Will the pain of losing my mom ever stop?

In time you may have little messages from your mother from heaven ... they may be dreams, a special bird, a flower blooming out of season, a special song playing ... accept these messages, for your mother is letting you know she is okay. Eventually, the pain will ease, and tender memories will take over.

You asked if the pain will stop... It will lessen over time..and the sweet memories will hang on. Try focusing on the good times. Maybe start a journal of them. Unfortunately it will never completely go away but most likely you will feel more at peace about the loss as time goes by. Try to remember every little detail of those good times, especially the times you laughed together. Those are the things that will ease the pain. I just lost my son-in-law 2 months ago...to suicide. Write to me any time. I feel your pain. 💝

Heartbroken,
I'm so sorry you have lost your dear Mother.
Take good care of yourself now and in the days ahead,Lu

I doubt anybody ever gets over the loss of a parent -- but they learn to adapt to it because it's a part of life. The memories will always be there. They can be a source of more grief because you realize those days are long gone and dead and has nothing to do with the present. When it comes to Alzheimer's in many way that person has departed because that person is *not* the same person they used to be. They are like a shell of their former selves. But to finally lose them--that's another difficult pill to swallow called reality. We should mourn for ourselves because we are still here and we have to fend for ourselves with nobody to help us through.  One never feels so alone as to lose both parents and has no cushion to fall on. For the departed, their struggle is over--nobody, nothing, no illness can ever hurt them ever again. Perhaps there is a strange comfort knowing one day we too will be dead -- because nobody escapes it. Perhaps you can also take some comfort knowing you no longer have to worry about that person again. Perhaps there will be nuclear war in a year or two and they are spared. Not us.  Holidays are the worst. Christmas...is gut wrenching. When you cry during the holidays know it's just another day and people die on those days just like any other. The best thing is trash the Christmas garbage and ignore it the best you can.  What is there left to do? Mourn. Yes it does get better because you learn to adapt to it. But you never get over it.

I feel your pain, my mother passed three months ago and I was her caregiver.

It gets easier to bear and hurts less deeply over all. But my Aunt would sometimes weep a little when she talked about her father and he had passed over 40 years before.

You are going through the top three stressors a person can go through - and you are doing it all at once. Be very generous with yourself. Be kind and patient with yourself. The business of managing through a new job and a move will help keep your mind off your loss some of the time.

Do not wallow in the sorrow. Do not take to your bed and cry on Mother's Day, her birthday, Christmas. She would not want it. Live. The greatest way to honor her is to live your life fully. You are headed in the right direction.

I don't know if it will help you, but I do talk to my mom at times. It makes me feel she is close.

It's been 11 years since my dad passed and I still get hit by waves and I never know when a wave is going to hit. That's how I think of it ever since I read this...

"From the depths of old internet comments comes another incredible gem of a story. One user wrote the following heartfelt plea online:

"My friend just died. I don't know what to do."

The rest of the post has been deleted, only the title remains. However, the helpful responses live on, and one of them was absolutely incredible. The reply by this self-titled "old guy" might just change the way you approach life and death.

I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not.

I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents...

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. But I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it.

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too.

"If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks."

I'm so sorry for the loss of your mom.  The waves will get smaller and the waves will come less often but there will still be waves. God bless you. Don't let anyone, not anyone tell you it's time to get over it.  Everyone's timetable for grief is different. The timetable for your grief is yours and yours alone. Remember that.

Thank you both

Are you sure you have to leave the house? This question came up over the weekend and I was told that the person still living in the house generally has the right to remain for the rest of his/her life.

Before you leave (you can't go back) - check out your rights! You might be able to remain in that house for the rest of your life, same as your mother did.

Other than that, I found when I lost my mother, the first Mother's Day was the hardest. It did get easier for me.

Heartbroken, I'm so sorry about you losing your mom, and I empathize with your broken heart, because I just lost my own mother this past Saturday. The pain is EXCRUCIATING!

I can only tell you from the experience of losing my dad over 20 years ago that it does become less raw. That's not to say it stops hurting, but I guess it becomes less distracting, and eventually (in my family's case, sooner than expected) laughter does start to replace sorrow. But it has only been two short months for you! Go easy on yourself. If it hurts, let it out! Don't deny yourself the natural emotion of grief. Your mother would want you to do that for yourself.

Also, even if it turns out that you're not permitted to remain in that house (do some research on that) and you land somewhere miles away, your mother will always be with you and in your heart. A mother's love is so strong that it can reach through from beyond the veil. Doesn't matter where you go...

It took me years to adapt to losing my Mother -- it's been over 14 years since she died and I still miss her tremendously -- nothing will ever replace the loss. As you grow older, you'll have a deeper connection with her --