bereavement

The Great Grief Identity Crisis

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. I’ve always defined myself by what I do, or how I relate to others, but it all seems to be a bit mixed up right now.

I’m not at uni, so I’m not a student. I am working, so I am employed, but only one day a week, so that always leads to questions about what I do with the other six days… I am a daughter, though one without a Mum. I am a niece, sister, cousin and granddaughter, but none of these are really talking points.

People keep telling me I’m like Mum. That they can see Mum in me; in my looks, my personality, my values. But I am not Mum. I am not and never will be Mum. I do not have the same ambitions as Mum had. I do not have the same desire to be surrounded by people that Mum had. I do not have the same level of intelligence that Mum had.

Mum was incredible at her job. She achieved a huge amount in her career including developing a department in the hospital, working with Marie Curie, contributing to several publications, doing some bits and bobs down in London to advise panels about her job from a national standpoint, and being a trustee at the local children’s hospice. She was a well-known figure in palliative medicine and well-liked by colleagues. Every time I ‘Google’ her career, something else comes up. When she wasn’t working, she was active in the community and the church.

I doubt I will ever have a career as successful as Mum’s. I doubt I will ever make as much of a difference in people’s lives as she did. I don’t have the single-minded ambition that she held and don’t have the same love of academia that she did. I like to be doing things, practical things, on my feet and out and about.

Mum’s illness caused me to lose bits of my identity. Her illness resulted in my time being split between uni work and heading back to visit my family. The more ill she got, the more any ‘free’ time disappeared, and with that any ‘me’ time, any time to follow non-academic pursuits and any time to pick up hobbies. Life became uni-Mum-sleep-uni-Mum-sleep very quickly and in all that I lost myself a bit.

Building my life back up is hard… really hard. I’m having to rebuild myself, almost – or make a new self – but I don’t really know who it is I want to make, so I’m sort of blindly following things that come up and cobbling together some sort of life, whilst also attempting to deal with grief for Mum and my old life. Mum always said she just wanted me to be happy, but it’s hard to be happy when every day is another day she’s not there to talk to. I don’t know who I’m making, I don’t know who I am or who I will be next week.

I don’t want to live my life as “Fiona’s daughter”. There are a few people I know at the moment who think of me this way, and it feels like such a burden. It also doesn’t do justice either to me or to Mum. Mum wasn’t just a mother: she was so much more than that. And I may be her daughter, but I am so much more than that, too. The values that both Mum and Dad instilled in all three of us lay the groundwork for us to build our lives on. I only hope that, in time, I can start to use these things – the wisdom, advice, baking skills, work ethic, and countless other things about them that inspire me – to build myself into someone very different to Mum, but hopefully someone they’re proud of.

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Who am I writing for?

~ Naomi ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been struggling for inspiration these past few weeks.

I used to just sit down and write. While Mum was ill lots of things were happening so there was always something to write about. Then she died, there was a funeral, there was Christmas… always something to write about. But grief is boring, not a lot happens, it gets quite tedious.

Sometimes I have had inspiration but I’ve felt unable to write about it because it didn’t ‘fit’ with this blog. That inspiration then passes and once again I’m left mute.

I think I all too often forget why I’m writing and who I’m writing for. Initially I would just sit and write – a sort of catharsis – but as time went on and the blog grew, I began to feel more pressure to write ‘well’. Initially this lead to writing each post in word and copying them across (spelling and grammar have never been my strong point), then months ago, I started getting my brother to proof read things for me, and some blogs have more input from him than others.

More recently, though, I feel like I’ve lost my voice. I feel disconnected from my blog. I feel as though it’s run away from me and I’m left behind in the dust and I’m not quite sure how that’s happened. I think I need to stop worrying about what’s ‘right’ or what people want to read, and start just writing again.

Some of My Past Died With Mum

~ Naomi ~ 2 Comments

Grief is a strange (and on the whole, very boring) thing. We’re now entering month five of life without Mum and I was beginning to think maybe the surprises were running out. Apparently that’s not the case, though.

