Author Topic: My Mum died young  (Read 1497 times)

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Offline playingthefool

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My Mum died young
« on: November 19, 2018, 08:46:46 PM »
Hello all.

First of all thank you for the kind welcome. It has taken me a long time to get to the point where I can share my problems in this area.

My Mum was 30 when she died, I was ten months. She died of brain cancer so there is nobody to blame, no accident to rue, no fault to throw around. It was one of those situations that could have happened at any time to anyone.

Everything I know of her is second-hand. I know which football team she supported and who her favourite player was, I know she could walk with a book on her head and it wouldn’t fall, I know that when she got her back up she was a force to be reckoned with, but I know all of this because I have been told. I was too young to have any chance of remembering her so I am left with this angel, this goddess, an archtype for perfection because nobody will tell me anything bad/annoying/frustrating about her.

I come from a small, disjointed family so my only avenue of information is my Dad. He is still very much in love with my Mum despite her being gone for nearly 33 years so it doesn’t take much for him to get misty-eyed. My brother is older than me but also too young to remember anything of her. The only person left is my uncle and he has no time for me. This leaves me with the feeling that I missed out on knowing the greatest person ever to breathe. I have had that feeling since I was five (as far as I remember). I knew at that age that I wasn’t to talk about Mum. I was given no counselling, I had no outlet. I was the boy at school with no mother and that made me weird. I was an afterthought; I made a card for my Dad near Mother’s Day because teachers had no idea how to deal with me. I never wanted to make a fuss about it but I still want to cry every time I think about her, just like I did back then.

My wife once asked me how I felt about my Mum and I could only reply that I felt angry but that I couldn’t let that go. My anger was the only thing I had of her that was mine, not second-hand. I burn with directionless rage at the universe for taking her away. I have always hated certain ads on TV because they assumed everyone had a Mum around. I tried to play it down but I often wonder if I would be the emotionally stunted mess I am not if she had lived. She wouldn’t even have to be in my life, just knowing she was out there and OK would be enough for me.

I miss someone I never knew, so how can I know what I am missing?

Sorry for rambling on, thank you if you got this far.

Offline Karena

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Re: My Mum died young
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2018, 02:37:30 PM »
Hi and welcome.
you never have to apologise for rambling here. :hug:

You have given me food for thought - its not a situation i have been in - although i never knew my dad until i was an adult he was alive but i didnt always know whether he was or not as i also had to deal with tight lipped and negative reactions when i asked questions.

I only met him twice before he died so i also understand there will be things about him i will never know and i can empathise with feeling the odd one out at school because back then a single parent was rare - i was the only one in junior school who didnt have a mum and a dad.
I made things up - because there were those times when you were suposed to write or tell the class about what your dad does - and i didnt know - he was never a prince or anything ridiculous in my stories -  there was always an ordinary job but one which meant he had to be away all the time.

Others, adults, did know things about him and only looking back now, knowing what i later found out, can i have any understanding of why i was bullied over it - he was gay,being gay wasnt ok  and the "sins of the father are visited on the children" -so even though the bullys themselves probably had no idea what gay was  their parents didnt discourage it, i was some-one to be looked down on. Of course he wasnt just a gay man and he wasnt just a father who was pretty much forced to abandon his child  he was much more than that - but i dont know in what ways, i know he loved dogs because he had one - i know he was a lorry driver (maybe i wasnt do far off in my long distance job stories) - but thats it -thats all i will ever know.
I,m not trying to turn this into being about me,  but just to explain that even in this different situation  i do get what you are saying about that side of things - in your case your mother the angel, in mine, my father the sinner.

When he died i felt cheated - because although people seemed to think losing  a dad who they had known all their lives was much worse than losing one you didnt know at all, and so i shouldnt really grieve for a stanger -  it was the missed opportunity no happy memories and no chance to make new ones - and in a sense i think that is the same for you - because you have that empty void that other people cannot fill - all our memorys are personal and will never be exactly the same as those of some-one seeing the same thing at the same time and place so they can never be real they are always some-one elses story.

