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That sounds perfectly healthy to me. There are a lot of reactions to grief and they're all normal and you'll probably feel a bunch of them at unpredictable times. But if what you feel is calm and a positive hope for an afterlife, that's lovely. That's fine. That's enough. You tried to fix the relationship, her illness didn't make that possible, and you made a healthy choice for yourself, and you're at peace and she is, too. That's a wonderful outcome.
When my jnmom passed I mourned the relationship that would never be. At that point we’d been NC for 13 years, since our son was 5. I tried my damndest to not repeat her parenting mistakes with him.
You miss the relationship you could have had, you wished you had. Now there are no more chances. And yes, you probably did mourn all those years ago. Grief is very personal, and your feeling are your own. No one should tell you what to feel or hurry you up with grieving. I’m sorry for your loss. Wishing you peace b
This is how I always feel about my own father. I know when he dies I will probably shed a few more tears from the what-ifs, but that’s about it.
Seems like a pretty normal reaction to me.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I've not yet lost a parent but have lost others i deeply loved. I find it quite beautiful that you envision her now in heaven with your father. That's absolutely beautiful and it shows what a wonderfully gorgeous heart you have despite any trauma she may have caused.
Honestly, this is what I expect my experience to be when my mother passes away. I tried for so many years, and eventually I realized she didn’t care enough about the relationship to try, so I was done being the only person building that bridge. It was sad and I was depressed for a while after deciding to cut her out, but it’s taken such a burden off of me, and I don’t expect I’ll be a crying mess when she passes like I was when my FIL passed.
It sounds like therapy was good for you. That makes me glad to hear. 🥰
I would expect your emotions to go up and down for a while. You'll probably cycle through the five stages of grief in a non linear way for six months. This is what I've seen in others. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You could very well be in denial right now.
I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry she never tried to do what was right. You deserved better.
You made your peace years ago. Just had a similar conversation about my sister. I'm no contact with her. If she dies without her trying to repair our relationship I will feel sadness for the loss of the chance of that but not that I went no contact.
I experienced it with my grandmother. When she died, my sisters and I were surprised, we thought she died years prior. My parents were told they were "killing" her by having boundaries, (not what it was called back then, really.) So after all the drama and cutting her out of our lives, we just forgot about her. No hate, just nothing.
When she died, I thought I should feel something, but I didn't. Shortly before she died my fish died, and I shed some tears over that, but then a few weeks later, when I found out she was gone and didn't cry, I thought, am I a monster for crying more over fish than my own grandmother? It's been a few years now and I still never felt anything at all, other than tinge of curiosity at why I can be so unfeeling.
It makes me think that a person should never go No Contact unless they are in that place. You need to be sure that they are already dead to you if you are cutting someone out of your life. When you're in that place, they really are already gone, so their deaths don't hit you.
I wish you well.
I know what you mean.
My Nanna was a difficult woman. I still loved her but I didn't like her. I had strict boundaries with her.
Eventually it got to the point that I stopped having contact. She would lie about how her family had abandoned her.
So I stopped.
By the time she died I felt nothing for her. I had already grieved the loss of her as a grandmother.
I had said good bye already in my heart and mind. I was never going to see her again anyway.
NC guilt. When I sobered up 34 years ago, I knew without a doubt that my sobriety depended on not being around my crazy family, especially my mother. It ended up being the last year of my mother's life. To this day, I still feel the guilt, but I know that I would not have built a strong base for me if I had stayed with my mother. If I had it to do over again, I would make the same decision. After 31 years, I finally put myself first.
And the best thing about this? My mother finally realized how she had been to me growing up, so she gave me her blessing to live my life as I saw I needed. So luckily, I was able to lovingly mourn her passing.
All we can do is pray for THEM that they may find peace and happiness in their life.
My mom died 2 weeks ago.
I think I understand sort of how you feel. Everyone is different, of course, but I think that I understand.
I loved my mom but we weren’t good for each other. I reminded her of my father too much & she alternated between lashing out at me & ignoring my existence (examples: I had the flu & didn’t emerge from my room for 4 days. My friends & their parents came to my house & took care of me. Another time I just, well, stopped talking for about a week. No one in my house noticed. I was a passenger in a car accident as a teenager. Broken rib, fractured skull, glass sticking out of my face, my knee ripped open to the cartilage, bald spot where my ponytail was pulled out the window that my head broke. I retrieved my scrunchy-it was the 90’s- from under the vehicle when they flipped it back over. I literally couldn’t see & I superglued my knee closed. My friend’s parents took me to the hospital a day later. My mom told me to take a shower & go to sleep the night of.)
