Dealing with Grief and Regret

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My first thoughts on dealing with the death of my mother

This post previously appeared on the Brigley Prior Books blog in 2021, but bears reposting here as a snapshot of my life at that time.

Hope some of it resonates with you.

So, I don’t find sharing my really personal side that easy, though it is something I fully intend to do for my own personal health, but my mum died very recently, after a long period of at-home care that was shared between me and most of my brothers & sisters.

She had cancer, a recurrence of the melanoma she’d had treated 8 years previously. This time it was hiding below the surface; in her liver, pancreas, and her brain. We were lucky in many ways; she was very much herself up until the final days. Opinionated about what she wanted, bossy, and a little of her own worst enemy, due to having been an auxiliary nurse throughout her working life.

At times, she put me in a very difficult position, asking for me specifically, which must have been hurtful to the person with her at that moment. I guess because I did what she wanted and didn’t try to tell her how it would be. Maybe because I’ve never been a mum, I don’t bring that kind of finger-wagging. But the experience brought up all the old feelings of never having felt part of my family, being on the outside, being overlooked and resented.

Being the Baby of the Family is not a Bonus

I don’t think I imagined that on occasion my input was not welcomed or acknowledged. There is quite an age difference between me and most of my siblings and as a child I felt very much a burden to them, when it was a case of take Anne-Marie here or there etc, etc. I have no memories of anyone being interested in my little life or having much in the way of sibling conversations. I occupied myself in most situations. The next oldest to me was four years my senior and just before I turned 8 my first niece came along, which changed the dynamic once again because she lived with us.

I had a major upheaval in my life when I was 12; I was diagnosed with school phobia and was removed from education. It was handled very badly and there were many factors involved in that. My brothers and sisters never once asked me about what I was going through, whether they were told not to talk about it, or for whatever reason, it was hush-hush, embarrassing. All and sundry pretended that it wasn’t happening. I have a lot of emotions around that, because it felt like my pain, this horrible pain that I didn’t understand, was largely ignored, though I’m sure it would have impacted their lives to some extent.

Grief is Isolating

I only speak of it in this post because the feelings of isolation have re-awakened with the loss of my mum. I found myself in several arguments during her illness, grew resentful of how I was spoken to, which I hated because it’s such a damaging emotion. I don’t think I was expected to have an opinion, certainly not to speak so openly. Sometimes I did not want to visit my mother’s house while she was ill, due to who was there with her, and that is the truth of it.

My experience won’t be unusual. Families are strange things. My brother’s theory on why mum asked for me so often is that because of what happened to me, I wasn’t just my mum’s daughter; I was her best friend. Another truth is that I often resented mum for having appropriated my life to support herself within her marriage. I was very much her partner, her emotional support, and often her ‘fixer’. I also probably drove her round the twist on very many occasions. Basically, we were far too alike. I often said something she had found herself just about to say or think.

During one particularly painful period of my life, I had to almost stop speaking to her altogether because she just wouldn’t hear me. I was fighting for my independence and my health and on one hand she knew it had to happen, but on another she was afraid of it because of what it meant to her life.

I think she told herself she was worried about me and what I was doing to myself, and probably told others this; when what I was doing was a carefully researched and thought out means of sorting out my life. No little thing! But changing my life and putting the protocols I needed in place affected her life, because I was no longer available to indulge in our previous coping strategies.

I was left dealing with grief and regret, guilty for wanting my independence. Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters were off having families of their own, and sometimes I just wish they would think about that a little. What my experience of both growing up and most of my adulthood was like.

Generational Trauma Happens

I also very deeply loved my mother, who was blessed with the same insecurities that I constantly sought the answer to. She told me once that as a young girl, with quite a stern mother that she wished that she would die young before she got the chance to do anything wrong. That as a child, my mother was mortally afraid that she wouldn’t get into heaven. I was terrified of my nanny, known for being the teeth-puller of the family. Nanny also once told me I must not, under any circumstances, move under the electric blanket, and then was surprised that I slept like a corpse!

But I mean, you have to think on that one; how a child would deal with a thought like that. The classic example of not feeling good enough, and so strongly that she wanted to die before she did anything so bad that she wouldn’t get into heaven. She was a clever, creative person who wasn’t given enough support for her potential. It was an era where you just settled down, with little soul-searching or expectations, and got married.

She gave me something she had written sparked by when I had turned 40 a few years earlier. And it documented the insecurity she felt growing up. I couldn’t help thinking why couldn’t you see what was happening to me? It was almost exactly the same experience. Being unseen. Unheard. Unsupported. Struggling with school systems. Feeling completely out of her depth.

She was also someone that had to grow strong because she ended up having six children and was the only one in our corner when things went drastically wrong. It was always mum that had to solve it, though she didn’t always get it right.

As children, I think we often didn’t trouble mum until things got really dire. We didn’t think we should bother her, that she had a lot on her plate. In some ways, we all suffered quietly. Our generation was still the one of children being seen and not heard. I’m not saying that to blame her, but it is a truthful statement. If you are wondering where my father was in all of this, he was completely emotionally unavailable. It was probably more harmful to me having him as a father than to have no father at all.

We can get braver with age

But the tales of mum’s derring-do are too many to mention. The fight with the plumber in the small claims court, chasing down a thug with her car after he jumped on her bonnet at a traffic light. Because of me, she became an honorary dog person and often helped with whelping. Mum could always be counted on to have the rubber gloves handy!

We got drunk together and laughed when she cracked open her head on the brand new exercise machine; me trying desperately not to vomit on the floor while she bled copiously, the pair of us giggling all the way through it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so weak with misplaced laughter.

