My mom is dying. I am so lost.
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Anonymous
I missed the part where Dad is in the picture. |
Anonymous
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It's okay to let your DH hold down the fort at home and go be with your mom.
I remember many feelings from that period in my life, but feeling guilty for neglecting my kids was the least of them. The kids had their dad in the meantime, but my mom only had me. |
Anonymous
Dang what’s wrong with you. |
Anonymous
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I'd also plan to go be with my mom. Being a SAHM is a huge blessing at this stage. Yes you will need to find backup childcare for your children while you are gone. But your kids will be okay with a few weeks or months of disruption on that front while you care for your dying mother.
So start finding carpools and babysitters to help out and go be with your mom. |
Anonymous
| I’m so sorry OP. Try to handle this in chunks instead of getting overwhelmed by everything at once. For now focus on your mom’s comfort and spending time with her. Then give yourself a couple months to handle the grief. Then you hire a company to help with managing the stuff. You pick a few special items to keep. Take photos of the rest of the special items. Let a company hold and estate sale/handle junk removal and get a realtor to sell the house. Outsource this as much as you can. |
Anonymous
I had a heartless former boss like this PP who screamed at me over the phone to get back to work/demanded I meet with her to discuss my upcoming schedule all while repeating that she was dealing with same thing but her parent was in another country. What was possibly keeping me out of work THIS week, again? Backed into a corner, I impulsively told my boss that I was resigning immediately. Forget two weeks notice, forget a sit down meeting to discuss. I hung up, cried, emailed HR w/ cc: boss. Boom. My mom died a few weeks later, in my presence. Guess what? Just learned that my tyrannical boss just *retired* (less than one year after above incident) to care for her dying parent. |
Anonymous
| Huh? The point is OP doesn’t work AND she has child care. Not comparable at all |
Anonymous
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Hi all, thanks for the encouragement and advice.
Yes the biggest issue with being a sahm is that I have no childcare. I’m grateful for the flexibility though. Now that she’s home with hospice care, I was hopeful I could bring the younger children with me and basically parent everyone together. However, my mom has become disoriented and delirious. So I did not bring the kids as I thought it would be too hard for everyone. I did return by myself after a four day break in dc. My plan is to just keep up this pattern for awhile (chunk of time with mom and back up kid care) then go back home for a couple days. |
Anonymous
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My mother passed away very suddenly a month ago. Lean on your husband, your community, ask a friend to set up a meal train or a carpool. Ask your older kids or friends to help. I was lucky that my community stepped in when I needed it most those first couple weeks. The sadness is still awful sometimes. I cry or am a shell going through the motions. Some days are easier and some are harder. Some days the distraction of work and the endless kid stuff is welcome. Some days it feels like an endless slog. Do what you have to do. It’s okay to grieve and be sad and not be fully present. In my experience dealing with this loss so far everyone is in such a hurry for you to suck it up and move on in our society and that’s not how life works. You go your whole life (if you’re lucky) with your mom on this planet and then one day they are gone. Through this loss I hope it’s made me more empathetic and more focused on what really matters. More human. It’s okay to be messy or not perfect right now. Life is changing and will change for you. I’m so sorry for what you’re experiencing and just know there are others out there who know the feelings you’re having. In the first days and week when I lost her I focused on getting through each hour. That’s all I could do. One month in and I am making a list of joys to do each week so that I can find ways to cheer myself up each week while working, caring for kids, and dealing with the estate and burial and aftermath. And grieving.
Sending you lots of love and hugs. |
Anonymous
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I am so sorry.
If possible to leave your kids and go to your mom, then by all means go and be with her. As a pp said the caregivers are all strangers to her. Have you by her side will mean a lot to her… and you wont ever have regrets. |
Anonymous
| Your feelings are normal. I am so sorry this is happening. I wish we were friends so I could help take something off of your plate here in DC or just be an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. My hands are on your back holding you up. |
Anonymous
NP here. Kick rocks. People (especially women) should be supporting other women, not finding ways to tear each other down. WTAF is wrong with you? Marinate in your own feelings of why you have to come on here and write rude things to a poster who is in anticipatory grief with a dying mother Hurt people hurt people. I am sorry you are hurting but that doesn't give you permission to write rude and attacking things. The world has enough a-holes and is hard enough as it is. Don't add to it. |
Anonymous
| OP, I'm so sorry for everything you're going through. I don't really have advice, just commiserating because my mom is 95 with dementia and doesn't have too much longer, and I will miss her terribly. |
Anonymous
| I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Have gone through similar, when my children were young, and my advice is that you should go spend time with your mom while you can. Your husband will manage the kids, they will be ok, and they will also see and learn from how much you love and care for your mom. |
Anonymous
| I’m so sorry. You are blessed to have been so close with your mother. I will be sad, but I can’t imagine feeling this weight if or when this happens. |