A Year Later

While waiting at an appointment this morning, I did what I normally did and browsed Facebook. I saw the link to view my memories from this date over the years and clicked out of curiosity to see what this day in the past had been, and there it was, my post from 1 year ago: "Today, I stood with my family as we said our final goodbye to our mom. As complicated as all of our relationships were with her, grief in some form or another exists. Gone home...peace is found". Tears sprung to me eyes. I felt the familiar feelings wash over me; sadness, pain, overwhelming grief followed by guilt. Guilt for grieving a mother I evicted from my life 9 years before she died. Why should I be allowed to be sad? Why should I be allowed to cry? Why should I be allowed to grieve? I should go on with my life like nothing happened. In almost a decade, I spoke to her not once. Now, I sit and think about the last 24 hours of her life and I ache. What was it like when she collapsed where she lived? How long did they have to do CPR before the ambulance got there? What was it like at the hospital after they stabilized her? Was she ever conscious again? Was she alone in her room when the monitors informed the nurse's station she was gone? Was she just sleeping one moment and gone the next? Did she know what was happening? Did she suffer? I wonder if anyone wondered about her family. I ache for the fact that this woman who brought 6 children into the world died alone in a hospital with nobody who knew her having any idea anything was happening. What were we doing while she was dying? Sleeping? Browsing Facebook? Living our lives with the people we love. That's what we were doing. It was something she had not had the pleasure of doing for many years, and that is so sad to me. Regardless of the fact she made the bed she ended up lying in, the fact remains that it is sad. I sound like a woman with a heart full of regret, but I'm not. The decision I made many years beforehand still stands as the correct decision. The best decision I made in my life. The decision that allowed me to have a life and the family I so dearly love. I may sound like a regretful woman, but I am not. I am a daughter. And a mother.  In my heart is not regret, but a little girl who grieves her mom and a mother who grieves what never was....a year later.