Dear Diana2012:
Thank you for writing back so soon.
I relate to how surreal everything feels in your mother-in-law's absence, how you look at the empty couch and almost expect to find her sitting there just as she always had done. You still feel her lingering essence surrounding you. Her death is of course very difficult for you and her family to accept but your feelings are also a great tribute to her and how deeply she affected your life and the lives of all her loved ones. I felt the same way after my Mom died as you are feeling now, Diana2012. Sometimes, I would reach automatically for the phone to call her and then reality would cruelly hit me again - and hard. I still really miss the sound of her voice. It takes a lot of time to fully accept a loved ones death, at least it did in my experience with my Mom's death.
I understand how you are grieving the loss of your mother-in-law and how you leap ahead in your mind to anticipate how you and her family will cope during future family celebrations where she will be so tenderly missed. My Mom died just weeks before Christmas, and it was her and my and our family's most happy holiday in the past. I recall feeling a great need to be strong for my adult children and grandchildren as I didn't want my Mom's death associated with Christmastime for the rest of my life or theirs. I didn't want Christmas to be a mournful occasion. Christmas is a cherished family holiday filled with happy memories and traditions for us all. My Mom so loved Christmas and she made every Christmas in my life feel magical even when she had so little money, she always had loads of creativity and she shared her love of the holidays with me and my brothers and left us with lasting memories to cherish and ideas to incorporate into our own family celebrations.
Looking back, I realize that in the first days and weeks after my Mom died I needed to find strength for myself somehow just to be able to carry on and somehow by the sheer grace of goodness and hope and lots of family support, I succeeded and our family Christmas that first year without my sweet Mom, and the the one since, were still joy filled even though my mother was and always will be sorely missed. She would like that we carried on our traditions and allowed happiness to fill our hearts even while they were breaking. My mother taught me to honour my feelings no matter what and to express a whole gamut of emotions from each dramatic end of the emotional spectrum as well all those more calm and casual feelings in between. Thankfully life does not make us feel only grief as that would be an unbearable torture indeed.
Diana2012, I know you will find a way to live on and to embrace your happy memories of your mother-in-law as time moves on with you. Be very gentle with yourself in these coming weeks and months as your tender heart begins to find its own way to healing. Acknowledge your inner strength as you have demonstrated it so well for so long for the benefit of your mother-in-law and your husband and hers, and your children. Let your strength serve you now by letting others add to yours until it is multiplied.
It is indeed very sad for your father-in-law and you are right, I believe, that when the people who are helping to hold him up now return out of necessity to their own lives and obligations, he may feel more fully the impact of his wife's death. All you can do is be there for him as he makes the adjustments to life without his mate. It may not be the wisest thing to hover too closely as he will need to adapt to his new life without your mother-in-law, but as long as he knows he is included and feels welcome to spend time with others, he will make his way to healing, eventually, as will you all.
As for how you cannot help but dwell on the very recent images of your mother-in-law as her life came to a close, I understand that too. I had a very hard time with thinking about my Mom in the hospital and at her viewing when she was laid out in her casket. These images upset me tremendously, and yet I couldn't wish them away no matter how hard I tried. After some time passed, I cannot remember now how much time it took, I began to remember my mother much more frequently as she was in life, rather than the last part of her life, her suffering and her death. Her lifetime of goodness and sweetness and the light of her love are the things that thankfully fill my heart and my mind whenever I think of my Mom.
One day you too will be able to dwell upon happier times with your mother-in-law, Diana2012, but right now you are feeling traumatized by your most recent memories of her death, and you have not yet had enough time to heal as your healing is just barely beginning. You will need some rest and recovery time, and some space to put a safe distance between you and the painful memories that consume your thoughts that wound your breaking heart and your sorrowful soul. No matter how you feel, trust yourself to be able to get through each feeling you face. I believe in you and I and others will be here for you should you doubt yourself as you begin to heal. Big hugs to you as your tears fall and may your every teardrop be a sign of hope and healing.
With affection -hugs - xo
Cath1