My father in law passed away Sept. 27th @ the age of 60 with cancer. On Sept. 30th we found my mother in law passed away in her sleep. She was only 58. She had told me a year or 2 earlier (while we were not getting along) that she had congestive heart failure. I thought @ the time she was trying to get sympathy out of me & didn't take it a lot of seriousness. She had been known to do that sort of thing. The police asked if she had any health problems & I told them she had told me this & they wrote it off this was the cause of death. She had not told any of her 3 children or 7 brothers & sisters which leads me to believe still that it might not have been true. It is so weird with her gone & I am having a really hard time letting go because I can stop wondering why. I can't get closure. I think about her all the time & always come back to the why of it all. How can I find closure & stop dwelling on why she was taken so soon? I wish the family would have had an autopsy done. I feel like I will never stop feeling like this.

Why don't you consult with her family doctor who would probably know her medical history and confirm that she had a bad heart.

Tick

What do you think you need to have closure? A cause of death? Are you feeling guilty because at least for a period you were not "getting along?"

Do you suspect foul play? Otherwise I'm not sure why the cause of death is important.

And I agree with Tickle - have the person in authority over the estate speak to the Doctor.

When someone close to us dies, it is common to ask the question "Why?" If you find yourself dwelling on the 'Why?" it can drive you crazy. Let's imagine, just for a moment that your mother-in-law didn't die from heart failure. What else could she have died of? Do you suspect suicide, foul play or another medical issue? What purpose does it serve to know? Continue in your imagination game. Let's say that she committed suicide. Many people do after losing a loved one. Some make suicide pacts with their partner. If you learned that she had resorted to this, would it change anything for you?

You can go through each scenario of what MIGHT have been the cause of death and do the same exercise. You might be concerned if there was another health issue that you weren't aware of due to family history and such, but there are so few illnesses that might kill someone so suddenly without any symptoms.

As far as foul play, I am sure that if the police felt that there even a remote chance of it, they would have investigated further. Are you the only person they asked questions of?

I will now speak as a woman who lost a beloved husband to cancer shortly after our 10th anniversary (we had been together 16 years). As his primary caregiver and source of emotional support the illness itself was so draining upon me that when he died (5 months after diagnosis) I was so totally burnt out I don't know if I could have made it through another week without cracking. I was run down emotionally, physically, spiritually... in every way you can imagine. Then I had to deal with all the rest of it, of course, which is also very draining. I was very young and pretty healthy (at 48 years of age). However, within a month I ended up in hospital with heart issues. I had a build-up of fluid around my heart; indicative of congestive heart failure. I truly believe that I was dying of a broken heart. As I healed from the loss of the man I loved to the depths of my soul, my heart issues mysteriously cleared up. The family doctor and the heart specialist could offer no explanation, but I knew.

Now, put yourself in your mother-in-law's shoes. How long were her and your father-in-law together? Did your mother-in-law work, or was her life primarily wrapped up in her husband and children? How many true support systems did she have? Was his illness and subsequent death very sudden or very long and drawn out? All of these things (and more) have an effect on how you deal with the death of a life partner.

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe she just had no reason to live anymore. Maybe it truly was her time. Maybe she died of a broken heart. Stress is a terrible thing.

If you need closure, then you need closure. Everyone grieves differently and no-one should tell you how you should or shouldn't grieve. Perhaps your need for closure is your inability to express your grief. If you don't have anyone to talk to about this, then why not write all your thoughts on paper? I think free-writing would be the best solution for you. Just get yourself a little notebook and start writing every thought you have about the situation. Don't allow yourself to get caught up with shoulds and should nots... just write what you are thinking... and feeling. It might look something like this:

"I feel stupid writing this because I don't know why I am having such a hard time letting go. No, I have let go, but for some reason I need closure. I wonder why? Does it matter why? I know I hurt. I know I'm afraid I might have been wrong when I talked to the police. Maybe there was another reason. Oh, this is nuts! I hate that I think this way. I feel scared sometimes... "

You get the idea? It can be VERY healing and open yourself up to what you really need to let go of the issue(s) you are having. Remember, every loss you experience brings back a flood of emotions and thoughts about other losses you may have experienced throughout your life. These don't have to be deaths, but just loss in general. Perhaps there is some other loss that is unresolved in your past. Free-writing can help you with that. Plan on doing it the first time for one hour. By that I mean for you to consciously set aside an hour of privacy where you will not be interrupted, have a box of Kleenex and go to it. I think you will have found your closer by the time you finish. If not, you will have a better sense of what it is that is bothering you so much.

I hope this helps. I am pretty confident it will. :)

Hugs, Didi

Most areas have groups where one can go to share and get help getting over the death of someone.

She was older ( not old) and often after you loose someone you love, really stop having a desire for living, and just die.

Almost all of us grieve with a mixture of guilt. The guilt is what drags on and on after grief has gone through it's stages. Examine what was going on when you weren't getting along; maybe even write it down. Then work on separating that from what SHE was going through with her husband, and try to realize that her death was most likely much, much more to do with losing him than with not getting along with you. And not believing her medical problems isn't what killed her either!
It is hard to believe that an autopsy was not done on a 58 year old woman and that the coroner took the word of the police who took the word from you - it doesn't work that way. I'll bet that there was a family doctor who verified the heart condition.
She could have died from stress of her husband's death and she could have taken an overdose of her or her husband's medication. Not knowing is something you will have to accept. To me personally it isn't so tragic to decide to go when she wanted to go.
My grandmother 'went' shortly after her husband. She had a stroke, signed out of the hospital AMA. Had another, signed out again. Had a third and the doctor said he wouldn't let her sign out, so she went back to her bed and died.

As for closure, that isn't my favorite word. It implies finality and some sort of deletion. We incorporate our griefs into ourselves and when we can use them for good and not allow them to control us, then they have found their place in our history and that of humanity.