A serious subject . . .

You are NOT guilty. Of anything. Period. 


This goes back to the "shoulda, coulda, woulda" stuff. A friend recently asked me how I would respond to a situation, which is somewhat detailed in the following paragraphs. I'm no expert. Actually I offer something better than that . . . been there, seen it, done it. Maybe not all of it, but what I did go through gives me total courage in my convictions. My friend is speaking of the sister of a friend of hers. My friend's friend passed away, and her sister was caring for her and her daughter. I'll do my best to make everything clear. Meda and Sandy were sisters. Heather is the daughter of Sandy, the one who passed away.

"She (Meda) misses Sandy terribly, she feels guilty about everything (she feels she wasn't as nice to Sandy as she could have been, but Sandy never accepted her illness and it made it impossible to have a 'real' talk, like you did with Ben.), she sees Sandy's last breath every day, all day long; she's torn about Heather (the daughter of Sandy), who is a mess, and her family --who never provided any support either emotionally or financially -- is accusing her of all sorts of horrendous things. They didn't step up when Sandy got ill, they didn't provide a dime toward the medical bills or for Heather's care, but now they're in her face non stop.

I don't know what to say. Ideas? I think most of her emotions will pass with some time, it's only been 5 months, but she's really in a bad place. No hospice was involved. Sandy went from Meda's house to the hospital and died a few days later. She and Heather moved in with Meda and Gary after the diagnosis and for the 1 1/2 years until she passed."

So this is the meat from which this blog evolves. I'm sure there are some who may disagree with my "take" on it, and that's fine. What would life be without differing opinions? Boring. But I pray my thoughts will be of some comfort to Meda and Heather . . .

I work the night shift at the V.A. hospice, so I don't get to talk with a lot of family, but I get to on occasion. Many are in denial, many are totally there for their family member, and some don't show up enough. There are others who have no family. The staff and volunteers are their family. But I have talked with people whose family members have the unmitigated gall to harshly judge the one who was there for the dying member, accusing them of all sorts of untruths. This is not the time for that. There is never a time for that. I suspect that this is the way their own guilt manifests itself, but they do NOT have the right to add to your pain. The solution is very simple and totally warranted: Walk away. Change your phone number, change the locks on your doors, or move away, but do something! It's okay to cut them out of your life. Just because they're blood relatives doesn't mean that you have to like them, or be a part of their lives. If a time comes when they're sincerely sorry for the horrible way they've treated you, it becomes your choice whether or not to accept them. The power is yours. You are not being fair to yourself by being "torn". You deserve better than that, and NOW is the time to do something about it. Your health depends on it, Heather depends on it, and Gary depends on it.

What you are feeling regarding the way you think you treated Sandy is normal. We all question the way we handled someone's passage. I wish I had talked more to Ben, but what's done is done. You can't help it that she didn't accept her illness. That was not in your power. The greatest gift you have are the good memories. As long as you dwell on the 'shoulda, coulda, woulda' stuff, those good memories will fade, and they don't deserve that, nor do you. You were her caregiver. You gave her the greatest gift anyone could . . . she didn't have to die alone. Rather than see her last breath all day, every day, think about what you did for her. Whether you think it was quality time or not, you did your best. And now it's time to move on. And time will be your best friend. 

I'm going to repeat my mantra: "I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have ~ life itself."

Everyone's experience with death is different in some way, but the saddest part is that we're all inevitably hard on ourselves. I hope that I've helped to alleviate some of that for this woman.