I think one course you could take would be to  look for counselling  you are grieving and it is so very long term because you are grieving not for who you lost in the sense that we grieve for those we have known, but because you can never truly know who it is you lost  - so for us we can replace some of the loss with the memorys of a lifetime or much less time, but all you have known has been the loss.

Another could be to go back to your dad and get him to tell the stories again because as an adult you may be able to read more into them than you could when you were younger -they still wont be your stories, but maybe you would be able to know more about her as the real person she was and  not just the angel she became - perhaps start with a trait you have, that isnt angelic and ask him if you got it from her. take a circumstance and how you reacted and ask how she would have reacted and thats an opener you could use.
for example  my grandson was trying to fix his bike and something slipped and cut his finger so he ended up using an unaporoved word, throwing the tools down and stomping off -later he asked me what grandad would have done -(he was a mechanic) and i said exactly the same as you - and like you he would have come back and tried again until he fixed it - because i want my husband to be a real living person to them, not a patient saint who wouldnt have thrown down his tools or sworn.

Last thing ( see told you rambling isnt something to apologise for)  - i would like to think that now, teachers would react differently and encourage you to make mothers day cards - if she has a grave you could have taken them there, or kept them in a special box - or taken them some-where special too her - but it isnt too late to do that, you could, next mothers day,  make that card - make it part of a ritual - maybe plant a tree in her memory or follow her football team anything you can think of so that it becomes your own memorial too her - because even though you dont know her, you still grieve for her because you didnt know her you have probably never given yourself permission to grieve for her - and these are the things people who are grieving do in order to help themselves to learn to live with it.



Offline playingthefool

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Re: My Mum died young
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2018, 12:11:17 AM »
Thank you for your reply, you bring up some very good points.

You used the word ‘cheated’ and I can’t agree more. I have been dealt a really bad hand (I know many others have it worse) yet what I have always missed is something most people take for granted. That is what I mean about the advertising/media portrayals. Mum’s gone to Iceland was dreadful for me as a child because it was an advert and a catchphrase so it felt like it was EVERYWHERE. I could never escape reminders of what I had been denied.

I follow my Mum’s team and I visit her grave but I don’t know how to grieve. I have nothing but my sense of loss and anger so I don’t know how to come to terms with those without losing the only connection I frel to her. I want to think of her and smile but what would I be smiling about? I have nothing positive to hold on to so if I lose the negative, I have nothing.

Offline Karena

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Re: My Mum died young
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2018, 01:11:51 PM »
 :hug: this is why i think beravement counselling might help you - i understand what you are saying but i dont really know what the answer is - turning the negatives of your life that connected too your mum - like the advert -without letting go of her is difficult to imagine, and it seems you are on the opposite end of a very different spectrum too your dad because all you have is memorys of a life without her, and he has the live memorys but perhaps described to you in a way in which she is on that kind of pedestal putting her even further from your reach.
Even though your brother also has no memorys of her perhaps he feels the same way you do about this -could this be something you share that could strengthen the bond between you - perhaps for both of you expressing that anger too each other might be an outlet.

Your dad must have gone through such a lot too - bringing up children on your own is very difficult for anyone but for a man, even as recent as 33 years ago was not common and so he probably felt that isolation too and that he couldnt show you that because he had to be strong maybe he too wanted to leave the room and cry when that advert came on - but i imagine he would have constantly being trying to live up to the standard he believed your mum would have been happy with and also he must have felt some anger - but of course we cannot logically be angry with a partner who left us because they died and so are completely blameless, but that doesnt mean we dont because grief doesnt hold any logic, but in trying to rid himself of that anger has also stopped thinking of her as a real person who has faults - because of course we all do - but perhaps thats why he built the pedestal.

Your mum did have you for ten months and thats a short time - but as a mum myself i know she would have built a relationship with you - she would have known every hair on your head - every move you made,  every thing that would give a clue about your character, she would have said to others about you that you are going to be a climber or a screamer or you were always hungry/sleepy/whatever - and even though you cant remember any of that maybe thats where to start a conversation with your dad - not how his relationship was with her, but how hers was with you and maybe by knowing that -even though it was for the shortest time you can at least know more about her love for you and build on that to replace the anger you feel. :hug: