Another Fifth Anniversary Story

by Diane
(Tamworth, NSW, Australia)

My grief journey must be one of the slowest in history!

I'd like to start with a comment from the website, "each person’s experience is different given the nature of the loss and their own life circumstances."

That is so true.

The nature of my loss was my dear mother.

My life circumstances are that I never married or had children although it was my dearest wish to do so. Perhaps this is why, though, my mother and I were so close. She and my father divorced when I was very young, around five years old, at the end of the 2nd World War. I never met him until 1992 after trying to find him half of my life and he died shortly afterwards.

My mother was my rock, really. I suffer from something called Social Anxiety Disorder, and it has affected my whole life in one way or the other. I wasn't diagnosed though until this year. The counsellor said my mother's death had acted as a catalyst.

I am on my own now and 70 years old. My disorder means I find it hard to make friends, although I feel very lonely these days.

So how did reaching the five year mark affect me? I have never spent a day without thinking of her and especially the night time when the house is empty and I am alone with my thoughts. It is often a very painful time for me and sometimes I feel very hopeless, as if life has slipped by me somehow. I now look at babies and little children in the street and wish one of them was mine. I never felt that before. I was a busy person, working in a busy job, and I accepted that I did not have children, was even quite content about it. Then, all of a sudden, my world drops from under me and I am faced with the question, well, what have you achieved in your lifetime? Is it almost over now I'm 70 when I felt like a young girl always when mum was around. She passed away when I was 65 (yes, I felt young then, too) and it was always Diane and Mum, the two of us. Now, it's only Diane and somehow a much lesser figure somehow.

So the five year anniversary? I could feel it coming nearer, the feelings of pain intensifying, and then when I stood in front of her grave with my flowers and talked to her, I felt much better, calmer and more oh, well, I've got to be strong and get on with life. But then the emptiness returns when I reach home and it takes a monumental effort to overcome it.

I know I have to live around the pain. I have tried so hard to find a way to do this. I am a work in progress! Thank you for allowing me to add my story.