She stood up for us as much as she was able, and stood up for her friends and extended family equally. I am lucky to have my mum’s strong sense of fighting injustice. I hate people that get away with it too. I remember she was once terribly satisfied when her purse was snatched on holiday that the robber only got away with 2 pound coins and some tampax!

There were many battles over the years, often due to something her husband had invited to the door, and she very rarely lost.

She died with a lot of regret about missed opportunities

She was wonderful and flawed, soft and very harsh at times. She had a way of making people feel welcome in her home and made friends of several priests throughout her life because she was a safe pair of ears to those that may have not had someone with whom they could speak openly. It sounds strange and disloyal to say this, she was a good mum, but she might have actually been a better friend.

When people visited me at our home, they were welcomed and lavished with food, drink, and attention. Which was lovely, but could also make me feel like I was irrelevant. She tended to shine very brightly, and I had grown up in the shadows. It was too easy to step back when mum was present. Hard to measure up to what seemed to be her easy popularity.

Mum’s form of cancer was not a nice way to die, and very hard to watch, and as a devout Catholic I think she questioned what it was all about, that she was suffering this way despite the very many prayers and good deeds in her lifetime.

I think her sadness and resentment at her marriage played a big part in her illness, not least because in some sense I think she ignored the original mole, despite its clearly malign appearance, and that was because she went through a large portion of her life where she questioned whether she wanted to go on, given how unhappy she was. Frustrated, knowing she should have a partner she could go out with, away with, that wasn’t an embarrassment to her, that wasn’t bigoted, and wouldn’t show her up in public. Yet not quite brave enough to buck her religious convictions and go for divorce or separation. And really, at heart, that was because she was kind, and she felt sorry for my dad and what would become of him, even though he made her so unhappy. And he never took any responsibility for that. He is the only person I know that seems to believe he’s led a blameless life.

Watching someone you love die is a terrible privilege

I became angry about how cancer is sometimes portrayed: people just slip away quietly, no mention of the indignities you’ll suffer, what you will lose first before you find peace. How you die from the inside out.

Mum became very dispirited, particularly as she was struggling to toilet, her entire left side wasn’t functioning. We went through a long period of manhandling her out of bed and onto a commode before she was completely bedridden. She cried and got angry often at not being able to ‘go’, and though I dealt with it at the time, I found afterwards that I’m almost in shock about what I found myself doing. I never thought I could be a carer, but somehow I managed well enough.

One day I found a very poignant message on my voicemail, in her much weakened, painfully slow voice. ‘Hello. It’s your mother here. I got cut off with the phone and I could do with going to the loo. If you’re available anytime. Bye-aye.’ This was followed by several minutes of shuffling and silence. She’d got it into her head that I was the only one that could work such magic. What a talent to tuck away inside my arsenal and also a total fallacy; my powers rapidly proving very hit and miss.

The first time that oral morphine wasn’t cutting it, and my sisters called the nurse out for pain relief, I remember mum being furious because she knew that once it came down to injections to control the pain, then she didn’t have long left to live. She almost accused them of shortening her life even though she was in terrible pain.

When she did die, she had been out of it for a few days, finally finding the correct dose of pain relief that kept her relatively comfortable, but also by any yardstick, having already left us. She had been right about the injections, but there had been no other choice.

I was there with my eldest brother, (who was wonderful to me when I needed it) during the few days that her body started clearing out, preparing itself for death. It was both desperately awful and a kind of privilege. She had finally stopped calling out in a childlike way, saying she either wanted her mum or her dad, and she only stirred while she was being cleaned or washed. And then it was only to register discomfort. We were told to stop worrying about syringing fluids down her.

Families can be casually cruel

It was excruciatingly painful and has left me exhausted, numb, and once again questioning my future and how alone I am in the world right now. Which most of the time I am ok with. But at the present time, with funeral numbers restricted due to the virus, it is constantly hammered into me when discussing arrangements, that I am 1 body, and the others have at least 3, 4 and 5 bodies. Also, that as a person, I am thought of as child number 6, the last to be accounted for and considered.

During an initial discussion of numbers, the family ran down the siblings in birth order discussing who they wanted to go, and at the end, when they reached me, it was awkwardly laughed away that ‘well I could take Brodie’ (my dog). They would all die a thousand deaths if I followed through on that, be it ever so tempting.

The slight was unintended, but it also felt casually cruel and throwaway. I love my family, but I often can’t be around my family. And it’s ok for me to say and feel that. I am different. I get up every day and try to challenge the belief that my life should remain small. That I should just do an ordinary job and not stand out. I honestly don’t think they know what to make of me.

So, at the end of this rambling post, I guess I just have to say that I hope you will bear with me and support me while I sort out some personal stuff. I’m supposed to be doing a lot of social media right now, pushing myself onwards and upwards, and saying how wonderful life is. I really just want to write, but I can’t yet make a living at one without tackling the other. So, I may post on social, pretending I’m ok, and I may not. I will just do my best, or I won’t, depending on what the moment brings to me.

Today feels like a day for sleeping, or running away, and not even going to the funeral. I really am considering that; doing some grand independent gesture that belongs in a movie. I don’t want to play a role in the arrangements. I know that’s wrong and inconsiderate, but I can’t stand any further judgement. I also feel I can put my hand up and say I did my best in a traumatic situation. My conscience is clear when it comes to responsibility.

And honestly, I need a timeout, because at least once every day my brain thinks of something in which mum might be the only one that’s interested. If this resonates with you, feel free to comment below xx.

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About Me

Hello, I’m Anne-Marie. I am a RTT Practitioner, Romance Author, Championship Dog Show Judge.

I have a lot going on! But my primary focus is helping people achieve their personal and professional goals, whatever they may be. If you’re struggling, I am the kind of person you want in your corner.

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