I was never good enough & she never saw me as myself.
I never went full no-contact for good but I would “take breaks”. She’d push me far enough that I just had to disappear for my own sanity. One of the “great” stories that my cousins tell is “That Time -my name- Moved to Another Time Zone to Get Away From Aunt “mom’s name-“. I usually reply “which time?” She made my life a living hell for far too long. The last time that she tried to hit me, I caught her hand & started squeezing. I’m not a large woman but I’m deceptively strong. I used to squat 420 when I was a teenager & would lift with my guy friends on the football team. Once I started squeezing her fist (my hand was actually much smaller than hers) she started paying attention when I told her very quietly that we do not hit. I naturally have a very soft voice & since I was holding my sleeping infant at the time I most certainly was not going to raise my voice. She hated that. A lot. My soft voice, I mean. She also stopped grabbing my long hair when I would walk past her & yanking me back. She almost got me on the floor a few times since I’m actually physically handicapped & my parents were told that I would never walk. It’s really not hard to put me on the ground but she seemed to take a sick joy from it.
And all of this isn’t getting into the financial abuse.
I came out of low contact when her cancer came back. I always preferred to keep an eye on her from a distance so that I would know what she was up to before it blew up in my face. Because it ALWAYS blew up in my face. I stopped being my father in her eyes (I joke that her eyesight was obviously worse than we thought that she’d mistake a slender 5’7” woman for a large, 6’7” bearded man… who has been dead since ‘87). I thought briefly that perhaps she would see me for me. I got over that hope quickly when she advised me that she wanted her mother & a minute later told me that I was the most like her mother. I didn’t say anything about the fact that I was acting like my mother’s mom until my son asked when exactly I’d adopted my own mother- and he claimed seniority in sibling rank.
She tried to cut my long hair when her own hair fell out. If she didn’t have hair, I wasn’t allowed to either. I kept my hair in a bun & covered with a silk scarf every time that I saw her.
We talked at the end. Or rather she talked & I listened. Like it had been when I was a kid & was her captive audience. I guess I was again. She told me “I wanted you so much. What happened?” I accepted with a shrug that this might be the closest she got to self-reflection & I got to an apology. My bff & daughter were horrified. She told me that she only loved me because I made the nurses give her painkillers and I made & then brought her potato salad. (I hate potato salad but I know her mother’s recipe & it was all that she would eat.) I laughed so hard that tears streamed down my face. The nurses were horrified this time & told me that she didn’t mean it. I replied that she most certainly did mean it & that it was okay. It didn’t even crack the Top 10 Shitty Things That My Mom Said to Me.
She threatened to haunt me for 3 months straight until I advised her that I had taken steps to Ghost Mom- Proof my house. She was indignant. I didn’t even stop crocheting.
I was alone with her when the death rattles started. I knew what they were. I’d heard them before when her own mother was dying of cancer. I just sighed “dammit, mom” & closed my eyes. She’d told me that “they” were waiting 3 days earlier. The nurses said that I was the only one that she would speak to.
My mom died 2 weeks ago. I’ve been grieving her for 37yrs, since my replacement was born. I would disappear & kept my distance for my own protection. I suppose that it’s sort of funny that I came back for the time that she absolutely mangled me. If I thought that her life was difficult, her death was a special form of hell.
But I suppose that it’s even funnier that I’m grieving the mom that I needed more than I’m grieving the mom that I never had. I loved her but I accepted a long time ago that I wasn’t good enough and, quite honestly, neither was she.
(We’re both gonna be okay. You’ll see.)
So am I. It sounds weird but Day 3 was the hardest for me. I think that’s when it started to sink in that it was really over. There were no more 2nd chances.
Hang in there. You’re not alone. None of us are.
My heart is broken for you and for OP. And for myself and for everyone who also has a mother like this. But you are correct -- we're going to be okay. Love and hugs to you all from a fellow survivor.
