The side effect of guilt

It’s been over three weeks since she’s gone home.  I miss her terribly.  I have moved into the phase of grief where I find it hard to believe that she’s no longer here.  How is that possible?  How is it possible that someone I’ve known from the moment I took my first breath, the arms that first held me, the heart that loved me unconditionally be gone?  I’m here, so isn’t that proof enough that she was here?  How is she not here?  My brain just can’t seem to compute.  I’ve spent the last week moving so I’ve been too exhausted to think.  But now I’ve gone back to work, my son has gone back to school, and life is slowly going back to normal.  Which leaves me with a lot to think about.  I suppose thinking is better than crying rivers.

The saying hind sight is 20/20 is very appropriate.  I’m far enough away from all the events to be able to think about them in a different perspective.  She was hospitalized the first time this year, five days after my son’s 5^th birthday.  She went in to be treated for pneumonia and that’s how we learned that her cancer had returned and this time it had spread into over 95% of her lungs.  The doctor’s wanted to run a second cat-scan and I told her that I would come back and go with her.  The test was scheduled for after 11 pm at night and my dad needed to sleep and my brother had to go home. 

She had said it was unnecessary.  The reason I had volunteered was because she had said she didn’t feel comfortable being alone during the test.  It frightened her a little.  My dad said not to waste my time.  I told her to her face that in my 36 years, I never bothered to listen to her so I wasn’t about to start now so she could stop wasting her breath.  Just accept that I was going to do what I was going to do.  I came back the next day a few minutes before 11 pm, right before her test.  When I walked in the door, she said simply that she thought I wasn’t coming.  All I said was that I said I was going to come so I came.  I was delayed, I explained, because I had to feed her grandsons and put them to bed. 

In that moment, I saw how much my presence meant to her.  Whatever I may have thought or felt in the past, in that moment I knew that no matter what, I had to be with her.  As much as she loved my dad and her son, I was a part of her, the part that was the most like herself and she needed me in a way that I needed her.  We sat and talked until the transporter came to take her for her test.  She introduced me to everyone we passed.  She would say this is my daughter, like she was showing off something that she loved and was very pleased to have. 

If you know anything about me and my relationship with my parents, I am the self-proclaimed black sheep of the family.  About the time I graduated from high school I appeared to have stopped doing things they approved of.  Yeah, I still can’t seem to care for that approval enough to change.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind having it, but I no longer require it with the same intensity that I did in my youth. 

When we got back to her room, she took a short nap and I napped with her.  My intent was to wait until she fell asleep.  I told her that I would leave after she fell asleep.  She said it was too dark.  I told her I’ve driven back from Brooklyn, by myself after 2 in the morning.  My tone may have been that semi sarcastic tone every parent has heard their child use.  But she insisted that it wasn’t safe to drive since it was so dark.  There comes a moment when the daughter steps back and the mother comes to the front.  The mother in me heard what my mother wasn’t saying.  She didn’t want to stay in the hospital alone.  I said, fine, I’ll stay but I had to leave early in the morning. 

I told my husband that I was staying the night over.  The poor man didn’t sleep well.  I didn’t either despite the nurses hooking me up with a decent reclining chair.  But we slept for 3 hours.  I woke up when she did.  We talked for an hour or two.  Right now I don’t really remember what we talked about.  Then we went to sleep again.  It was not the most comfortable sleep I had.  I sacrificed a good night’s sleep in my comfortable bed because my mother needed me to be there with her.  It’s not that as if I could do anything for her, but that she found something in my presence that she wanted.  I have never been able to deny my mother anything despite my rocky, less than ideal relationship with her.  She used to say that I’ve been giving her trouble since the day I was born.  

I left her the next morning riddled with guilt and regret.  I know, you didn’t expect me to say that did you?  It’s true.  The person who swore up and down that I will live my life in such a way that when I stand in the doorway to eternity and look back on my life, I will have no regret.  Up until that moment, I’ve never had any regrets.  I’ve known plenty of moments and occasions that could warrant feelings of regret but truthfully, I’ve never had any regrets.  It struck me hard that I had regrets.  I felt guilty that my mother might be facing death and I wasted 36 years of my life when I could have had more moments with her like the ones I had that night in her hospital room.  I knew true regret. 

I wrestled with these emotions for a good long while.  Eventually, my desire to not have any regret in my life won out over my feelings of guilt and regret.  That’s when I began to see and absorb all the other things in my life.  I didn’t know how much time I would get with her, but I was determined to do what I could, even if it meant just sitting with her and doing nothing.  Which is what I did. 

My parents don’t believe one should ever sit idle and do nothing.  I’m the queen of doing nothing.  They think I waste a lot of time.  Funny thing is, I did waste a lot of time, sitting with her, just being with her.  But for the first time in my life, I stopped being Martha and became Mary, sitting simply at the feet of Jesus, soaking in his presence.  I got to experience the love of my mother; I got to share her faith very intimately.  Because I tossed my guilt and regret to the curb, God gave me the opportunity to sit with my mother and share in a profoundly spiritual journey born of hope.  I have hope that this separation is momentary and one day I will see her again and we will both sit together in the presence of God. 

Guilt and regret will only chain you to the past.  The past is behind you.  Leave the guilt and regret where they belong, at your feet and keep walking forward.  Life really is too short.  It should be lived, savored.  Choose to live and savor every moment and take the time to thank God for every breath you take.  I watched my mother struggle for every breath she took.  The breaths I take are very precious.  I am filled with gratitude for every one of them.