Anger

Anger is a powerful emotion for me, and I openly admit that I have anger issues, which were part of me before my mom’s illness and death. I anger quickly at times, sometimes too quickly, and then I regret things that I’ve said or done. Fortunately, I recognize when I’m wrong, for the most part, and do apologize and ask for forgiveness.

Anger is the third stage of the 7 stages of grief. In the first few months following my mom’s death, I seemed to flip-flop between the anger stage and the second stage of pain and guilt. The thing is, I got angry about “weird” things. I was not angry at God for losing my mom or even angry at Him because she was stricken with such a deadly type of cancer. If it had been God’s will for my mom to live, she would still be here, and as hard as that is for me to accept, in some ways I have. And I believe that everything happens for a reason and through my mom’s illness and death, my family has become closer and I believe I’ve changed for the better. Although I still have a long way to go to becoming the person I want to be.

In general, I am angry that my mom died. I am angry that she had to suffer like she did. I am angry about all the things she will miss with the kids, especially since Nikki is only 2 years old. But then I get angry about odd things. I’ll see an older woman, one who is visibly much older than my mom was when she died, and I feel angry because this woman is still alive and my mom is gone. I hear or read about people with pancreatic cancer who were diagnosed at a more advanced stage than my mom and are technically beating the odds and are still alive, or people who have lived years with this disease. I don’t wish anything bad on them or want them to die, but I get so angry that they are alive and my mom is dead. I see women older than me spending time with their elderly mothers and feel angry.

But most of all, I feel angry because my mom and I had started to strengthen our relationship and were finally developing a real mother-daughter relationship, which was painfully cut very short. There was so much I wanted to do with my mom, so much time I wanted to make up for, but we never got the chance. That’s where the second stage of guilt comes in, intermixing with the anger, making these feelings even more powerful and painful.

It’s been 6+ months since my mom died, and my anger isn’t as quick or as strong, but it’s still here from time to time.