For the past year, I've been afraid of death. I had no experience with it. Then all of a sudden my Mom gets diagnosed with lung cancer and the doctors say she has less than a year to live. She comes home and survives only three weeks.
Everybody else seems to have such strong people pass away, people that gave them some kind of hope, or contentment... I thought that the brave, peaceful kind of death you saw on TV was just a sham after I saw my mom die, but then I read some of the stories here and it looks it was just in my Mom's fortune and character to die an agonizing and selfish death.
Despite having been a deeply spiritual person her entire life, she almost entirely forgot about God on her deathbed. She began looking to Einstein and philosophy for possible explanations for life after death. She began saying crazy sad things, like, "God is going to give me a new lung and I'm going to get better. Watch." Her eyes shone so confidently, but I couldn't tell her that wasn't going to happen.
She showed a perverse and sick delight in watching the rest of her family suffer. I swear, when I crept out onto the porch one night to tell her that I didn't think I was handling things so well (all of our visiting relatives were crowding me in already overwhelming circumstance), she sneered with pleasure. Then she began screaming and raving hysterically about me being selfish. I had a panic attack, and my Grandma pulled me away from the house to recover. I'm sure it didn't do my oxygen deprived mother any good, either.
And her deathbed... Watching her die was horrible and ugly. She looked like she was in so much pain, and that didn't change when she died. She had grey flesh with blood-shot jelly eyes and blue lips curdled into a baby's drool, all scrunched up on her side. My relatives were enraptured, watching me and my sister cry over her, circling the bed and holding hands like vultures. They loved the drama. None of them hardly even knew her.
And finally, the obituary. My grandmother handled it. She was really mad at my sister and me at this time (she explicitly blames us for our mom dying so fast). She put photographs on the online obituary of her own family and friends, people Mom had only met in passing. We were in there once, and we were the only two people not given names. We were called, to spite us, "Laura's young daughters." She wrote a bunch of fake and generic filler about our Mom, saying she was wise, had pyschic powers, and a bunch of other crap... (My mother had notoriously bad judgment and was a touch crazy, either from drinking paint or a chemical imbalance, resulting in behavior such as dancing through the streets naked, seeing demons and leprechauns, and compulsively screaming in tongues. Superstitious people believed this meant she had magical powers). Now, I love my Mom and I sure wouldn't include all of the bad things she did, but I would have at least given her credit for what she really did deserve, such as her generousity, her sillininess, and her charming gullibility.
So I feel jilted. Death scares me even more now, and I have no resolution. My Mom also told me that she would ring a bell right after she died to let us know she was okay. Of course that never happened. It all seems to lead to a big empty zip, zero, and it's depressing.
I guess to say that I feel jilted does sound selfish, but there's so much other crap that went on. In a nutshell, the family that we'd worked so hard to fit together from recovered drug addicts was completely torn apart by by grandmother. I don't know if things are ever going to heal between us, and I wish...I wish things just could have gone better.
It's unfortunate and obviously painful that your grandmother chose to leave you in limbo of being recognised. You did the best you could given the circumstances.
It was as well her daughter who died, and she selfishly wrote the obit from her perspective. This isn't to support it, just that I think it's what might have happened. She obviously had a need to blame, and you and your sister were the most likely ones to hand it to.
I too saw my mother die of lung cancer. Many things you say could even resemble my mom (albeit on a more tame level).....and I was denied to "indulge" in her death because of family discord.
My mother forced us together by requesting to die at home. There were many visitors, people from her pentecostal church (who wanted us to call the moment she got better -- like get over it, she's going to die -- and they're the ones who said, I never realised she even had a daughter!!!), family, lots of food, lots of memories and tons of stress! I was overwhelmed, but that's what my mom loved....having lots of people around her, and that's what always caused a rift..... but had to deal with it for it was her time, not mine.
The moment she died, my brother embraced me and said "let us never fight again". What's with that? I left the room and started to dump out all of her make-up and didn't shed a tear. The body washing was left up to my mom's friend and my brother's wife. I thought I could do it....but I couldn't. I didn't want to feel that emotion, for I knew I'd remember it forever.
