Hi All!

I am new relatively new here. I lost my mom 2 weeks ago to oral cancer and have been struggling a lot. Thank you all for the warm welcome in the "Introduce Yourself" forum. Everyone here has been amazingly wonderful and supportive and I can't thank you enough. Being a caregiver to my mother was not only one of the hardest experiences of my life, but one of the most rewarding. I would not take back one minute of caring for her and I am grateful that I had the opportunity.

While I make my way through life without her, I have found myself struggling. Yes of course I miss her terribly, we were VERY close, twins in many ways. However, not having grown up with a strong religious background or affiliation, I find myself doubting what happens next... is there an afterlife? I say that really only in relation to myself. I know for sure that when friends have died, or relatives of my friends have passed away, I can say with certainty that they will always be with them... that they will be watching over them and are not forgotten or have not disappeared. However, when it comes to my own personal experience losing my mother, I can't wrap my head around it. I wonder if it's too soon, because I haven't put her out of the present and into the plane that she is (or may be) now on? I have not had any "signs" from her, felt any comfort from an invisible "hug", or experienced any after death communication of any sort... and while I am not a skeptic of these things at all, I wonder if people really only say these things as a self coping mechanism.

I am desperately praying to "feel" my mom's presence. My father told me last weekend that when she died, he saw her spirit leave her body and move toward the light with a look of amazement and realization of what happens next. I wish he'd told me this sooner! I was there and only saw my own tears and her lifeless body as she took her last breath. It gives me hope but I have yet to experience anything personally that lets me know she is with me. I have been doing a lot of reading lately on the topic and am curious if anyone here that is a caregiver that has lost a loved one has experienced any sort of after death communication. I have never been one to dismiss anything from the realm of possibility and am a dreamer of sorts, but I was raised by a "scientist" who has always looked for facts to explain things, so find myself stuck somewhere in between.

If you have any stories to share, please do, I am so terribly sad today and a little hope might do me good... <3