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I appreciate the support we all give each other. I'm having a bad day so I would like to share my story. For the most part, I think I am doing well. I feel my grief and work through it. but I am for the most part still functioning in life.

Mom died on the 11th of this month. It was a surprise, she had COPD for the past 3 years and went to the hospital with Pnemonia (spelling?). She was looking better after 5 days and we were talking about bringing her home. She still lived by herself and while she did not get around as well as she use to (she was 80) and many of her friends had died, she was in good health.

On the Tuesday, they had her up to use the bathroom and she went bad. Within 1 day it looked grim and we placed her on hospice on Thursday. She died Friday night at 5:20. It was very shocking but my brother and I were there for her till the end. her lungs just could not clear the congestion.

I have some guilt that maybe we should have tried more. She signed a no code and I know that was her wish, but I still feel guilty. But I still loved seeing her and visiting and having her over for dinner. I just plain miss her and I am sad.

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Matthew,

Oh the missing.. yup. Me too. Just wanna pick up the phone or hop in the car to see her and... well.. on some level.. I just don't think the missing ever "goes away". I think the intensity of the feelings may lessen over time. But plain old missing them... yeah, I think that will always be.

So I can relate and commiserate.

I am definitely now beginning to think this feeling of guilt is somehow "normal" for all us.

In the very beginning, I too questioned what I could have done.

What if I had called her earlier? What if I had pushed her more to replace that 11 yr old aortic tissue valve replacement?? (Even though she had said "No" to her Docs and us several times in the past and she also had a no code "DNR" order in place. I like you respected her choice and told her so.. it was a choice only she could make and we would support her in it.)

And I STILL had these "What if" questions after the EMT's had told me the night we found her, that she was gone before she hit the floor and had I been standing right there when she fell, there wouldn't have been anything I could have done. It was tough knowing that she had been laying there dead for two days by the time I found her. She passed about an hour and a half after I had last spoken to her. It was so sudden...

But I didn't stay in that place of guilt for very long. I had to let that go because I could see, even in those dark and exhausting days, that I could easily drive myself crazy and to illness if I kept thinking that way. I saw that it wasn't productive for me to "What if" and it surely didn't make me feel any better.

Then too there was my Mom's voice ringing in my head to NOT feel guilty and to "Stop that". lol :) That 'Mom voice/tone'.. you know... I bet you can still hear your Mom's yourself.

However.. upon thinking about this whole "guilt" thing I am now wondering if it isn't just part of us trying to literally "accept" that they aren't here anymore.

It seems to be so common for most of us. Maybe these feelings are just us trying to get our heads around the fact that in body... the people we loved are just not in our lives here anymore. We kinda want to "put them back" in their bodies and lives and into our lives. We logically know this isn't possible but maybe the guilt thing is our attempt to take control back even though we all know on some level.. that it isn't possible. So maybe we all need to go through this to really see & accept that their lives here are over.

But in any event people sharing here that they have these feelings & the seeming commonality of this thinking in a way helps me let go for good any of this guilt. I want to chalk it up to just part of the whole process of grieving and healing.

Hope you feel a bit better soon.

leeann

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My heart goes out to you, Matthew.

The guilt. My grandmother, who is almost 85, lost her mother 31 years ago. If you sit down and talk to her, you'd think her mother died yesterday. You'd also think she died at a very young age and very suddenly.

I don't think a person ever gets over missing their mom or stops feeling the guilt. My grandmother has guilt to this day. Her mother had had a car accident and had died at a later date at the age of 75. She still wonders, "what if?"

Since your mom signed the, "no code" thing...I have to ask you--what would your mom have wanted for YOU?

I lost both parents. My father died a very quick and sudden death and I am forever grateful for that. I did not have to see him suffer. He would not have wanted to be hooked up to machines or have any surgeries. I don't have to live with that nightmare for the rest of my life.

I still suffer from my mom's death. We now think she had a mental illness that she couldn't deal with properly because of my father. I had to watch her suffer for ten years of pain that no doctor could ever find the reason for. There is no one on this great earth that I would wish that pain on. I think the most horrible thing in this world is to watch a loved one suffer. I still have nightmares of her crying with the pain and there wasn't a darned thing I could do.

What you feel is normal and you may resolve it, but you may not. The bottom line is that you have no control over another person's life, no matter how much you love them. So could you have done more? NO.

Take care.

Shauna

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