Mom died 3 days ago from alcoholism
Hi all, I posted about this in another area of this site a couple of days ago. I'm pretty new here. That was my first post.
My mom had always been a drinker, but the last 3-4 years have gotten a lot more severe. When she visited us (we live in another state pretty far away) we always noticed how much she was drinking. I talked with her about it and she said "I know", but didn't do anything about it. In retrospect I feel I should have pushed her to go to treatment more than I did.
We planned to have her come here to help me after the birth of my second child. She never mentioned that she was ill during my pregnancy, and showed up after I gave birth via c-section in terrible shape. She went to urgent care and went into the hospital almost immediately. She was diagnosed with Stage 2 cirrhosis (so she told me, I'm questioning if she made it sound milder than it was) and alcoholic hepatitis. She was in the hospital for a few weeks and then came back to our house where I took care of her and my newborn and 4 year old with special needs. I was upset with her for doing this to herself, and I was upset that she didn't tell me that she was sick and just showed up that way.
Our visit wasn't a great one. She was ill, I was upset with her, though I tried not to take it out on her. We did argue at one point, and whenever I tried to convince her to seek treatment, telling her that her life was at risk and that I loved her and didn't want to lose her, she would give me a million reasons why not. I offered to have her do inpatient or even outpatient here in my town while she was with me.
She ended up going home and almost immediately started drinking again. Her friends came into her house and found her drunk, with liquor bottles around. She admitted to me she'd gone right back to drinking, but then claimed she'd stopped after that. She looked into a couple of rehab facilities but never actually entered them. She told me she had to wait until she felt better physically before she went. I told her if she was breathing and conscious she had to be there, because if she didn't she would keep drinking which would make her physical problems worse.
I had a feeling on Sunday and I had the police do a welfare check on her and they found her. On Friday night I'd called her and it was only because her neighbor had come by to check on her that the phone was answered. I cried and told her I loved her and that she needed help and needed to get out of that house. I asked her to please not take herself away from me.
My mom was my rock. Outside of my two boys and my husband she was my world. We used to talk on the phone every day. We couldn't have loved each other any more. She was always in my corner. I was her only child, I have no relationship with my father. My mom was a wonderful, spirited woman with a giant heart. I've spent the past three days sobbing hysterically, saying I want my mommy back. It's inconceivable to me that she's gone. Right now I've gone sort of numb to protect myself. I just want to sleep to blot it out, blot the pain away.
When I notified one of her friends last night she told me that my mom had told her she had severe cirrhosis. That's not what she had told me. I'm now wondering if she'd kept the extent of her illness secret from me. If she had told me I would have gotten the chance to spend our last visit in a much different way, and I feel cheated out of that. I didn't want her to die alone. If she was that ill I would have asked her to stay here. I didn't want her to feel so alone. I loved her as much as anyone in the world could love anyone else. She was my mommy, forever.
I feel guilty, for not helping her more, for letting her be alone like that. For being upset with her when she shows up surprising me with being sick after I'd had a c-section and expecting help of my own. I feel angry that she went right home after she got out of the hospital and was supposed told that if she stopped drinking right then, she could live a fairly normal life and would recover, but she immediately burned though the rest of her liver.
Only she could have changed it, right? It made sense that I was upset with her for what she was doing, right? How do I find any kin of peace? How do I accept that she's gone? How do I cope with the grief of losing this relationship?