People ask how I feel and with guilt I say "relieved". It has been a long, difficult and sad 12 months for Mom and Dad. Over the past year I've already grieved that I lost my mother. She was never the same emotionally and physically once she began her chemo and radiation treatments. There were so many times I felt she wasn't there though her body was. She was interacting with us but not the way she use to. The last weeks and last day were awful. She declined rapidly. Decisions had to be made about her care balancing out what was also best for my Dad. He was an awesome caregiver up until the end when she needed more help. I did not do nearly as much as he did but when I was helping them I felt guilty I was not around for my children and vice versa. It sounds bad but now I just want normalcy whatever that is in our family without Mom.
I love to put up pictures with my posts. Here is one off the condo balcony at Wrightsville Beach. Most of my pictures are of my family and I usually don't put those on my blog. They are on flickr if you have friended me there. As I said in my last post, we had to shorten our trip and change the location. It worked out fine.
3 comments:
I don't think you should feel guilty at all about being relieved.. You know she's not suffering anymore and she's not hurting anymore. Things will get better now. It's good that you were there for her when you could be and she knew how much she meant to you.
The relief is a very common emotion, especially in a case like yours, where you knew what was coming, and it was such a long and difficult journey getting there. My SIL's father died a few months after my mom, and she once said something like, "What hurts isn't so much that he's gone, though of course I miss him. What hurts is what he had to go through in the leaving."
To know that she is no longer suffering, and that you and your family can begin the process of life without her, whatever form that takes...that is a relief in its own right.
I don't think I'm saying this well. Take good care of yourself, is what I'm trying to say.
don't feel guilty...although I know you will. it goes with grief I guess....
Wrightsville Beach is great. Rae took me there for the day last year. I wouldn't mind living there...might be much cheaper than the OUter banks, huh? ;)
XOXOXOXOX
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