Post-traumatic reflections

My mom died on Monday. The services were yesterday. I've been in Philly/jersey since last Thursday -- that was the day that she "took a turn for the worse" as they say, and they knew she wasn't leaving the hospital. I was in the hospital pretty much 24/7 until Monday morning at 7 am when she passed. The funeral was yesterday. I am still in kind of a fog. On the one hand, I keep expecting her to walk through the door any minute now, or find myself zoning out for a second wondering where she is when I am around the family. On the other hand, every time I close my eyes I see her die. I was holding her hand and my face was about a foot away from hers when she died. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen. She was basically unconscious but still in so much pain, and her breathing got all crazy, and there was this bloody, frothy stuff coming out of her mouth every time she breathed. As I was sitting there, holding her hand with one hand and using the suction tube thing to get rid of the frothy stuff in the other, everything just stopped. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her head dropped, her face turned purple, and then she was gone.

I haven't had the strength to pick up the phone and call anyone. I still don't. I figured at least with an email I can get it out there--say the words without actually having to speak them. I feel like I am just a big mess, and I am so scared that that image is never going to leave my head. Over the past week I have gone back and forth between the states: sad, busy, and numb. Now that the funeral is over, it's just sad and numb. Of course there are still all kinds of stuff I need to do that will keep me busy...like going through my mom's papers and figuring out when her next mortgage payment is due...but I haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet.