My mother suddenly died. But it feels like I lost my daughter.
Grief is not something that follows a steady or predictable healing process.
Last Thursday evening, for the first time in my life, I experienced a massive panic attack. Another came on Friday. For several days after that, smaller waves of panic continued to come and go. I had never experienced anything like it before.
Since my mother went to Heaven, I have not had even one full day to truly rest or grieve alone. There were a million things to take care of—arrangements, paperwork, responsibilities. At home, life continued. I needed to run a household with my two boys and also take care of my father. At the same time, I kept working with very little sleep.
Eventually, my body simply gave up.
When Grief Finally Breaks Through
My mother suddenly passed away on Dec 31, 2015, out of a heart attack. I talked to her on the way to work, and she was gone by the time I arrived at the hospital at around 4pm on the same day. I held myself up for the funeral. But 4 weeks later we had to rebury my mother due to problems with the original burial place. That moment became my breaking point.
After the reburial, I collapsed. I had severe difficulty breathing and cried for hours. My body was shaking and I could not calm down.
My doctor diagnosed panic attacks and prescribed medication along with counselling.
At first I felt embarrassed and weak. But through my counselling sessions this week, I began to understand something deeper about my grief.
When a Parent Becomes Your Child
My counsellor helped me realize something important.
For the past 15 years, my mother was not only my parent — in many ways she had become my “child.”
Since her health began to decline around 2010, I had taken care of countless things for her. In 2017, when she suffered heart failure, I helped save her life by arranging heart valve replacement surgery at Asan Hospital.
I accompanied her to hospitals, managed her care, and constantly worried about her health.
In my mind, I was responsible for her life.
So when she suddenly died from a heart attack, the shock came with overwhelming trauma and guilt.
I arrived at the hospital after she had already passed away. There was nothing left that I could do.
No chance to save her.
No chance to try.
And that is when my mind began to whisper the cruelest thought:
You failed.
The Guilt of Not Being Able to Save Someone You Love
During counselling, I cried and cried until I finally understood why my grief felt so unbearable.
It was not only the loss of my mother.
It felt like I had lost my daughter.
For years I had been trying to protect her, care for her, and keep her alive. When I held her body after she passed away, she weighed only 38 kilograms.
Holding her felt like holding a small child.
My mind keeps replaying those final moments. I ask myself the same painful questions again and again.
What could I have done differently?
What should I have done sooner?
Could I have saved her if I arrived earlier?
Grief often speaks the language of guilt.
But my counsellor told me something that I am slowly learning to accept.
Learning to Forgive Myself
My counsellor said it is healthy to grieve my mother deeply.
But I must also let go of the belief that I was responsible for her life.
This is not easy.
The heart does not follow logic.
Even now, my mind continues to revisit the past, searching for ways I might have changed the outcome.
But part of healing is learning to say something very difficult:
I did my best.
And sometimes, even our very best cannot stop death.
Surviving Panic, Grief, and Exhaustion
For now, I will continue counselling sessions and take medication to manage the panic attacks.
My goal is simple:
I must survive this process.
Grief is heavy, but I am grateful that I have a good doctor and counsellor helping me through it.
I also hold onto faith.
I truly believe my mother is now peaceful and happy in Heaven.
But learning how to live in this world without her is something I must slowly figure out.
I do not know how long this will take.
For now, I am learning to live day by day.
Rebuilding Memories
There is one more small story I want to share.
We never had the chance to take a proper family photo with my children and my parents together. So recently I asked a photographer to create one by carefully cropping and combining photos of us.
She performed what felt like magic.
Now there is a family photo that never existed in real life—but in my heart, it feels real.
This weekend, I will take that “engineered family photo” to my mother.
I also found an old photograph of the two of us when I was about three years old.
I have very few memories before the age of seven. But through that photo, I am slowly rebuilding an image in my mind:
My mother holding me.
And me as her beloved daughter.
Grief is tough. But guilt is tougher.
Perhaps healing begins the moment we start learning how to forgive ourselves.
If you have experienced the loss of someone you love deeply, please feel free to share your story. Sometimes the most powerful healing happens when we realize we are not grieving alone.