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snot

(11,214 posts)
3. My own mom
Sat Jul 19, 2025, 04:03 PM
Saturday

was so remote, in more than one way, that her death qualified as loss only in that it ended any hope I still retained that we might ever have more of a relationship.

But even that loss took me hundreds of pages of journal-writing to process. Maybe I'm slow... but please don't be discouraged.

I'd encourage you to try to keep exploring all your feelings, including all the things you resented or found disappointing as well as the things you loved about her, the good thngs she did and your disappointments when she let you down or hurt you, your gratitude and your resentments and the things you wish you'd said to her about them; to bravely go down all the rabbit trails that may come to mind, even if they seem childish, unfair, or otherwise somehow inappropriate.

Pay yourself and her memory the respect and kindness of trying to "hear" all of them, since they're all part of a natural process, and focussing on them in privacy won't hurt a soul; and feeling/imagining/thinking deeply about them may actually help you see more into how and why things went wrong and what you both might have been struggling with.

And I do believe that writing them all out can help one understand and accept them better, and can help one start to move on.

If writing's really not your thing, maybe you can find some other medium in which to explore and express them?

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