motherless daughter

Mother’s Day Fundraising

~ Naomi ~ Leave a comment

Mother’s Day is next Sunday – last year we did some fundraising for Yorkshire Cancer research. This year we are continuing our fundraising for Martin House Children’s Hospice. Mum worked there for many years before later becoming a trustee. We are trying to raise £5000 to restore the lighting in the corridor of the children’s bedrooms which will not only brighten it up for them, and highlight the incredible artwork on the walls, but also reflects Mum’s light and bright personality.

This Mother’s Day we’re asking you to donate the cost of a card in memory of all the Mums who can’t share Mother’s Day with us this year.

To donate, please text ‘LOVM53’ followed by your donation amount to 70070 or visit our Just Giving page.

 

I Don’t Want to Become ‘Hardened’, I Just Want to be Me

~ Naomi ~ 5 Comments

Lots of things have happened in the news this week. Lots of things have happened in other people’s lives this week. There is a lot of stress, upset and anger in the air. Facebook is a melting pot of unkind exchanges, arguments, and blame. It’s not a nice environment to be in and I find myself shrinking away from it and burying myself in other things.

Several times in the past week, something horrible has happened either on the news, or to a friend or acquaintance; the kind of horrible things nobody should have to face. Ashamedly, when these things have happened, the first thought that has popped into my head has been ‘so?’.

You lost your bag, so? You broke up with your significant other, so? Your housing plans fell through, so? So what? You’re still living, breathing, healthy. You’ve still got both your parents. You’ve still got a steady income, a place to eat, clothes to wear. You’re still richer than most of the world’s population. Nobody’s died, things can be fixed, worse things have happened, I could go on.

I don’t say any of these things. It’s bad enough that I think them. I hate that I think them. The problem is I compare everything to Mum’s illness and death. When compared to that, a lot of things seem small or insignificant in comparison. They’re fixable.
Sometimes, this is a really helpful way to think. I certainly stress less about little things that used to really bug me. It can help me to have a clear head when dealing with difficult situations. It’s made me more resilient.
But it’s not a kind way to think. I feel as though I’m becoming ‘hardened’. I’ve always liked that I am able to empathise with a wide range of people. I love that I feel able to talk to different people about different things. I love that people feel able to talk to me. It’s an incredible privilege and very humbling, and I don’t want to lose it.
On the whole, I’m pretty good at giving myself a time out when these thoughts strike. A little bit of time to breathe, think, and then respond. I’m not sure of any other way around it.
Something that seems so small to me is something which can seem massive to someone else. It’s all relative. If a person has never gone through anything particularly difficult, then they’re more likely to find something upsetting that I might barely blink at. Other people will have gone through a lot more than me, and something which I find incredibly distressing, they may well see as nothing.
But I worry that as time goes by, I will only become more ‘hardened’. I worry that I am beginning to close off more. Sometimes I feel like shaking people, shouting at them; anything at all to make them realise how lucky they are. To stop dwelling on the seemingly insignificant and look around at all they’ve got instead of all they haven’t got. There would be no point in doing anything like that, though. It wouldn’t help. The saying ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ wasn’t born out of thin air, but it’s not a great thing to yell in someone’s face.
I don’t want to become hardened. In many ways, I wish I still worried about things which now seem insignificant. I want the old me back. I don’t want to be angry, I don’t want to be hard, I don’t want to be grieving, I just want to be me.
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Dad: Picking Up Where We Left Off?

~ Naomi ~ 3 Comments

I was in a well-known hardware shop last week and I saw a girl who was probably about 3 or 4, being pushed around on one of those trolleys you only get in big hardware shops (they’re sort of like a platform with a handle, rather than your standard shopping trolley) by her Dad. It prompted such a clear memory of doing the same with my Dad… only instead of it being one child it would normally have been two or three. Saturday or Sunday afternoons, being pushed on one of these trolleys by my Dad, feeling like I was on Aladdin’s carpet. Everything was right in the world, I was safe with my Dad buying something exciting like wood and then we’d go home and have tea, have a bath, and go to bed listening to The Archers play on the radio in the next room.

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My relationship with my Dad has got buried somewhere in Mum’s illness and death. It got put on pause on February 8th 2014 when he text me to find out where I was (I was living at uni at the time), came and picked me up, and told me in the car that my Mum’s cancer had returned and that there was no cure. I don’t know how he ever found the words to tell me, and then to tell Mum’s’ family and friends, but he did.

Mum became ill for the first time when I was 18. Dad brought my brothers and me into the kitchen and told us about Mum’s cancer. He told us Mum had caught it early and that we shouldn’t be overly worried. We cried and hugged each other, but we were calm. I went to work that afternoon. Mum bounced back from cancer round one, and wasn’t diagnosed with terminal cancer until around 9 months later.