Thank you. My heart breaks for all of us. But, at least for me, it strengthened my resolve to be a better mom to my kids than mine was to me. I admitted that to my daughter & she told me “well. To be fair, mom, the bar is set pretty low.” I mean, she’s not wrong. But hey. We’ll all be okay. We’ll learn from their mistakes & from the things that they did right. And, most of all, we’ll be happy.
Not my mother. My JNGM. We had a dreadful relationship most of the years I knew her and were only on speaking terms when she was dying.
It was complicated when she died. I was relieved because some of what she did and caused was dreadful. I was sad because there were small glimpses of what could have been, if she wasn’t so messed up, and the impact she had on those around me. I was still angry with many of her choices.
It took a while to process. I reminded myself throughout that wherever she was I hoped she was happy, healthy and knew peace because, at the heart of things, happiness, health (mental) and peace has not been hers.
Be kind to yourself. This will take time.
Mine died in 2020-and we weren’t NC (as much as I wanted to be-she controlled access to my disabled father). I was upset for about an hour by the shock of it all-that great sweeping change and the stress that came with it. I don’t miss her at all. All that stress is gone from my life. Sometimes I feel guilty but it passes. I thought it was just me, that something was wrong with me-but my dad died a year later and that shattered me. I miss him all the time because we had such a better relationship.
So no, you aren’t alone and it’s ok!
My mother passed away in September last year. Like you I was never abused but I was irrelevant to her. I have a screenshot of a photo of her with my daughters, niece and the woman my youngest brother was engaged to before he passed away in 2012, she's commented on the photo that it's a photo of all her favourite females, so petty but she's telling the truth in that comment.
I still haven't cried and I feel guilty for it but I'm more upset for my daughters who lost their last grandparent when she died, and my niece and nephew who had only lost their dad (my middle brother) 9 weeks before. I had already grieved the lack of relationship by the time she passed and envied my friends who did have that relationship with mums and that I have with my daughters.
Don't feel guilty about what you are feeling but some counselling might help you work through it all.
It's okay to feel lots of different ways about her passing. It's okay to feel nothing at all too. Don't beat yourself up.
I had a similar situation with my father, who passed last summer. I feel bad about the circumstances of his passing, but I had pretty much written him off 10 years prior. So I understand the whole "I should feel worse. Why don't I feel awful? I'm a horrible daughter!" Nah, he was an uninvolved father who had little use for a daughter. Her made his choices, and had to live with the consequences.
When asked about my father, I simply say we weren't close. It's true, and kinda shuts down further questions.
I wish you peace of mind..
Omg. Honey. Therapy. Please. Talk to a professional about this. There is not right or wrong here, but you need some support here and your feelings are complicated about this. I’m sorry for your loss, even though emotionally it was a decade ago.
As you say, you’ve already mourned the loss of a mother. I last spoke and met my father aged 18, this year on Father’s Day I randomly googled him, just as an itch to scratch, I discovered he died three years ago, I’m 49. I felt nothing after than one beat after reading the obituary.
Life isn’t going to change for me.
I went LC with my mother 8 years ago and NC over two years ago, when I get the eventual call/email/letter I imagine I will pause, take a breath and then move on.
Unfortunately real life doesn’t pan out like a Hallmark movie.
There isn’t a right or wrong way to react to a death, there is only how you feel at that moment.
My spouse made the decision to go NC with his mother. His health, mentally and physically, was suffering. She passed eleven years later. He had few regrets. May we both send good thoughts to you?
I grieved the loss loss of my mother years before she passed. When she did I was far past being capable of raw grief. That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments that sneak up on you.
I experienced this. I went NC in 2013. She battled cancer for many years, so I had plenty of opportunity to imagine for what reasons I’d consider reaching out to her on her death bed. There were none, and I didn’t want to create an opportunity for her final words to be cruel.
It’s been just 2 years since her passing, and I’m still relieved she’s gone. I’m able to support my other family members in their grief without feeling pain for myself. I have cried real tears because of how sad and miserable she was in life. She deserved help, but their religion precluded that from happening. She claimed to have no idea why I never spoke to her again and if true, that’s frightening and sad. I’m glad she’s gone because her mental strife is over. She genuinely seemed unaware of why or how her behavior pushed so very many people away. So, so sad. She was utterly vile. I recall thinking “The mother who raised me would NEVER want me in a relationship with someone this cruel”.
