Horribly. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep and when I finally did, I woke myself up calling my son’s name.

For me it's the ripples.
See, I do not know your Mom, until a moment ago I never heard of the woman.
Yet here she is touching me through you.
Her ripple washes over me.
LONG after you are gone, traditions, habits sayings and stories might well have her wash over others as well, along with your ripples.
We are not eternal beings, but the things we do and say create ripples which long outlast us, which affect the very nature of who others turn out to be.
It is fair to say that you would not be the YOU you know, without her input. Her ripples affected you.
And now me, through you.
Even now, with my own mother long gone, her ripple touches me as I empathize with your experience.
Condolences.

I feel it's easier to process a death as an atheist. When my mother died, I seemed to have handled it better than my siblings who still mostly had the religious mindset regarding death.

I think it was because I embraced the grief, instead of shunning it. I enjoyed surrounding myself with her things, rather than boxing everything up to send away out of sight. I wrote to everyone on her xmas card list (she died Dec 26th many years ago) to inform her extended circle of friends, individually, that she had died. Many of those people wrote back with their fond memories and other anecdotes. I felt that interacting with my mother's friends and the letter writing was cathartic and therapeutic as I painfully went through the shock and grief, realizing I was now an orphan.

If your mother has any wishes for her funeral/memorial, find out what they are and take comfort in carrying them out. Take the wonderful things about her personality into your heart so that you can carry her common sense or passions or what-have-you with you as you go through life. In this way, she's not gone but living on through you in a special way.

It's hard to think about losing someone as important in your life as your mother, and it will likely be one of the hardest things you'll ever have to endure. Let yourself cry... talk with those who know your mom... as they understand what you're going through.

You have her now, warm and near where you can interact with her, touch her, hug her... and that will be ending. That is the physical part that is so hard. There is a threshold of transition you'll need to cross. Keep her in your thoughts and memories to carry her with you. In this way she may be gone from this physical world, but she is not gone from your heart, if you keep her memory alive, through some sort of legacy. A ritual you do, an activity you perform on certain anniversaries, etc., can be helpful.

Her "afterlife" is within all those who loved her and remember her going forward.

No reason she couldn't be reincarnated, or even move to another dimension.

There are many books of research done on children ages 2-6 who remember past lives, and a few children who led even police to their past life bodies, if they had been murdered, and pointed out their murderers, who confessed.

The details of the children's memories were carefully checked by researchers, and I know also about this by experience, since my sister and I could both remember a past life when we were born.

According to Einstein; all matter is a form of energy, so since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, we have always existed and will always exist in some energy form and quantum physics already tells us different dimensions exist.

"For physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -Einstein.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental and matter as derivative from consciousness." – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics

I went through this last year with my own mother. I'm sorry you're going through it now. It's not easy and especially if you had a best friend in your mother as I did. I saw my mom go through many years of pain from rheumatoid arthritis, shingles, cancer and a heart attack. I cherished every moment I had with her and made sure to spend time with her, make her laugh. Those are the things that will stay with you. Remember the good, learn from the bad. When she passed I probably appeared to be in shock as I was smiling and happy. I was of course sad for losing her but I was happy she was no longer in pain. She was no longer suffering, and while she was in the hospital we found out she had more cancer. I knew she would not want to live another day having cancer again. She was where she wanted to be. I didn't know the answers and I was okay with that, as long as she was no longer in pain. You will process this in your own way of course and which every way you do, it's going to be okay. It'll be hard but it'll get easier. Try to focus on the positive that you were lucky enough to have her in your life, that you had her for the amount of time you did. It's alright to feel selfish at times and wish she was here. You will go through a roller coaster of emotions. Stay strong hun! Hugs!

I'm in a similar situation.

Something which brings me comfort is thinking about how life, death, life, death, life... is a natural cycle and everyone is part of it. It is a universally shared experience.

I also mentally grasp the concept of life in the context of the cosmos. There is no meaning to life, it is an accident. It just is.

And it helps to think of life being the exception rather than the norm and that none of us is exempt.

This may sound crass (and I apologise if it does) but I think of a quote from the children's film 'Tuck Everlasting', which goes:

"Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live."

If someone enjoyed their life; that is something to celebrate, since we are all going to die anyway.

The brutal juxtaposition between being with the person you love and being without them, because of death, is not something which can be intellectualised out of. We have to hurt and we have to grieve because nature made us that way. It's in our DNA.

The silver lining is the lesson death teaches us - that our relationships with the people we love are precious and need to be cherished and nurtured.

I'm sorry if I've not helped, or worse still - if I've offended. I'm a clumsy fool sometimes. I hope you have support from friends and family members. Take care.

Time. Time to me is like a film reel. we only ever experience what is happening on the screen now and we can only ever move forward. however, this is only our human experience. let me ask you a question. WHERE is yesterday? I remember it. i have a degree of physical evidence for it, but WHERE is it? WHERE did the time go? If i had a spacecraft that travelled faster than light and a telescope tolook back to earth that was powerful enough to see individuals I might see you and your mum yesterday, or me and my mum 18 months ago, before she died. WE ARE STILL THERE. we just arnt experiencing it in the here and now. we can't turn back time, but that doesnt mean that yesterday does not exist. we simply can't go there. I knew my mum for 52 years. I will always be with her and she with me for all of that time, forever, because yesterday is always happening somewhere, its on the reel, my life moves on, but our shared life, each frame is forever playing in the theater of time...

Give your mum a hug.

I was very religious and lived in a very strict and conservative monastery in France. I am now an atheist. I believe now nothing really "dies" as energy only shifts. What that really means or how, I do not profess to know. I believe that what is called a soul has been verified by science to be an actual, verifiable and tested force in us. A body actually weighs less after death occurs. So where does that energy and consciousness go? Who knows, a poet once wrote "one short sleep past and we wake eternally and death shall be no more, death thou shalt die". He of course was thinking about traditional heaven or hell but I believe we do not die but live on in another form of energy. Just like electricity was not known or how it worked but is now used and understood one day we will understand death.