Once Mum was diagnosed as terminal, Dad would drive me backwards and forwards to uni, clocking up miles and miles, allowing me to continue my education as well as spending valuable time with Mum. It was Dad who learned all the biology behind Mum’s condition, Dad who learned how to care for her at every step, and Dad who became fluent in doctor-speak. It was Dad who managed all of the visitors coming in and out of our house, Dad who spent hours every day on the phone to people updating them on Mum’s condition, Dad who slept downstairs next to Mum, there for her night and day. It was Dad who was next to Mum when she died, Dad who really was there ‘til death do us part’, Dad who had to ring the GP, the coroner, and anyone else you ring when someone dies. It was Dad who rang me when Mum died, Dad who spoke to me as my world fell apart in a university stairwell, Dad who gave me a hug when I walked through the door later that day.

It’s Dad who’s left in a big house, in a small village, with three offspring and no wife.

When Mum was ill, Dad and I spoke about it a lot. At the beginning of Mum’s illness, Dad asked me to explain a few bits or bobs using my A-Level biology knowledge. As Mum’s illness progressed, Dad and I would spend half an hour in the car together between uni and home at least twice a week, which was a lot of time for talking. We would talk about Mum’s symptoms, her level of care, sometimes about what life would be like without her. We rarely talked about things that weren’t in some way related to Mum.

Mum and Dad had so many plans and so much they were looking forward to, together. Without Mum, Dad’s lost more than his ‘other half’: he’s lost his best friend, partner in crime, and confidante. They had plans to travel, to do charity work, perhaps to foster after we’d all grown up and moved out. They had other plans, ideas, hopes and dreams that I know nothing about.

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As for Dad and me, I’ve got to learn to become a daughter again. Our relationship paused two years ago, and in that time I’ve changed in so many ways and so has he. I’ve had to grow up quickly in a lot of ways, but in other ways I’ve got stuck in time. I’ve also not moved away from home in the same way as many of my peers. I’ve moved away from home physically, but I’ve got very used to going backwards and forwards on a regular basis and contacting my family multiple times a day; something which the majority of my peers definitely do not do.

Dad and I have had to start navigating this whole Dad-daughter-motherless-grief thing. He’s my Dad… but I don’t have a Mum anymore, so to some extent he’s been plonked in the role of Mum-and-Dad combined. Things I used to go to Mum for, I now either have to find a close female friend, or go to Dad. He’s got to do things he didn’t used to take sole responsibility for like remember what we have for birthday teas, or buy the odd bit of clothing.

There are times when it’s been really, really hard. Dad has never shied away from challenging me and my decisions, and as much as I love that and respect it, it can be hard when we disagree on something and I don’t have another parent to run to. Without another parent to mediate, it can then take a little while longer than it might have done to resolve anything like that. Admittedly, at times, I’ve felt like I’ve had to be a ‘Mum’ to my brothers. My Dad told me when Mum died that we should never let anyone tell us what Mum ‘would have wanted’, and that I was not my Mum, and I was not my brother’s Mum. But that can be hard; I remember things Mum did for me, like buying my favourite foods during revision periods, and I want to do the same for my brothers (this particular one resulted in a few kilos of milk bottle sweets arriving at my Dad’s house).

Working out how we all relate to each other as a family is just one more difficulty in the mountain of change that occurs when someone dies. I know that we will get there and I’m really glad we’re close enough to work through these things together.

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Learning toAccept ‘Okay’

~ Naomi ~ 1 Comment

We live in a society of extremes. Our media constantly reports the best of humanity and, more often, the worst of humanity (they sort of have to, I don’t imagine anyone would read ‘man went to work and nothing happened’). The adverts that surround us tell his how to be ‘skinnier’, ‘more toned’, ‘more muscular’, ‘smarter’, basically ‘better’.

Well before we’re able to make decisions for ourselves, life is insidiously turned into a sort of Hunger Games, pitting young people against each other for the benefit of the wider world – and it works in stages. As toddlers, we are pitted against our peers to see who can walk first, talk first, count first. If you pass that stage well enough, then school becomes your new battleground, where we are told to be the ‘best’, to achieve the ‘best grades’, to win every sports match, basically to be at the top in everything we do. Do well enough there, and leaving school and moving into a job becomes the next battleground – targets and challenges are thrown at you from every angle, with competition manifesting itself in salary, houses, cars, anything tangible that people can use to compare themselves to one another.

We push ourselves, try to squeeze more than we can fit into each hour of every day, we run on empty and burn ourselves out. We lose ourselves, our very dreams, in the quest to ‘be the best’. And ultimately, what for? Someone will always be better, faster, smarter, stronger (unless you really are at the top, but so few people ever get there that most people will have to settle somewhere along the line). If we do achieve or succeed, the pressure only mounts. We have to look up and down at the same time, beating anyone who tries to take our place whilst simultaneously trying to reach higher and overtake the person in front. It’s exhausting, and it’s not healthy.

