LIFE WITHOUT MOM

It doesn’t matter if we are adults, if we live near or far from our parents, or even if we are close or far emotionally; in the end, our mother always moves the world for us. In fact, even when we are adults and don’t think about her as much as we used to, our mother always has a special place in our hearts, no matter what. She has always been with us since we were born, and even though we know that someday she will be gone, we never think about what our life would be like the day she dies, no matter how much we think we are prepared, we never will be.

A mother’s death can affect us so much that we could be in a situation of grief and pain for months, even years. Whether our mother’s death was caused by natural causes or some disease, we will never really be prepared to deal with that situation. When we lose a mother we feel that we are in another world, as if our roots are gone, and in a symbolic way, this is what happens.

Many will think, “I’m a grown-up, I can handle this,” but when a mother dies, the pain for a child will always be felt. No matter how grown up and mature we are, a mother’s death will always be something very difficult to accept, and those who think they can handle it, can they really? Won’t they feel sad? Should I be grateful that she died when I was an adult and not when I was a child? These considerations can only be seen as an underestimation of grief.

This is why I thought it would be good if I shared some things I learned after my mom died, some by researches I had to do in order to understand what I was going through better, and some by my own experience.

Grieving After Losing a Mother

A grieving process is what happens when we lose a loved one. And the pain after a loss is not diminished by being an adult, like my case was, even if a mother had a long life. In addition, society is always putting pressure on people to overcome grief. But is there a time limit on crying for a mother? Should I cry less because I’m an adult and “it hurts less”? It is true that we are all going to die, and that these losses come sooner or later, but what that entails can last a lifetime. Every loss we have in our lives leaves a mark, and each one of them is different from the other, it doesn’t matter our age. 

When we lose our elderly mother, we often hear many well-meaning condolences from our friends and family, among them one that is often heard: “She had a good, long life, try to think about it,” or “it’s better that it happened this way. But these words do not always give us encouragement, as our mother is the only person who has been with us all of our lives, literally since we were in her belly.

The Motherly Bond

We often forget the important and deep bond we have with our mother, like when my mom could guess exactly what I was thinking just by looking at my face expression, and I would ask her if she was a witch.

That’s why even though there may be other family members and close friends, a mother’s death represents the loss of one of the most important relationships we’ll ever have, and the fact that we are adults should not prevent us from mourning our mother, because if we repress our emotions we will only be making the mourning process worse and damaging our health and well-being, trust me on this.

Grief during Mourning

Many people tend to confuse certain terms concerning the loss of a loved one. When a person feels sorry for the loss of a family member or friend, it refers to the time of grief a person goes through after the loss. Most people feel this grief, and when a mother dies, this sadness may last a long time, but it is different for each person.

During a grieving process, we should always seek a balance between the inner and the outer. Even siblings go through their stages of grief in different ways, despite growing up together. I spent hours crying my eyes out, but others may simply be quiet without shedding a tear. Some prefer to be supported by a group, while others prefer to be alone.

Whether we feel great sorrow for the loss of a mother, we must make every effort to cope with the grief in the right way. It is important not to judge ourselves during a situation like this. Don’t worry if you don’t feel like crying, or even if you cry too much, don’t let the judgments they may make about you suppress what you feel, it’s best to just let your emotions flow.

Reflection

It may seem ironic, but when a mother dies, that’s when we really realize and appreciate everything she’s done for us since we were kids. Sometimes, we realize and imagine all those moments when we are parents, and there we also recognize the effort and lessons our mother gave us, like the eleven times she told me to clean my room, or when she tried to save me from that horrible fringe I had on my senior year of high school. This opens up another way of looking at our mother’s life and death. After all, that is what we will have left, her love, her teachings, and the great memories.

A New Vision

When we learn to cope with grief and overcome the loss of our mother, we learn to recognize who we are now. And many times we are who we are because of our mothers. The more we heal, the more we begin to take a different view of things and learn to live and move on.

Also, remember that only those who we forget die. It does not matter that we’re already married and with children, there will always be days when we remember her and continue to learn from her, even if she is not physically with us.