After getting in a conversation with someone yesterday and coming home and pondering, I was struck with the realisation that I can’t remember parts of my past. Not only can I not remember things, but I can’t think of anyone who would be able to remember them…

I’m not talking about major life-changing events like ‘which primary school did I go to’ or ‘what GCSEs did I choose’. Thankfully there are records for that. Also, I still have my Dad, and although his memory may not be as good as Mum’s was (which was scarily good), much of my past is still held in his memory.

However, this isn’t a foolproof set-up. When we were younger, my Dad worked away during the week. Mum worked long hours, too – but she saw us each night. There are a lot of the things that happened over that period that I can’t remember, but will have existed in Mum’s memory – and they will have died with Mum. Basic things like ‘what was my favourite badge to work on at Brownies?’ and ‘at what point did I realise English was anything but my favourite subject?’ I will probably never know.

There are other things that Dad will have known at the time but will not remember now. Things like the people I played with at school, my favourite subjects in Year 2, and my favourite item of clothing as a nine-year-old (although if I hunted round the photo archives for long enough, I could probably work that last one out).

These things are only skimming the surface of what I’ve been thinking over, but they are examples of items in my lost past. It’s really hard to explain how it feels to sit there and try and conjure up memories and have nobody there to fill in the blanks. In the past, if I wanted to know something I would just text Mum, but now I can see the memories but can’t reach them to make sense of them, and there is nobody there to help me do that. It’s incredibly frustrating and depending what it is, can be quite distressing.

As well as memories in their purest form, there are many things that I’m sure I remember ‘wrongly’, or remember correctly but with the eyes of a seven-year-old. Sometimes you just want someone else to offer some perspective on your memories, but when only two of you were involved in that memory and one of those people is dead, where does that leave you?

Even ‘taking a trip down memory lane’ is hard. At 18 I visited London with Mum for an awards evening, there are things we did on that trip and if I want to remember them I no longer have anyone to bounce those memories off. I can only remember it on my own. It’s so lonely.

It is really weird knowing that if I lose a memory, and only Mum would have remembered it, it is now a nothing. It’s a gap. I don’t know where it went or what it turned into but it’s not there anymore. It’s been replaced by space and silence. For the rest of my life, that gap will always be a gap; there will never again be a piece of memory that perfectly fits.

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Two Very Different Moves

~ Naomi ~ 2 Comments

I started planning moving away to university months before it happened. After sixth form, I took a gap year, so by the spring before I went to uni, I knew for certain which university I would be going to and what I would be studying. My birthday is in March and I’d asked for ‘bits for uni’. Mum and I spent the day in York shopping for bedding, pans, and decorative bits and bobs. I remember it as such a lovely day; proper mum-and-daughter time. It was filled with excitement of new adventures to come. She’d just been given the cancer ‘all-clear’, and things were really looking up.

When the time come to move to uni, my whole family came (it was a bit of an event). Mum had bought me a big tub of chocolates to share with others on my floor (after all, chocolate is a fairly sturdy base for friendship). It was an emotional but exciting and happy time.

I moved again this weekend. My first ‘proper’ move since I first moved to halls – I’ve moved between home and uni since then, but only to and from halls so it never felt very different from that first time. But this time, I moved out of halls and into a real house.

I’ve had to move out of halls because I’m not returning to uni this January. I felt the need to remain around my friends and support networks, so I needed to find a place to live fairly quickly (or sofa hop for a bit, but that didn’t really appeal). Thankfully, with the help of a local youth charity, I found a place very quickly, living with a lovely lady and her two cats.

I’d been thinking about Mum a bit less recently, but over the last week I’ve been missing her more again. I always low-level miss her, but it had been getting a little easier and memories of ‘well Mum’ had begun to replace some of the ‘sick Mum’ memories. Seriously missing Mum returned though, and with it came ‘grief attacks’ and many moments where it felt like every part of my body was breaking, all at once.