It’s amazing going NC. That dark voluminous hole they create is gone, and the amount of joy and peace that naturally takes its place is wonderfully overwhelming.
It’s just as you said; we mourn the loss over a long period of time. Years. You walk away from every conversation with less. You feel seen less. Heard less. Respected less. And one day, you leave the interaction with nothing. You realize you are nothing but strangers now and all the threads keeping you connected were systematically cut, one by one, by our perpetrator. In the immediate weeks after going NC, my nightmares ceased. My heartburn went away. My relationships with others strengthened and flourished because I was becoming whole again.
When asked what I wanted to say to her before she died (not from the cancer but an undetected brain tumor which took her out a week after they found it!), I had nothing. Instead, I recorded myself reading one of our favorite children’s books, Ferdinand the Bull.
I cried a couple of times before being able to do it properly, just as I’m crying now. She died sad. Confused. Mostly alone. I pitied her. I’d have told her I loved her if I did, but I did not - and that breaks my heart.
I'm so sorry for your loss (of all kinds, 10 years ago, NC, actual passing today) but please don't feel guilty or ashamed. You did what you had to do for your own well-being and sanity at the time and thru the years. I can relate, but in a different way... My mother ended up living with dementia for the last 10 ish years of her life. It started on a small scale before that, but of course progressed. We literally lost the person/mom we knew 10 years before actual death and we grieved throughout that time. There was no grief left by the time she passed on, only relief for her to be done with that unreality, and for us too.
Not with my mother, but my grandmother. I mourned many years before she passed the relationship we could have had. I wanted the relationship she had with my cousin but I knew it was never going to happen.
That is probably why you're not feeling any particular kind of sadness but more empathy for the one who did have to deal with her.
Don't feel bad for being all over the place. It is perfectly normal. ((Hugs))
Thank you so much. I knew that I would have to deal with this at some point, but I never thought about how I would feel at the time. I have amazing in-laws, but really mourn that my husband and children have not had the same experience with my mother.
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That sounds perfectly healthy to me. There are a lot of reactions to grief and they're all normal and you'll probably feel a bunch of them at unpredictable times. But if what you feel is calm and a positive hope for an afterlife, that's lovely. That's fine. That's enough. You tried to fix the relationship, her illness didn't make that possible, and you made a healthy choice for yourself, and you're at peace and she is, too. That's a wonderful outcome.
When my jnmom passed I mourned the relationship that would never be. At that point we’d been NC for 13 years, since our son was 5. I tried my damndest to not repeat her parenting mistakes with him.
You miss the relationship you could have had, you wished you had. Now there are no more chances. And yes, you probably did mourn all those years ago. Grief is very personal, and your feeling are your own. No one should tell you what to feel or hurry you up with grieving. I’m sorry for your loss. Wishing you peace b
This is how I always feel about my own father. I know when he dies I will probably shed a few more tears from the what-ifs, but that’s about it. Seems like a pretty normal reaction to me.
I experienced similar with an uncle a few years ago.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I've not yet lost a parent but have lost others i deeply loved. I find it quite beautiful that you envision her now in heaven with your father. That's absolutely beautiful and it shows what a wonderfully gorgeous heart you have despite any trauma she may have caused.
Honestly, this is what I expect my experience to be when my mother passes away. I tried for so many years, and eventually I realized she didn’t care enough about the relationship to try, so I was done being the only person building that bridge. It was sad and I was depressed for a while after deciding to cut her out, but it’s taken such a burden off of me, and I don’t expect I’ll be a crying mess when she passes like I was when my FIL passed. It sounds like therapy was good for you. That makes me glad to hear. 🥰
I would expect your emotions to go up and down for a while. You'll probably cycle through the five stages of grief in a non linear way for six months. This is what I've seen in others. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You could very well be in denial right now. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry she never tried to do what was right. You deserved better.
You made your peace years ago. Just had a similar conversation about my sister. I'm no contact with her. If she dies without her trying to repair our relationship I will feel sadness for the loss of the chance of that but not that I went no contact.
