On the 3rd of February 2025, my mother passed away in hospital. She had been battling Alzheimers since pre 2021 but succumbed to ascites in her final days. How must it have been for her in her final moments? I am flooded with recall and it is hard to breathe.
As I don't have an answers, I seem to be caught in this place of numbness like a snowdrop that cannot warm the earth around it in order to push through. I don't know how long it will last.
My experience of my father's death was different because it was sudden and my mother made all the decisions.
We could still return home and though everything had changed there was the comfort of familiarity. It is different this time as home is no longer home and everything feels very final, frozen in time.
So what have I been doing to help myself as I experience the early stages of grief in this way:
- I hug my children so they feel held in this grief
- I walk to feel that I can still move
- I write even though my words are stilted
- I accept all invitations with gratitude though I would rather hide out in Miceal O Coileain's bakery
- I burn beautiful essential oils to find the one that feels healing even just a little bit
- I keep an eye on Spring wishing @CharlesDowding would magically transform my garden
- I try to eat nourishing food
- I drink water
- I desperately try to accept where I am at, without trying to change the discomfort
I turn to the words of John O'Donohue's New Year Blessing:
''On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you''
Aintherese
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