When I ordered new bedding (my new place has a bigger bed), it reminded me of that day I spent with Mum in York. A happy memory, but a memory nonetheless, one that can never be repeated. Packing up my things, I relived moments that have happened in that room. It was my home, my safe place, throughout Mum’s illness. When I returned from hospital the night before she slipped into a coma, that was where I landed. When my friend came to see me and started to cry, it was that room. The walls of that room have seen more than a student room should ever have to see. It was the place I ran to when I heard that Mum had died.

On Saturday, the three month anniversary of Mum’s death, I shut the door on that room for the final time. My very kind new landlady helped me move out. Dad will see my new place at some point, but Mum never will. She will never see my new room, never meet the person I’m living with. She’ll never see me grow and learn and laugh and cry and that breaks me. So many times in the last few weeks all I have wanted is a hug from her. A bit of reassurance that I’m doing okay and that the decisions that I’m making are not ‘wrong’ ones.

Living somewhere new is a new start. It’s a chance to move on from Mum’s illness and death. A chance to start piecing my life back together, to build it back up again. I wish it were that simple though…I still jump when the phone rings, and cry-laugh when I’m reminded of a Mum quirk. Mum is all around my room, in photos, in the plaque she bought me last Christmas, and in the books that stand on my drawers. Mum will be brought up in job applications when it comes to explaining why I’m not studying right now, her name will stick in my throat every time a friend or family member of my housemate visits and asks what I’m doing at the moment. It’s not as simple as ‘not being affected by cancer anymore’ because we still are – I still am – and probably always will be in some way. That said, I can choose to let it define me, or I can choose to move on and begin to build a new life. I hope that by moving, that is what I’m beginning to do.

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900 Cancer Diagnosises A Day

~ Naomi ~ 3 Comments

Someone just rang me up on behalf of Macmillan. It was someone asking for donations, as you might expect (I don’t think they’ve ever rung me up for anything else, and yes you can get annoyed at cold callers, but at the end of the day it’s their job and at least this time it’s for a charity not for PPI or something). The line used to get donations this time was ‘900 people are diagnosed every day with cancer in the UK*’.

900 people. Every single day. Now of course, their reason for telling me this was to get donations, but 900 people is a LOT.

That’s 900 people who are hearing the news every day, and then 900 people who are going to have to go home and tell their family and friends. 900 lots of family and friends who are going to have to hear the news that someone they love has cancer. Well over 900 lives that are going to be affected by cancer on any given day.

Not all of these will be terminal, like Mum, but some will be.

It makes me so angry. I hate this disease. I hate what it does to people. Not just to the people diagnosed – but their family and friends too. Look at my family – a unit of 5, plodding along. Mum diagnosed the first time and we did okay. We accepted it, we dealt with it, we brushed ourselves off and got back up again.

Then round two hit. My youngest brother is doing okay at the minute. But at 15 years old he saw his Mum for the last time, and that shouldn’t be something which happens to anyone. My middle brother is doing okay at the moment too. He’s in a decent job with bright university prospects. But last year it hit him hard, he had an incredibly difficult time at university and ended up not pursuing that particular course and that particular uni. Dad’s taking things in his stride but it’s clear he’s not exactly ‘living the dream’, so to speak. I don’t want to write much more than that on the 3 main men in my life – it’s their life to share if they want to and not really my place to do it for them. But they have been deeply affected, as anyone would be if their spouse or Mum died?

Me? Well, it’s been 2.5 months since Mum died and almost 24 since she was diagnosed. I’m not back at uni yet – it doesn’t feel possible at the moment and my GP was fairly explicit that she didn’t think now was a good time to go back, either. I’ve been struck down with anxiety so bad that it can take me a long time to even venture as far as the kitchen opposite my room, and that’s if I make it.

I’m working on it, but I’m currently faced with having to find a new place to live, and new support, which isn’t exactly helping. I have found an absolutely brilliant charity this week though who have really been helping me out, and I am so grateful.

Building my life back up is not something that is going to be quick or easy. It’s going to be difficult and it’s going to take time. My Mum hasn’t just died, but she was ill for 20 months and if anything, that’s currently affecting me more.

I get frustrated often. I am desperate to get back to the person I used to be. The person who was able to hop on a train and nip down to London for the day. Who spoke in front of rooms full of people. Who enjoyed living and learning. Who socialised. Who never stopped. I used to be able to do all of that and now some days I can’t travel as far as 3 feet, and I feel unable to even comment on something on Facebook, never mind talking to hundreds of people.

Then I hear stats like this and I get even more frustrated because Mum’s cancer wasn’t a one off and it sucks. Cancer is affecting people every single day and I feel powerless to do anything about it. I’m not a scientist, I can’t cure cancer. I can’t take the pain away from people. I can’t cure their loved ones or better yet, stop them from even getting ill in the first place.

I wish I could, but I can’t. So I feel like I’m standing here watching it all from behind a glass screen. No matter how much I blog, no matter how much I scream or stamp my feet (figuratively, of course), it’s not going to fix this.

It’s times like this when I wish I had the faith that my Mum held so deeply. I wish I could believe in this bigger plan drawn up by a loving God. But I’m struggling to. I’m working on it. But it’s another thing which just isn’t that easy.

*At a very quick Google, I can’t find their evidence for this, but I didn’t look very hard. But whether it’s exactly 900 or not, it’s still a lot.

UK Blog Awards 2016

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

UK Blog Awards popped up on my Twitter feed with a call for nominations a couple of months ago. I procrastinated for weeks -my confidence isn’t all that great and I’m constantly surprised that people actually want to read what I write. It took a lot of persuasion from friends but eventually I nominated myself.

In all honesty, the main reason I decided to do it was to increase the exposure of this blog, not because I want tens of thousands of followers on Twitter or to be the most popular blog in the world ever or anything like that. I just know how alone I felt when Mum was first diagnosed, and how alone I’ve felt at times throughout her illness and eventual death and the more people who read this blog, the more likely it is that it will read someone who is in a similar position and needs to feel less alone.

I can’t cure cancer. I can’t bring my Mum back. I can’t change what has happened in our lives over the last few years. I can’t write off anyone else’s diagnosis or stop anyone else from going through the pain of cancer or of a loved one dying. All I can do is keep writing and hope that someone might read it at 2am when the world feels dark, and that it helps them to fall asleep knowing they’re not completely alone.

If you’d like to vote for me in these awards, you can do so here.

If You Make One New Year’s Resolution This Year: Make It to Talk About Death

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

Death is something we don’t routinely talk about.

Our understanding of death changes as we grow. As a child we’re fairly open about it. We have grand ideas of our loved ones (normally pets or worms) going to a ‘happy place’ or going on ‘holiday’. Death doesn’t seem particularly scary to us, it’s just a part of life.

As we grow, our understanding grows too. We begin to learn that death means our loved one is never coming back, and start to respond to that. Some of us might then believe in reincarnation. Others hold on to ideas of heaven or an afterlife. Whatever we believe, somewhere along the line most of us learn that death is not something that’s widely talked about, and it becomes something scary and unknown.

Whether we’re scared or not, and whatever we believe, one of the few certainties in life is death; it’s going to happen to all of us at some point. In our house we’ve tended to be fairly open about it – Mum was a palliative medicine consultant, so to ignore it would’ve been to ignore Mum’s job almost entirely – but even if it’s not something you want to discuss around the dinner table, it’s something we need to talk about.

Let’s start with the medical bits. Would you wish to be resuscitated? Would you want tube feeding if you reached the stage where you couldn’t feed yourself? Would you want your child to look after you when you became immobile, or would you rather be in a nursing home?

Moving on, what about immediately after death? Would you like to be cremated of buried? Would you like a traditional funeral or something a bit different? You can’t answer these questions once you’re unconscious, or dead. The worst thing for your family would be to have a conversation with a doctor about whether to resuscitate you (if needs be) in the night, and for them to have absolutely no idea of what you would want. It’s worth thinking about these questions not just for you, but also in the context of your loved ones.

You could even chat to those closest to you about what they believe happens after death. Is the finality of death simply too much to think about, or is it important to consider it fully? Perhaps you believe that death isn’t the end, that reincarnation or an afterlife makes sense to you. I often find this conversations a lot less morbid than you’d think, and you can learn a lot about someone from their responses, and the reasons behind those responses.

