The path to Me - Guilt

 

I follow many blogs and while I don't comment on all of them - you have no idea how many I actually read and keep up with.

A favorite of mine - is private so I will post the link, but you may need to ask permission to view-

Its called The Great Umbrella Heist.

A few months ago she was featured as Blog of Note, shortly after that she had to put her blog to private, in order to keep out the freaks that started stalking her triplets and saying some disturbing and nasty junk.

A few days ago she posted the majority of the story when a year before her triplets were born her first baby died in womb a few days after her due date.

The post is titled, How it happens.

Have you ever had a moment of clarity feeling someone else's pain? This is what I wrote in response to her pain.

Writing it all out hopefully will help give you closure.

If you have any trolls who jump on and say something nasty delete them and move on.

You can always see what you could have done differently, I have quilt over my mothers death - that I didn't realize she was that sick.

No matter how many times I wish I had gotten her to the hospital earlier it does not and will not change the fact that I just didn't know.

Neither did you.

If you had known, if you had suspected - YOU WOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING ELSE.

Forgiveness of self is the hardest thing to do.

IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT.

YOU ARE A GOOD MOTHER.

May you find the peace you need.

And in one amazing moment I understood why I have had such severe depression, why I hated myself on so many days. Why I was gaining the weight and couldn't shake it off. Why now I am finally starting to come out of the dark.

It was GUILT.

I had not forgiven myself for letting my mother down when she needed me most. For not understanding how bad off she was.

You see 6 1/2 years ago my father was out of town, my sister was across town house sitting. The day before my mother had been fine. My husband had undergone his first in and out surgery for parathyroid. 

We lived with my parents at the time so when I came home with my husband that night I made dinner for everyone. My mother was grateful in her words she was "feeling run down." 

She looked tired. 

We all went to bed early that night. In the morning I heard coughing. I left my daughter and hubby downstairs and went upstairs to see how mama was doing.

She was sick. She told me she had pneumonia. I believed her - how could I not? She was puking up red, chunky crap that looked and smelled like it.

I followed her advice on how to treat and spent the morning running back and forth between her and my one year old daughter who I had brought up stairs and placed in the playpen.

I knew my mother needed to get to the hospital, but she wasn't dressed and she was weak. I knew she would kill me if I called an ambulance so instead I went to make her lunch with the plans of getting her dressed and into the hospital after eating.

Sounds normal right?

WRONG.

When I returned with her lunch she was dead.

I started CPR and had my hubby call an ambulance.

Hours later it was clear - the fluid had filled her lungs so quickly she had suffocated to death.

Why?

Her heart had been to weak to clear the fluid.

We didn't even know she had a heart condition!

But for years I blamed myself for not getting help sooner, for not doing more.

Guilt is an ugly thing, it eats away at you. Zaps you and kills your self-worth. Its easy to see what I could have done differently but the simple fact is I didn't know.

Even as I type the tears are falling, losing mama has been like losing a part of my heart. She died at the age of 52. 

Far to young to leave us. 

Am I healed? Nope. But I have hope that in time I can be. I know that if I had known I would have acted sooner. I would have done anything to save her.

Today I have lost 6 pds and have 80 more to go. I am eating better and starting to exercise. My children deserve a mother who will be there for them, who will not  pity mode that will eventually kill me young.