I was the executrix....it was difficult dealing with my brother, he's never forgiven me.
There was no blame toward us tho....none from family.....but there was lots of guilt and no closure on my part, the things left unsaid, etc. I couldn't say them because it just wasn't the time.
I won't even get into the funeral part and dealing with the minister. Although I found it easy to tell him afterward.
I was trying to understand my lack of feelings about her death through various books.....non of which met my needs. A friend came across a chapter in a book on dysfunctional families that dealt with death. It matched my situation perfectly and I found relief and was able to understand.
I too loved my mom, but had much emptiness and confusion because of her. To me...emotionally, she died looooong before she died physically. I really found her death a relief for I wasn't feeling a constant need for her love anymore. I don't miss her, but I still long for the MOM in her. She tried, and did succeed on occasion, but I realise she had her own issues haunting her as well. As I age, my reactions bring me closer to how she would have dealt with things, and that brings many conflicting feelings. I'll be dealing with her forever I think and ultimately come to the conclusion that it was what it was. I have to accept it.
So, what can you do now? Do your part to remember her, on your own, with your sister....whatever. Do what will allow you the emotional connection with her death rather than it being so negative. That's what you do for you.....for we are the ones left to suffer after our loved ones are gone.
You can write your own memorium of your mom, with her picture, a poem and all her wonderful qualities. Make it a yearly one, or on her birthday, or at a time when you celebrated with her.
You will eventually (must) learn to deal with your guilt or anger and family situation. It's all from our own perspectives, and maybe eventually you'll be able to talk with others about how they really felt.
Try not to focus on the fear of death, for it will happen to us all. I'm trying to change my life and make good decisions, sever bonds that are unhealthy for me, many things that will allow me to say to myself on my deathbed...."I did well, and I'm ready".
What you're feeling is normal, and it'll take time for it to make sense to you.
Eventually you'll be able to separate your mom's life from her death.
Best to you,
quincy
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It's all a matter of perspective!
Quincy, I identify with so much of what you've said. I feel less alone.
Our religious relatives were also annoyingly optimistic about my mother's recovery, even though the doctor all but said that she didn't have a chance. I knew that we needed to spend the time we did have wrapping things up with her, not pretending that it could all go away.
I understand what you mean by missing the "mom" in her. My mother had a great amount of mental problems, and she was a very difficult person to live with. The parts of her I loved most were those rare times when she really came through for us as a mother and provider. Part of me was unashamedly relieved when she died, and I knew that I never had to fear the stress of living with her again.
I guess it wasn't such a bad way to be introduced to death. It feels kind of better knowing that she died from something she was responsible for (heavy smoking). I can't imagine the injustice I'd feel if she had died instantaneously from an auto accident or something. And God forbid, I could never bear losing someone truly close to me, like my sister or the man I love.
Sculpture, I am going to assume that, like me, religion isn't an answer that works for you. And you've probably heard the ways of coping that a lot of people have, like "We live on through our children," or "We live on through the good deeds we do."
I have found some very small comfort in reading Near Death Experiences (NDEs). You're also probably a skeptic and your first reaction is that these are just the last gasps of the dying brain. Whether they are or not, though, there are fascinating patterns that occur, and quite a few recorded incidents that science has not been able to explain, such as brain dead people witnessing events around them and hearing conversations at other locations in the building.
Not all of what you'll find is light at the end of the tunnel stuff, either. Some people report a void of nothingness (our worst nightmare). Others report something like hell. Curiously enough, children report not a tunnel of light, but a womb-like darkness that envelops thems and nurtures them with secrets.
If you have access to the internet and some free time, you should look it up.
Thank you, Lysander. I have looked up NDEs and they did provide some comfort. I am just going through a tough time and it just feels endless. I feel like my whole life is ruined because I have to expect death all the time in everything I do and think about it everyday. I know I am being pathetically selfish and pitying but I just feel awful. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
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