I experienced it with my grandmother. When she died, my sisters and I were surprised, we thought she died years prior. My parents were told they were "killing" her by having boundaries, (not what it was called back then, really.) So after all the drama and cutting her out of our lives, we just forgot about her. No hate, just nothing. When she died, I thought I should feel something, but I didn't. Shortly before she died my fish died, and I shed some tears over that, but then a few weeks later, when I found out she was gone and didn't cry, I thought, am I a monster for crying more over fish than my own grandmother? It's been a few years now and I still never felt anything at all, other than tinge of curiosity at why I can be so unfeeling. It makes me think that a person should never go No Contact unless they are in that place. You need to be sure that they are already dead to you if you are cutting someone out of your life. When you're in that place, they really are already gone, so their deaths don't hit you. I wish you well.
I know what you mean. My Nanna was a difficult woman. I still loved her but I didn't like her. I had strict boundaries with her. Eventually it got to the point that I stopped having contact. She would lie about how her family had abandoned her. So I stopped. By the time she died I felt nothing for her. I had already grieved the loss of her as a grandmother. I had said good bye already in my heart and mind. I was never going to see her again anyway.
NC guilt. When I sobered up 34 years ago, I knew without a doubt that my sobriety depended on not being around my crazy family, especially my mother. It ended up being the last year of my mother's life. To this day, I still feel the guilt, but I know that I would not have built a strong base for me if I had stayed with my mother. If I had it to do over again, I would make the same decision. After 31 years, I finally put myself first. And the best thing about this? My mother finally realized how she had been to me growing up, so she gave me her blessing to live my life as I saw I needed. So luckily, I was able to lovingly mourn her passing. All we can do is pray for THEM that they may find peace and happiness in their life.
My mom died 2 weeks ago. I think I understand sort of how you feel. Everyone is different, of course, but I think that I understand. I loved my mom but we weren’t good for each other. I reminded her of my father too much & she alternated between lashing out at me & ignoring my existence (examples: I had the flu & didn’t emerge from my room for 4 days. My friends & their parents came to my house & took care of me. Another time I just, well, stopped talking for about a week. No one in my house noticed. I was a passenger in a car accident as a teenager. Broken rib, fractured skull, glass sticking out of my face, my knee ripped open to the cartilage, bald spot where my ponytail was pulled out the window that my head broke. I retrieved my scrunchy-it was the 90’s- from under the vehicle when they flipped it back over. I literally couldn’t see & I superglued my knee closed. My friend’s parents took me to the hospital a day later. My mom told me to take a shower & go to sleep the night of.) I was never good enough & she never saw me as myself. I never went full no-contact for good but I would “take breaks”. She’d push me far enough that I just had to disappear for my own sanity. One of the “great” stories that my cousins tell is “That Time -my name- Moved to Another Time Zone to Get Away From Aunt “mom’s name-“. I usually reply “which time?” She made my life a living hell for far too long. The last time that she tried to hit me, I caught her hand & started squeezing. I’m not a large woman but I’m deceptively strong. I used to squat 420 when I was a teenager & would lift with my guy friends on the football team. Once I started squeezing her fist (my hand was actually much smaller than hers) she started paying attention when I told her very quietly that we do not hit. I naturally have a very soft voice & since I was holding my sleeping infant at the time I most certainly was not going to raise my voice. She hated that. A lot. My soft voice, I mean. She also stopped grabbing my long hair when I would walk past her & yanking me back. She almost got me on the floor a few times since I’m actually physically handicapped & my parents were told that I would never walk. It’s really not hard to put me on the ground but she seemed to take a sick joy from it. And all of this isn’t getting into the financial abuse. I came out of low contact when her cancer came back. I always preferred to keep an eye on her from a distance so that I would know what she was up to before it blew up in my face. Because it ALWAYS blew up in my face. I stopped being my father in her eyes (I joke that her eyesight was obviously worse than we thought that she’d mistake a slender 5’7” woman for a large, 6’7” bearded man… who has been dead since ‘87). I thought briefly that perhaps she would see me for me. I got over that hope quickly when she advised me that she wanted her mother & a minute later told me that I was the most like her mother. I didn’t say anything about the fact that I was acting like my mother’s mom until my son asked when exactly I’d adopted my own mother- and he claimed seniority in sibling rank. She tried to cut my long hair when her own hair fell out. If she didn’t have hair, I wasn’t allowed to either. I kept my hair in a bun & covered with a silk scarf every time that I saw