My mom is dead. My two best friends have theirs
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Anonymous
| My mom died when I was 3, my brother when I was 13, my dad when I was 22. I’ve lived the past 13 years without any family. Life is what you make of it and dwelling on what other’s have that you do not will not make you happy. |
Anonymous
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OP I am so sorry for you loss. You can have any feelings as long as you don't act on them. I would say, if you aren't getting help already, please consider it. Anger is normal, but if the jealousy of your friends trickles out it could do harm.
I have the opposite situation. I have an abusive mom who is alive. My friends who could relate either lost their moms or have moved away from them and I have friends with very loving moms. My anger and negative feelings are where they belong, focused on the person who treats me poorly and disrespects boundaries. My friends having loving moms or being able to move on and not deal with aging parent issues deserve their happiness and peace. |
Anonymous
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I'm sorry OP.
My only advice is to not lash out at them in jealousy. You are grieving and that is ok. It's not ok to, say, be rude to your friends for still having/enjoying their living mothers. But DO take care of yourself. And ask for space this weekend if you need it. |
Anonymous
| I posted already, but wanted to add something else. I lost my dad-the only parent who truly loved me and wanted me to be happy. I understand the anger and you have every right to feel it. I focus on how fortunate I was to have that love in my life. My husband grew up barely seeing his father. I have friends who's fathers left their families. I also have friends who still have their amazing fathers in their life. I am glad they know the love I knew. Maybe it would help to journal about your mom? It helps me to write down all the great things about him and I hope I honor his memory when I do fun things with my kids. |
Anonymous
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I understand how you feel. The first Father's Day after my dad died unexpectedly was so painful. I was with friends who were complaining about the burden of "having" to call their fathers that day. I felt like shaking them, and saying how much I would give to trade places with them.
The first year is the hardest. Your feelings are normal. There will always be times that you miss your mom. But eventually, they will become less frequent, and be mixed with happy memories of the times you were lucky to share. I am sorry for your loss, and wish I could give you a hug. We were both lucky to have had loving moms. You were was probably one of her greatest sources of pride and happiness. |
Anonymous
I understand, OP. My mom died when I was 22 (my dad had abandoned our family decades earlier so I didn't have any parents once she died). My mom missed everything yet all of my friends had their moms (most still do!). It would kill me to hear my friends complain about their moms over the years! Didn't they realize how fortunate they were? I would've given anything to be annoyed by my mother one more time! 
There have been times when I had to distance myself from certain friends who were particularly insensitive or because a particular situation was just too painful for me. But it's been 20 years now and time truly does lessen the grief. I am no longer resentful of the relationships my friends get to have with their mothers. I know my mom is still with me, even if I can't speak to her or see her. I hope you will one day get to a place of acceptance and peace, OP. Meanwhile, take whatever time you need for yourself to process your grief. |
Anonymous
| I understand OP. My mom's funeral coincided with my son's 2nd birthday - he was her first grandchild. He turns 18 in a couple of weeks, and I will never get over the grief of missing her and the sense of resentment of how much she (and we) missed out on. There's no making sense of it, or making it better. It just is one of the many ways life is unfair. My husband tells me all the time, be glad you had such a great mom, even if it wasn't long enough. In the abstract I know that's the right approach. But in my heart I'll always hate the time that was taken from her and from us. |
Anonymous
+1 I’m very sorry for your loss. |
Anonymous
I’m sorry for what you’re going through. From my own experience, I know that Montgomery Hospice offers grief groups. If your Mom is connected with a hospital, staff social workers and chaplains will also be able to suggest options. I’d imagine, too, that any hospital chaplain could do this — even for people and families not currently receiving services through the hospital. https://montgomeryhospice.org/services/grief-support/ |
Anonymous
| My dad died at the end of June 2021 and February was my worst month in terms of grief and anger. Delayed grief is real! |
Anonymous
All of this. It is hard and it sucks and it is more than okay to acknowledge the envy and sadness you feel. It’s been 15 years for me and the most helpful thing anyone told me was that I will never “get over” the loss, but I’d learn to live with it. But sometimes, usually out of the blue, something just realllllly gets to me. And in those moments, I have a good cry and acknowledge the feelings and remember to be grateful to have had something so wonderful. Sometimes that is enough to get me over the hump. Not always, so lather, rinse, repeat and punch a pillow. |
Anonymous
Here’s a link for community programs at Sibley. I know that Suburban Hospital has some as well. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/community_health/sibley-memorial-hospital/support-groups-resources/index.html I’m not personally familiar with the Wendt Center, but it looks like they offer a wide array of supportive resources. https://www.wendtcenter.org/ |
Anonymous
You misunderstand. I am not telling PP to be grateful for what she had. I'm suggesting that her resentment towards her friends is misplaced and will not help her process her grief. The issue is not that they have something she doesn't (unless they have the exact same relationship with their mothers that OP had with hers, which is impossible to know and unlikely), but simply that she has lost something very meaningful to her. My suggestion is to focus on her own loss and not compare herself to her friends. There is a tendency when you lose a parent to view every person who hasn't lost a parent as more fortunate than you. This is simply false. So many parents are terrible, and there are so many fraught and burdensome parent-child relationships in the world. Thinking of the world this way (as divided between people with living, loving mothers and people without) overlooks the fact that many people with living mothers grieve the fact that they don't have loving (or mentally stable, or emotionally mature, or sober, etc.) mother every day, perhaps even including OP's friend. There is no cornering the market on pain or grief. Thus it is better to avoid the comparison and simply think only of what you have or what you have lost. You don't have to be happy or grateful for it -- you can be angry, sad, bitter, whatever feeling comes to you. But inward focus will help you feel and process those feelings, and outward focus will not. It's a distraction. |
Anonymous
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I struggled very hard with that after my dad died. I was super, super close to my dad and my boys were as well.
It's gotten slightly better and I am really thankful that I won the lottery with having him as a dad for the time I did. Also, I was very lucky to live so close to him and see him so often as I did. I wish my kids had the amount of time my nephews (all were early 20s when he passed and mine were 9 and 12). I know that some people's kids never got a chance to meet their grandparents, so again I reach to gratitude in those hard times. Big hugs. And, go hole up and comfort yourself. I am so sorry for the loss of your mom. |
Anonymous
| I'm so sorry OP. Life is so different after a parent dies. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself! |