I've had some significant losses over the years, and it's painful. But I know that some day I will be right there... "nowhere" with them, and that brings a very weird sense of comfort.

But after my brother-in-law was killed last year, someone gave me a book that has given me some powerful tools to deal with grief... No god needed.
That book is called, It's Okay that You're not Okay!
[amazon.com]

My mother was also an atheist. She lived her life with courage and passion because she did not believe in an afterlife. She believed that we were our own "gods" and had the power to create a happy and decent life for ourselves with whatever we were given, whatever we chose to do , whatever time we had in this existence. When she was dying, just knowing that this was a final closure simplified things between us. There was no anxiety over seeing each other again...of where she would go...it truly felt like we were reading the last pages of a book together and then it would be done...forever in my memory, passed from her to me. I grieved for my loss, but not for her ending a wonderful life by returning to the dust from whence she came. There is comfort in knowing that there actually is an end. It makes you truly live as you must now. It doesn't matter what you believe...you will still grieve and the pain will seem unbearable...time will lessen the pain, but it will never go away nor should you want that. Honor her by living your life.

Accept the inevitiable, hard as it may be !

I'm so sorry about your mom. We are here for you.

I have lost both parents to different forms of cancer. Losing my mom was especially hard and not something I will ever get over, nor do I want to. All we can do is cherish their memory and keep it alive. Very sorry for your loss. You have friends here

My deepest sympathies. It is hard when your parents die. My father died first, my mother more than a decade later. My mother went slowly, over the course of weeks, so there was no sudden surprise. In the time leading up to her death I found myself asking the same questions you asked in your post. Basically, how to find some way to cope with the pain and the loss when the delusions of religion are unavailable. The only answer I can offer is that she still lives in my memory in some way. That, and the fact that the pain eases over time.

I looked after my Mother for three years when she was dying. None one is really dead as long as you remember them.

My father committed suicide 7 years ago and the event was traumatic when it happened. But I quickly became peaceful with my thoughts about it, so I didn't suffer much and was able to comfort other family in dealing with our emotions concerning what happened. I try to let everyone deal with death the best way they know how. But I think death can be another beautiful aspect of life.

I've lost my husband and my mother so I hear your pain. I find comfort in the fact that we are made up of recycled atoms; atoms that will live on in others.

well, I lost my sister just over a year ago and a beloved pet dog. the way I see it is that like before you are born it was completely peaceful with no pain and no concerns. like when you sleep but don't remember your dreams. I think that's the best option really. all you can hope for is a peaceful death and I do feel your pain. energy moves on and you must have death to have life as like many things it is a circle of moving energy. my ashes are going under 2 willow trees i planted for myself about 10 years ago where i used to play as a child and walk my dogs later on in life near a river. my energy will go into them but much more importantly they will help nature directly.

My way to deal with it is to think on the ones that are still here.
If I had unfinished business (guilt, debts, not enough time), I tried to look for other relationships that were having the same problems and fix it.
The only tribute I can give to the one that is gone, is to use his death to be a better person, and make the most with the time I was given.
So remember her, remember how she wanted you to be better, and be, or be closer to be the person she would be proud of. Not because she is looking or waiting for you, but because is a good thing to do, and when you achieve this improvement, that will be a piece of her that will continue living.

For many years now I have seen death as one of the most important parts of life. Part of us lives on in our DNA, and the impressions we made on others. Only that which dies gives birth.
A starfish can be cut in half and each half grows into a new starfish. Has the original died and 2 new ones born? If I lose an arm, it is gone. Yet my cells were the beginning f the lives of my children. When I am gone, that DNA, part of me is still here. When I am gone, peoples memories of me remain. Don't know if this is of any value, just part of the way I see it.

I lost my mother suddenly three years ago. I know it is not easy of course. Most of her family are from the Ky. bible belt. I was confronted many times with the "she is with jesus" more times than I can count from relatives. I just remained silent and nonconfrontational. She made prior arrangements to have her body donated for medical research and be cremated afterwards. Some of her family were unhappy about that. They have this whole absurd "resurrection of the body" belief system. If you encounter any of that when the time comes, I think it is best to just be silent and let it go. None of us are getting out of this life alive.

Well a lot of people donate their bodies to medical science either indefinitely or a few weeks or years depending on what the donor has offered(some do like 3 weeks and then are buried or cremated for funeral/family. Some go through many different experiments to extend their life. It's given a lot of people a reassurance before they pass.
It is something we will all eventually face. Living forever isn't how the world is set up or we'd never advance.

My father died 3 years ago. For me it was about remembering the life he led and the example he set for me. I did not mourn his death but celebrated his life

By dealing with my own death and coming to grips with it. I will cease to exist and be unaware of what it going on, just like it was before I was born. I will live on in the lives of others I have touched during my period of awareness. My dad died 31 years ago. I still miss him and think of him often, which to me, keeps at least his memory alive. My older brother, who is very religious, once told me he had no idea how I coped with dad's death without God, because he couldn't imagine doing it. I thought (but thought it would just be cruel to tell him), "Dad was not a believer. According to you, he is now in hell. How is that comforting?" I'm sorry about your mother. No matter how we deal with it, grief is a sure thing while we cope with the loss of a loved one. The more the love, the greater the sense of loss and grief.

I'm sorry you're going through this. But, it's a natural occurance. Many of us have to see our parents die.
And: while I don't believe in Magic Beings in the sky, we really don't know what's on the other side of death. I've been told that the greatest comfort for us non-believers is to have a physics professor speak at the funeral.