There are lots of scary things in life, and I think death is one of them. But I can’t think of anything much scarier than being asked what my Dad or either of my brothers would want in this situation, and having absolutely no idea. It would destroy me.

I’m so lucky that Mum and Dad had these conversations, because in February when Mum slipped into a coma, Dad was able to tell the medical staff exactly what she wanted. When Mum died, Dad knew not to try heavy CPR to buy her a few more painful hours. Knowing what Mum wanted has saved out family so much suffering, and has given us some peace of mind.

So maybe death isn’t something you really want to think about at the start of the New Year (let’s face it, there are more fun things to think about). Perhaps you think you’re not old enough to discuss it. Maybe it’s not the most exciting of topics to chat about over a few pints, or maybe it is, but either way I challenge you to talk about it. I don’t mind how you do it, or when; it could be tomorrow or in three months’ time. Maybe it will be a short, sweet conversation, or perhaps it opens up discussions you didn’t realise you needed to have.

For more information on talking about death, check out Dying Matters, a charity who aim to help people talk more openly about death, dying and bereavement.

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Two Month Anniversary… And A Celebration

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday marked two months without Mum. Two whole months. At one month I wasn’t sure whether it felt like more or less time since Mum had died, but at two months I can confirm it feels so much longer.

I’m home at the moment and already there are subtle changes which hint at Mum not being here… The lack of natural yoghurt in the fridge (and the huge increase in cheese). The emergency ‘crap I’ve left my eyeliner at uni’ stash is no longer there. There isn’t a spare conditioner in the cupboard. Dad is amazing and any time I mention something like this he goes out of his way to rectify it (or already has and it’s just in a different place), but they all show that things are slowly changing.

As well as marking two months without Mum, yesterday also marked 16 wonderful years of my youngest brothers’ life.

We are so blessed to have him in our lives. I love him to pieces and as a sibling unit, we’ve really had to stick together over the past few years which only strengthens our relationship.

I struggled to know how we could make the day a bit special – Mum was always so good at that and Ed didn’t seem particularly bothered about doing anything. Drop scones for breakfast, chocolate milk in the fridge, party rings for tea and a caterpillar cake did the trick and he finished the day smiling which is all that matters really.

We’re a family of four now. A little unit navigating our new lives both separately and together. Learning how to adapt to this new life without Mum, and we’re getting there slowly. Yesterday was a reminder that we can have a new normal, we can smile, and we can celebrate. Mum died but we didn’t, and slowly we’re learning to live again.

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One Month Without Mum

~ Naomi ~ 2 Comments

It’s been a month since Mum died. Thirty-one days. Seven hundred and seventy-four hours. Four thousand, four hundred and 60 minutes.

It feels like a long time, as though it’s been years, but also feels as though she could have died yesterday or last week. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from grief it’s that time stops making sense and you just have to roll with it. Sometimes hours can feel like days and other times days can seem like hours, but as long as you’re moving forward it doesn’t really matter.

I miss Mum more than ever. Christmas is beginning to enter the shops and it’s always been such a special time of year for us. Mum made the cake in October, and we’d start making mince pies around then, too, most of which were frozen until Christmas. As Christmas got nearer we’d make a shortbread Christmas tree and a gingerbread house. We’d always planned for her to visit me at uni and go Christmas shopping together, in York, but it never happened. The Christmas market is being constructed at the moment, and I remember going around Leeds Christmas market with Mum during cancer round one. We wrapped up in our woollies, ate caramelised nuts and browsed the stalls assigning presents to people.

I’ve encountered a few situations over the past month where I’ve really, really, needed Mum. I’ve gone to Dad or older female friends for advice and though they have been fantastic and incredibly helpful, it’s not the same. I still often find myself going to text Mum or drop her a Facebook message only to remember that she can’t reply. The one thing that sticks with me, whatever the situation, is the message ‘be kind to yourself’, because that’s what Mum always used to say to me, and it’s pretty good advice for most situations.

