If your mother is no longer alive, how old were you when she died? How has losing your mom impacted your life?

Mine died almost a year ago when she was about 96.5. My sister (10 years younger) thought that she was going to bury us; the last four years of her life were sad and droopy. She had senile dementia and aching joints and little joy but soldiered on in her own apartment in an Independent living facility with some day care and lots of attention from my sister, bro-in-law and me. We did all her bookkeeping, taxes, shopping, docs’ appointment and general factotum jobs.

Until then she had a very good run; 45 years with my father and then over 20 with a boyfriend. They traveled and bopped around until he ran out of steam at 92.

For a while it felt as though I had been fired from a job. Now, almost at the year anniversary marker, I am the oldest living member of my generation of the family. She stopped being a mother years ago and recently my joints have started to ache.

My Mom died when I was 49. My Dad died when I was 27.
My Mom’s Mom died when she was 1 month old.
My Dad’s Mom died when he was 52.

There is no way I can say how deeply I was affected by this. I still dream of my father, and expect to dream of them both till the day I die.

My mum died when I was five and my family seemed to have believed that being stoic and not discussing her death was the appropriate reaction. Nobody spoke about her. I grew up instinctively knowing that this was a painful subject and I shouldn’t talk about it. I did challenge my father about being so closed about my mother but I know it was because he was hurt himself. I don’t think he knew what to say.

I went through years of just burying my feelings really. I went to see a counsellor about something years later and she woke me up to how closeted my feelings about my mother were. It took me years to admit what I have missed out on and about the pain of losing my mum. I still have a strong yearning to know more about her. Who she really was, what she loved to do… most of the people who could tell me are gone now though.

My mother died last November. She would have been 96 in July 2012. I thought I was prepared, but wasn’t. My first reaction was sheer terror, I had known her all my life and I could not imagine going on without her. It is fortunate for us that she lived as long as she did. Up to the end she was very much the matriarch – 5 children, 12 grands and 7 great-grands – with only very slight loss of memory. I miss you, Mom.

My Mom died in January. She was 92 and I had just turned 61. We had had a troubled relationship and while it had turned sweeter in the last years of her life, I did not need or get much from here in recent years. However, yesterday I walked on a beach at sunset that was rife with Piping Plovers and I would have loved to share that experience with her. I was saddened.

My mom died when I was 27 even though I was already grown. .my world crumbled.not having my mom around has really hurt me. .I will never get over it but I’ve learned to live with it.

My mom died when I was 22. That was they age when we were starting to have a relationship more as friends and less as mother/daughter.
I’ve also graduated college and gotten married since. I will miss her until I die, and am sorry that she did not experience these life changing events. The good side of this accident has been that as I became older I was able to
see her model many good positions and opinions, and
this has helped shape my
personality.

@brooklyn1213, welcome to Fluther!

@ GracieT. Thank you great to be here

I know this is about mums, but I miss my dad too. In some ways more than my mum since I was closer to him. Grief is the weirdest thing. I woke up in the middle of the night crying because I wanted to go for a walk in the park with my dad. He has only been gone nearly 30 years.

I agree with you, @Bellatrix. Grief is weird. When I finally went back to school after my injury I remember walking back, one day, to my dorm. I remember it because I remember thinking ‘I’m tried, cold, wet, and hungry. I just want my mommy!’. I, of course, was 22. It was 1994, and my mother had died in 1992. I find that my grief is worse when my defenses are lowest, but it also surfaces at happy milestones in my life such as my marriage and the birth of my brother’s kids. Unfortunately it can also strike at strange times when I am totally unprepared. Luckily now it is not as acute, but it still hurts.

I have the same experiences @GracieT and I agree those feelings are most likely to occur at high and low times in my life but can just sneak up on you.

From time to time, I think, “Oh, I have to call my mother, my father, my brother, my first ex( the father of my kids), my cousin Bob, or John and share this with him/her; then I realize I can’t.

edit. Close quotation at the end of…I can’t.”