So pleased to hear it.  There are no rules, you are all living in a different country to one you have ever been in before. I miss my hubby 24 hours every day, I don't wake up in the morning thinking he's beside me, I know he's away from me, for the moment.  I have never broken down and cried like I did when my dad died.  I can't explain it, I only know it's too deep for that, tears won't wash it away.  I'm glad he's got Rev Trev, sounds like a great bloke.  Your dad will find a way to cope, and it will be his way but do tell him that in time the memories will creep back and he will find himself thinking of the funny things, the silly things, the laughter.  God Bless.

Ditty, I'm thinking about you, I know it is a cliché but time really is a great healer, the good memories will come back, I promise, but, after all that you have been through the last year or so, then those memories are bound to be foremost in your mind for a while, (know how hard this is)

Your mum looks lovely in those photo's, however I was thinking more Matt Lucas as Andy Pipkin than William Hague

You will get through this, however hard, take care of yourself lovely

I just need to sneak back in here with a hug for Carnelian

what a beautiful lady 

lovely pic xx

Struggling sooo badly with this bit...  

there is stuff I know happened..  I know it was a precious moment...   I just can't get the full memory of it to play in my head...  

and yet I can play in full HD everything in the six weeks leading up to her dying.

SUCKS!!!

I'd be really really screwed up about it if it wasn't for you and others telling me not to worry, and my memory will sort itself out...     I really hope it does.

& thank you Soops..     for everything throughout this..  

I know it can't have been easy for you or Slinkeh helping me the way you have, not having been through exactly the same thing yourselves.  

You've no idea how indebted I am to you both xxxx 

anyways..  

popped in to let you know that we sat with Trev the Rev  (which is actually his email address ) and sorted the ceremony today..  

initially it was looking like it was gonna be a bit grim & a bit fire & brimstones... 

but we've got it to this...  

We (incl Mum) enter to Beethovens Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) - which was her fave classical music..   she used to cook complex dinners in the kitchen whilst knocking back a bottle of wine..   shouting at us kids to stop picking and wait for it to be ready.   Its happy music 

then  hymn =  All Things Bright & Beautiful..    her fave from the hymns we sang at primary school..     again..  happy..    so good.

then prayers & stuff  (readings John 14, verses 1-6..   assume this means something to some of you)

then bizarre bit of music my father reckons he & my mother loved but I have never heard before in my life.    am quite pleased.  cos it will give me time to pull myself together..   is stranger on the shore by some Acker Bilk bloke  (sounds like Squidward from Spongebob)... 

then the final bit..    the bye bye mum bit   the bit where we then walk out also, she's getting Abba - Dancing QUeen..   cos she loved to dance and she loved that song!

Its gonna make me cry like a baby!!

But hey..  at one point Bridge over Troubled Water was on the cards..    I have been to a funeral where they played that and that floors you....    so all in all I am happy with the choices, dad is happy and I think mum would be dead impressed and happy with it

I proper miss her today

had to help dad sort out some of her stuff...   make up, jewellery..   handbag... 

just made me really miss her

I can't quite get my head around the finality of it all...  

Trev says the funeral will help with that 

Ditty, Trev's right. It will help but as I've said before, one day at a time, there's no limit on grieving. You'll know when you're able to accept things a little bit better 

its two years for me Ditty...there's not a day goes by I don't shed a tear, but I do laugh now.... guilt I have a shed load and I don't even know why  

but I want it to all start to be getting better now..    

I am..   I am actually impatient...       I have been doing this for 14 months now..   I need to get this grieving thing well & truly underway..   I will go with it, cry with it, feel it..   do it...   

but I need to get through it as quickly as possible cos I hate feeling like this, and I have been feeling like this for such a long time now.

only before I didn't have the "I miss my Mum" bit as well.. 

I'm  just reading 

Don't worry, you will, in time 

awwww Dame 

I already laugh...     I never stopped...   but I am still crying, really really crying a lot as well.    It just comes at me in these fugging great waves of eurgghhh  heart rippy out emotion..   I can hardly breathe..   I hate it. 

and the guilt..   what is that about?    I have spent the past 14 doing everything I can...    not only for her (but mainly for her) but cos I didn't want to be here now with guilt & regret.. 

and yet I still am (not a lot, nothing I can't logic away, but...   its that memory thing again..    really hard to remember in detail that includes her face the good stuff we did.  

its all bollocks.... 

alcohol -  its good for all this..    not loads of it..   but a nice woozy amount on an evening 

(think I might have waffled) 

awww Aims..     we have similar sets ups don't we  (parents that helped us when we were single mums etc)

Hug em both..   tight...     I know they can do your head in, and I know you don't take them for granted..    but give a big tight hug anyway xxxx 

Ditty, there's alsorts going round in your mind right now, believe me I know what you're going through. I had a hard time coming to terms with my mam's death, and that was twelve years ago in November. It will settle down in a few days/weeks though. 

yeah...   thank you..   

it would be so good to feel sane again....   not permanently on the emotional edge... 