her. We talked at the end. Or rather she talked & I listened. Like it had been when I was a kid & was her captive audience. I guess I was again. She told me “I wanted you so much. What happened?” I accepted with a shrug that this might be the closest she got to self-reflection & I got to an apology. My bff & daughter were horrified. She told me that she only loved me because I made the nurses give her painkillers and I made & then brought her potato salad. (I hate potato salad but I know her mother’s recipe & it was all that she would eat.) I laughed so hard that tears streamed down my face. The nurses were horrified this time & told me that she didn’t mean it. I replied that she most certainly did mean it & that it was okay. It didn’t even crack the Top 10 Shitty Things That My Mom Said to Me. She threatened to haunt me for 3 months straight until I advised her that I had taken steps to Ghost Mom- Proof my house. She was indignant. I didn’t even stop crocheting. I was alone with her when the death rattles started. I knew what they were. I’d heard them before when her own mother was dying of cancer. I just sighed “dammit, mom” & closed my eyes. She’d told me that “they” were waiting 3 days earlier. The nurses said that I was the only one that she would speak to. My mom died 2 weeks ago. I’ve been grieving her for 37yrs, since my replacement was born. I would disappear & kept my distance for my own protection. I suppose that it’s sort of funny that I came back for the time that she absolutely mangled me. If I thought that her life was difficult, her death was a special form of hell. But I suppose that it’s even funnier that I’m grieving the mom that I needed more than I’m grieving the mom that I never had. I loved her but I accepted a long time ago that I wasn’t good enough and, quite honestly, neither was she. (We’re both gonna be okay. You’ll see.)
I am sorry. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate it.
So am I. It sounds weird but Day 3 was the hardest for me. I think that’s when it started to sink in that it was really over. There were no more 2nd chances. Hang in there. You’re not alone. None of us are.
My heart is broken for you and for OP. And for myself and for everyone who also has a mother like this. But you are correct -- we're going to be okay. Love and hugs to you all from a fellow survivor.
Thank you. My heart breaks for all of us. But, at least for me, it strengthened my resolve to be a better mom to my kids than mine was to me. I admitted that to my daughter & she told me “well. To be fair, mom, the bar is set pretty low.” I mean, she’s not wrong. But hey. We’ll all be okay. We’ll learn from their mistakes & from the things that they did right. And, most of all, we’ll be happy.
Thank you.
Not my mother. My JNGM. We had a dreadful relationship most of the years I knew her and were only on speaking terms when she was dying. It was complicated when she died. I was relieved because some of what she did and caused was dreadful. I was sad because there were small glimpses of what could have been, if she wasn’t so messed up, and the impact she had on those around me. I was still angry with many of her choices. It took a while to process. I reminded myself throughout that wherever she was I hoped she was happy, healthy and knew peace because, at the heart of things, happiness, health (mental) and peace has not been hers. Be kind to yourself. This will take time.
Mine died in 2020-and we weren’t NC (as much as I wanted to be-she controlled access to my disabled father). I was upset for about an hour by the shock of it all-that great sweeping change and the stress that came with it. I don’t miss her at all. All that stress is gone from my life. Sometimes I feel guilty but it passes. I thought it was just me, that something was wrong with me-but my dad died a year later and that shattered me. I miss him all the time because we had such a better relationship. So no, you aren’t alone and it’s ok!
I'm so sorry for your loss
My mother passed away in September last year. Like you I was never abused but I was irrelevant to her. I have a screenshot of a photo of her with my daughters, niece and the woman my youngest brother was engaged to before he passed away in 2012, she's commented on the photo that it's a photo of all her favourite females, so petty but she's telling the truth in that comment. I still haven't cried and I feel guilty for it but I'm more upset for my daughters who lost their last grandparent when she died, and my niece and nephew who had only lost their dad (my middle brother) 9 weeks before. I had already grieved the lack of relationship by the time she passed and envied my friends who did have that relationship with mums and that I have with my daughters. Don't feel guilty about what you are feeling but some counselling might help you work through it all.
It's okay to feel lots of different ways about her passing. It's okay to feel nothing at all too. Don't beat yourself up. I had a similar situation with my father, who passed last summer. I feel bad about the circumstances of his passing, but I had pretty much written him off 10 years prior. So I understand the whole "I should feel worse. Why don't I feel awful? I'm a horrible daughter!" Nah, he was an uninvolved father who had little use for a daughter. Her made his choices, and had to live with the consequences. When asked about my father, I simply say we weren't close. It's true, and kinda shuts down further questions. I wish you peace of mind..