There’s something incredibly freeing about learning to accept ‘okay’. Following Mum’s death there have been lots of ups and downs. It can often feel like everything is crap and nothing is ever going to get better. There have been weeks when I have felt incredibly low, and at times like that, I don’t want to feel ‘good’ or ‘great’, I literally just want to feel ‘okay’. It’s not normal for anyone to feel ‘great’ all the time or even ‘good’ all the time (whatever adverts might tell us!). Sometimes feeling okay, and being at peace with that, can be such a relief.

When it comes to other aspects of life, as much as it is admirable to constantly strive to be better, sometimes it’s necessary to accept ‘okay’. You didn’t get all of your jobs for the day done, but it’s okay because there’s tomorrow. Your room is a little messier than you’d like, but it’s okay because you’ve had a busy week and you’re tired. You don’t feel like cooking tonight, but it’s okay because ready meals, takeaways and toast exist, and you’ve had a busy day. These are really basic examples, but it’s the start of a new ‘okay’ mindset.

Of course, in some aspects of your life you will want to strive for better than okay, and that’s okay too! If you have a big exam coming up, of course you will try to get the best grade you possibly can. When going for a promotion, of course you will want to put your all into it. When it’s your child’s birthday party, of course you will want to make it as memorable as possible (in a good way!). But equally, when you do put your all into everything and you don’t achieve what you’d hoped, it’s not the end of the world; it really isn’t.

Adding ‘okay’ to your vocabulary is so vital in today’s society when there is pressure from every angle. When you’re expected to do unpaid overtime, have a ‘perfect’ house, a ‘perfect’ body and a ‘perfect’ social life all at the same time (which, by the way, is entirely unrealistic). You are okay. You really are okay. And most of the time, so am I.

Featured: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/naomibarrow/self-esteem-being-okay_b_9826172.html

6 Months

~ Naomi ~ 7 Comments

It’s 6 months today since Mum died. There aren’t really any words to put to it. It’s just a fact.

A lot has changed in the past 6 months. I live somewhere new, I’ve made new friends, I’ve lost a few friends, I stopped going to uni and started volunteering at a few places and doing a course at Mind, I started a new job, and I’m slowly trying to develop some sort of a social life.

There have been some great things and some not-so-great things.

I thought maybe I’d start to miss Mum a little less, but at the moment I seem to be missing her more and more. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s the weather, who knows. 6 months-post death and people stop asking. Not a criticism on anyone, life moves on, people move on, and there’s not a lot you can update when it comes to grief (as opposed to illness where something happens all the time). Sometimes I just want a Mum hug though, they’re different to other hugs. It can feel like all I need is one hug and I’ll be on my way. I didn’t live with Mum in her final years so it’s not like I saw her every day, but we did text often and I knew where she was if I needed her – I suppose I always took that for granted. She wasn’t meant to die.

So 6 months have passed. Soon there will be another 6 months, and then another. I just hope that with each passing 6 months, things get a little easier.

Illness vs Death

~ Naomi ~ 4 Comments

People don’t realise that has horrible as Mum dying was, it’s her illness which is having such a huge effect on me at the moment.

It was seeing her slurring and seeing things on the walls, unable to eat or walk, and then getting lost in Leeds in the dark on a Friday night because I was so upset I didn’t look where I was going and before I knew it I was stuck somewhere not-so-safe. Before that I was so confident at being out and about but now if I’m out in the dark I am so anxious and it’s only made worse by noise.

It was seeing the woman I’ve always seen as so strong, capable and ‘big’ unable to even reach up to her face to scratch her cheek… having to feed her water through a sponge and wipe her face for her. Then seeing other women, who I’ve always seen as role models, crying. Leaving the room and crying. Turning away and crying. Breaking down unable to speak. Having to remain strong for them, because they needed it.

The last stages of her illness were hard, really hard… but it was the sudden deterioration 8 months prior to that which really changed everything. It was so sudden and so unexpected.

I miss my Mum a huge amount, and there is a lot to come to terms with, but it’s the illness I’m struggling to get past. I get images in my head and I can see them in front of me when I’m watching TV or walking in the street or whatever and they won’t go away. Sometimes it feels like I’m back there. I haven’t slept in my bedroom at Dad’s house since that week.

I don’t know how to deal with it or where to go with it. There are no answers or solutions. I don’t even remember it all properly (yet?) but it’s just always there.

10271626_747664941922103_6494238436515259520_nIt was seeing the woman I’ve always seen as so strong, capable and ‘big’ unable to even reach up to her face to scratch her cheek…

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.