I don't want Mum to be something that hurts to think about...      but I am not quite ready for her to be a memory..   

I couldn't pick out any of hte cards to go with the flowers that said memories on it..   

mine has printed on it  "to a wonderful mum so deeply missed.."  

I still got to write my personal stuff on it yet...    tomorrow joy that one 

xxx

Aww, bless you for saying that Ditty Honestly I really, really promise you that your memory will sort itself out in time, I was exactly the same, it's as if you have to process the awful stuff first for that to be able to happen. For example, one of the things that happened to my mum the week or so before she died was that the whole of her leg 'died' first and went completely black, for months, every time I pictured her, including in my dreams, that's all that I could see. 

What you're thinking/doing is normal Ditty: shit, painful and bloody heart breaking, but normal, please don't worry darling

accepts hugs & kisses..... 

I am having a mopey, wallowy pity party...  

and though it was decided we wouldn't choose this one for Mums ceremony..  its going round my head...    it would have been too hard to hear this one played..   but the lyrics make me cry... 

When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

Supes is right Ditty. 

gorgeous xx

oh god..    I heard that could happen... 

mum's spine collapsed...   & the cushings made her unrecognisable...   and she smelled of death or decay or something...     and the catheter & all that and she couldn't move....    all of it...       the men couldn't see it like I could..     Dad still doesn't..   he still talks about Mum from a few weeks ago..    to me that does her memory a huge injustice.... 

I tell ya..   if it happens to me I am not seeing it through to its natural end..   NO FECKING WAY!    I don't care..       I will not sit there & watch my body die around me..     watch my loved ones have to watch it... 

just no 

Poor Ditty   you're in such pain right now

The funeral sounds so beautifully planned and personal to your Mum. She'll be looking down on you all from heaven, feeling proud.

yeah....   its hurting like buggery right now ... 

it will pass....   

comes in waves

Ditty I haven't posted in here except for leaving a hug because, like most people, I am SHIT at saying comforting things when people die.  I end up trying to be funny and make it all awkward so I'll just say you're in my thoughts and just because I have nothing useful to say to you here doesn't mean I am not thinking of you and your family xxxx

awww Ells..      come sit on the awkward sofa with the girl...     she is the queen of awkward...    but cos of it she makes me laughs... 

she helps by making me laugh at stupid things...  and it gives me a break from it.

must be really exhausting for her though...  

thank you Ells..     you can say anything to me...      its fine..      and thank you for your thoughts xxxx 

I think we're related  

BIB: I purposely didn't tell you that bit in our pm!

Really don't know what to say about the rest, just bloody awful, but it will pass in time and you'll remember how she used to be rather than how that terrible illness and the drugs made her appear different.  (If I even get a whiff of Clinique Aromatics I'm straight back to remembering it all like it was yesterday) 

Soops...   do you know what that other smell was?

the one that smelled of dodgy hospital wards..    

i don't know what it is but its permeated everything...      its so strong... 

it makes me so sad...    

was it decomp?

as in her breath & through anyother orifices?   was it her body already breaking down?

it didn't smell like decay..   off meat or tooth decay or anythign like that... 

Don't know if this helps Ditty. Our Da died two months ago from bowel cancer. I hadn't been that close to him so the grief wasn't anything as overwhelming as yours  but I feel for you.

I sent my brother little things to try to comfort him, as he was grieving badly. This was a nice little prayer I found. Technically its more suited to a burial than a cremation. Hope you get through Ditty

( TAKEN FROM A SELECTION OF IRISH BLESSINGS AND PRAYERS )

May the blessing of the rain be on you- 

the soft sweet rain.

May it fall upon your spirit

so that all the little flowers may spring up,

and shed their sweetness on the air.

May the blessing of the great rains be on you,

may they beat upon your spirit

and wash it fair and clean,

and leave there many a shining pool

where the blue of heaven shines,

and sometimes a star.

May the good earth be soft under you

when you rest upon it,

and may it rest easy over you when,

at the last, you lay out under it,

And may it rest so lightly over you

that your soul may be out

from under it quickly,

and up, and off,

And be on its way to God.

sorry to hear about your Dad xxxxx   really sorry (I am so self centred atm.. forgive me).. 

I quite like that poem...   in fact tomorrow I will probably really like it and will take it to show Dad... 

its the last line I want to argue with..    I don't want her to be on her way to God..  I want her back here with us..     (petulant moment... I will get over it) 

I know what you mean Ditty