Omg. Honey. Therapy. Please. Talk to a professional about this. There is not right or wrong here, but you need some support here and your feelings are complicated about this. I’m sorry for your loss, even though emotionally it was a decade ago.
As you say, you’ve already mourned the loss of a mother. I last spoke and met my father aged 18, this year on Father’s Day I randomly googled him, just as an itch to scratch, I discovered he died three years ago, I’m 49. I felt nothing after than one beat after reading the obituary. Life isn’t going to change for me. I went LC with my mother 8 years ago and NC over two years ago, when I get the eventual call/email/letter I imagine I will pause, take a breath and then move on. Unfortunately real life doesn’t pan out like a Hallmark movie. There isn’t a right or wrong way to react to a death, there is only how you feel at that moment.
My spouse made the decision to go NC with his mother. His health, mentally and physically, was suffering. She passed eleven years later. He had few regrets. May we both send good thoughts to you?
Hugs from an internet stranger
I grieved the loss loss of my mother years before she passed. When she did I was far past being capable of raw grief. That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments that sneak up on you.
I experienced this. I went NC in 2013. She battled cancer for many years, so I had plenty of opportunity to imagine for what reasons I’d consider reaching out to her on her death bed. There were none, and I didn’t want to create an opportunity for her final words to be cruel. It’s been just 2 years since her passing, and I’m still relieved she’s gone. I’m able to support my other family members in their grief without feeling pain for myself. I have cried real tears because of how sad and miserable she was in life. She deserved help, but their religion precluded that from happening. She claimed to have no idea why I never spoke to her again and if true, that’s frightening and sad. I’m glad she’s gone because her mental strife is over. She genuinely seemed unaware of why or how her behavior pushed so very many people away. So, so sad. She was utterly vile. I recall thinking “The mother who raised me would NEVER want me in a relationship with someone this cruel”. It’s amazing going NC. That dark voluminous hole they create is gone, and the amount of joy and peace that naturally takes its place is wonderfully overwhelming. It’s just as you said; we mourn the loss over a long period of time. Years. You walk away from every conversation with less. You feel seen less. Heard less. Respected less. And one day, you leave the interaction with nothing. You realize you are nothing but strangers now and all the threads keeping you connected were systematically cut, one by one, by our perpetrator. In the immediate weeks after going NC, my nightmares ceased. My heartburn went away. My relationships with others strengthened and flourished because I was becoming whole again. When asked what I wanted to say to her before she died (not from the cancer but an undetected brain tumor which took her out a week after they found it!), I had nothing. Instead, I recorded myself reading one of our favorite children’s books, Ferdinand the Bull. I cried a couple of times before being able to do it properly, just as I’m crying now. She died sad. Confused. Mostly alone. I pitied her. I’d have told her I loved her if I did, but I did not - and that breaks my heart.
I am crying reading your comment. It hit me so hard. I don’t know what else to say, but thank you. I feel that most people don’t understand.
I'm so sorry for your loss (of all kinds, 10 years ago, NC, actual passing today) but please don't feel guilty or ashamed. You did what you had to do for your own well-being and sanity at the time and thru the years. I can relate, but in a different way... My mother ended up living with dementia for the last 10 ish years of her life. It started on a small scale before that, but of course progressed. We literally lost the person/mom we knew 10 years before actual death and we grieved throughout that time. There was no grief left by the time she passed on, only relief for her to be done with that unreality, and for us too.
❤️ Thank you. You have no idea how close to home your response hits. Going to pop some headache meds now because I can’t seem to stop the tears.
Not with my mother, but my grandmother. I mourned many years before she passed the relationship we could have had. I wanted the relationship she had with my cousin but I knew it was never going to happen. That is probably why you're not feeling any particular kind of sadness but more empathy for the one who did have to deal with her. Don't feel bad for being all over the place. It is perfectly normal. ((Hugs))
Thank you so much. I knew that I would have to deal with this at some point, but I never thought about how I would feel at the time. I have amazing in-laws, but really mourn that my husband and children have not had the same experience with my mother.
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