The Echoes of my Guilt

For a long time, I felt traumatized by my mother’s death. During the first three months, I replayed the days leading up to her death over and over again. I did this religiously in hopes that I would find the flaw, in hopes that I would find what I did wrong, in hopes that I would find the scenario that would have resulted in the outcome where she didn’t die. I tortured myself with these thoughts and all I could feel was angry. I felt angry because I knew that regardless of how many times I replayed her death in my head, no matter how many times I replayed all the possible scenarios and what could’ve changed her death, I was still left with the emptiness from realizing that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how much I thought about her death, it didn’t matter how many flaws I found within the situation, within myself, the outcome would always remain the same. It was the lack of, rather it was the complete loss of control and power that I struggled with the most; to acknowledge and accept that I no longer had control over what happened to my mother. For so many years, I was there every single time to save her; from the world and from herself.

I was there to bear witness to her agony. I was there to bear witness to her internal and external struggle but the one day…the ONE FUCKING DAY, she needed me the most, I wasn’t there. That was the guilt that I carried with me for a long time. So long, that I can’t remember when I was able to let that weight go. Have I let that weight go?

For a long time, I couldn’t understand why she had to die. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t see her death coming. I couldn’t understand why I was and still am able to figure everything else out but couldn’t figure out how to take back the hands of time and bring my mom back. This led me to feeling like I had failed. I had failed at the one thing that meant something: keeping my mom alive. I became angry with myself because I didn’t call her that morning of April 6th, 2011. If I would have called her, I would have sensed something in her voice. If I would have called her, I would have known what to do. If I would have called her, I would’ve “figured it out”. But I didn’t. And that’s a reality that was hard for me to accept but one that I had to come to terms with, in order to stop punishing myself. I punished myself for years consciously and unconsciously because I felt responsible for her death.

With her death, I agonized. I agonized to an extent that I never imagined possible. Ironically enough, it was through that intense amount of agony that I was finally able to see myself for who I really was, a lost soul. A soul that had lost her way and didn’t know how to return to her home. A lost soul that had been conditioned to think, feel, and act according to a certain standard that often times indicated that her emotions, her experience, her thoughts were not valid. A lost soul that learned to mistrust herself and others. A lost soul that learned that she wasn’t enough as she was and therefore had to do until there was no more doing left. A lost soul that learned that happiness was only permissible for some but for some reason she was not part of that elite group. A lost soul that learned to be in control and any lack of control would only signify her own failure. A lost soul that worried and felt stress more often than times where she felt at ease and carefree.

The death of my mother brought me a lot of pain and guilt, but it also brought me to a space of reflection. Processing the guilt that came up almost immediately after the death of my mom helped me to reflect on the changes that I wanted to make moving forward. I no longer leave for tomorrow what I can do today. I now love wholeheartedly and appreciate the simple things that at times we can take for granted. I make a conscious effort to be more present with people and to speak with an open heart. Today, I do the things that I wished I could have done with my mother. I learned that while I can’t change the past, I can still honor her by being the version of me that I wished I could have given her. For a long time, I thought that guilt would destroy me, but it didn’t. It simply echoed the negative self-talk, my need for control, and my need to be perfect that had already been replaying inside of me, years before my mom even died.