Dipika’s story #findyourinnerwarrior
This is Dipika. She is a 54 year old Teaching assistant and is also my mum. I know a lot of people say they have the best mum in the world but I can say for sure that she is the strongest and most inspiring person I know so I thought it only right to tell her story. She and my dad met when she was 18 years old and he asked her out as soon as he saw her but at the time my mum thought she was too young to be dating so she said no to his offer. He told her he knew she was the one for him so he was willing to wait but my mum thought he was lying and told him “let’s just wait and see what happens”. A couple of years later they met again and he asked her out again but this time she felt she was ready and she said yes. The rest is history and they were married for almost 25 years. Who said romance was dead?
However her life changed when he suddenly passed away a couple of years ago. He seemed to be perfectly healthy, he was very active and played different sports weekly but there are some things that can’t be controlled. It was hard to believe for the entire family but especially for my mum. He was such a big part of her life and it took a while for her to even come to terms with the fact that he was gone because it was so surreal. Her initial thoughts were of anger as she thought “what did we do to deserve this?” but this was soon overcome by emotions of sadness because she missed him greatly. My dad knew my mum inside out and had luckily put in place so many things to help her with the responsibility of taking care of the household which made her transition slightly easier but her life did completely change. She had to learn new skills to help her get things in order. Even simple things like improving her IT skills so that she could take care of her bills etc but luckily she had a lot of people around her including her friends and family to help her with these tasks.
She said she had of plans for the future with my dad especially for after they retired but going through this has made her put herself out there more. She has become closer to her friends and family as they are the main reason she has been able to get through this. The hardest part for her was when my sister and I went to university and she was left by herself at home. However everyone around her always called to check up on her and even made plans with her on the evenings and weekends to make sure she never felt alone. She said going out helped her think more positively and kept her mind occupied otherwise she would’ve been more likely to get into states where she did feel sad.
The journey can be very up and down and she stresses that even now she has good and bad days. There was a point where she would constantly feel sad (maybe not quite to the stage where she felt depressed) because she just missed his company. There were times where she was told by people that she wasn’t allowed to be upset or cry and that she had to be strong but expressing how she feels has been an important part of her healing. A resource that helped her a lot was having counselling and joining support groups. The support groups in particular were incredibly helpful to improve her mental state as she felt like she wasn’t the only one going through this and could talk to people that understood what she was feeling. She still calls her doctors some days for counselling sessions if she ever does need them. She said “there is help out there if you ever do need it so don’t be afraid to ask even at my age”