling into guilt again:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

It’s the wisdom part that’s taking a while to grow within me…

~ Peg

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June 10, 2023 · 12:29 am

3 months…

So today marks exactly 3 months since my mom died.

A lot has happened in those 12 weeks. Some good; some bad.

The good, first.

I was able to sell their home without too much trouble.

I’ve been able to cancel all their accounts with relative ease. Some, truthfully, were harder to cancel than others. I’m NEVER getting a Discover Card for myself,  that is for sure. Worst customer service I have ever experienced and there is still an issue 3 months on.

My stepfather, despite the second fall and subsequent re-surgery on the same broken hip that started the entire rigmarole, is doing okay in the nursing home, physically. Mentally and emotionally? Another story entirely.

Now, the bad.

My stepfather did have to have a second surgery since he re-broke his operative hip the day after my mother died.

He is failing mentally. Quickly. He repeats the same thing over and over to me when I visit. He cries often when I visit, lamenting my mother’s death. He has not accepted he will be living in the nursing facility from now on, yet. I don’t know if he ever will. Just the other day he asked if he had enough money saved so that when he “gets out maybe he can buy a little mobile home.”

It broke my heart in two when he asked that. I tried telling him he was a resident of the nursing home for the umptenth time. He cried.

The bills keep piling up. 2 surgeries; 2 multi-state ambulance transports; his care in the nursing home. It’s a lot. All their savings will be gone sooner than I think they ever expected. And they never had any kind of insurance other than Medicare. And we all know how that’s going.

For me, I am still feeling the guilt. I had a dear friend tell me, recently, something from her husband. He feels the sense of extreme guilt I am experiencing about putting them in the nursing home and then mom dying within 2 weeks, is actually my grief manifesting itself as guilt.

I think he may be right.

I carry my grief like I wear my clothing – always on me. It is a little easier, though, to get through a day without crying now. Some days I don’t cry at all. Then I lie down to go to sleep and when I say my prayers, the tears form.

I know this will pass.

Eventually.

For now, it’s just a day to day, sometime hour to hour thing.

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