I didn’t realise how often I spoke to Mum. The first time she was diagnosed, I was on my gap year, so when Mum was on a chemo week and I wasn’t at work, we’d spend time together knitting and watching TV. We grew a lot closer over that time. I think when your Mum has a brush with cancer you appreciate her a lot more. I would text her most days and if I didn’t we’d normally end up in a Facebook conversation later on in the evening. In February we thought she was going to die and since then our communications have only intensified, I would speak to her about even more things and we’d wish each other goodnight most days. I miss her wishing me goodnight.

But it’s the hangover from Mum’s illness and death which surprises me the most. For months I have had my phone on me at all times, waiting for a text or call to say that she’d died, or was about to die. Now I jump when I get a phone call. I panic if I can’t find my phone. I am more anxious and jittery then I ever was before Mum’s illness. I rarely have a full night of sleep, I often dream of Mum, or of her dying again, or of Dad being diagnosed with something. Often when a family member contacts me I expect it to be them telling me that somebody else is poorly or has died. Some days I struggle to leave the house for fear of someone asking me how Mum is, because that’s something which happened for a long time. I’m struggling to go out with people my age because I can’t remember how to do it, it feels like it’s been such a long time. I’m slowly building my life back up, but part of that is realising how far things have slipped from where they were, and that’s something I learn more about every day.

One month has passed. We’ve survived the funeral. Things are beginning to settle and everybody has gone back to work, school, and wherever else they might go. One month of questions for Mum float around my head. One month of things I want to tell her. One month of smiles she hasn’t seen. One month of problems she hasn’t solved. One month of moments she hasn’t shared. One month of conversations from which she’s been absent.

Some days are okay; I can smile, laugh, work, see people and generally live life. Other days are hard and I have to just be patient with myself. I miss her. I miss her so much. But I can live my life alongside missing her. Most importantly, despite missing her, I can still be kind to myself.

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Dear Mum.

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

Dear Mum.

I really, really miss you.

It’s so hard having to make decisions and not having you to run them by. I can guess what you’d say, but I don’t know. I can hear your voice in my head saying ‘be kind to yourself’, but translating that into real life decisions can be tricky.

There have been lots of decisions to make lately. Whether to put an obituary in the paper, which song to put with the video of your photos, whether to bother washing my hair or whether it can wait one more day… One of the harder ones is what to wear to your funeral. I should have seen that one coming really and asked for your help in advance. I’ve always been useless at that sort of stuff. I don’t want to wear black because that seems a bit morbid, but I need to be smart. I’ve ordered a few bits online, I’m hoping that they don’t all fit/I don’t like them all because if I do I’ll be skint. I’m afraid it’s probably going to be Primark shoes, your nemesis, but some things never change!

I’ve had to make a really difficult decision today – whether or not to take a Leave of Absence from uni. It’s been mentioned by people for a few weeks, but the time has come for the decision to be made. There is no right or wrong answer on this – keep going, work hard, attend all my lectures from now on and hope my head is in it enough to pass an exam and write a 5000 word essay in January, or take a break until January, do this term next year, graduate 6 months after my peers, and hope it was all worth it.

You’ve always been good at the academic stuff and I’m struggling to motivate myself to do it without you. You’ve always read through my essay, talked to me about my subject, debated with me, been interested in my work and helped me to come to new conclusions about things. I really needed you today to help me make this decision, but you’re not here.

Today I sat down to catch up on lectures and perhaps make a start on the research proposal which was due in yesterday. I spent 3 hours listlessly flicking through lecture slides with zero motivation or energy. I think that was my answer, so after discussing it with pretty much every man and his dog, I’m taking a break.

I miss you, Mum. I keep seeing things that remind me of you, or see something in a shop and think of buying it for you then realise you’re not there and it hits me again. I think of texting you, but you wouldn’t get it. I don’t want anything big, I just want to talk to you, I miss you. I just want a hug. Or to rest my head on your stomach while you stroke my hair and we chat about the day or something medical or something else. I just really, really, miss you.

Love you lots xxx