From Regrets to Forgiving Myself

I don't understand. And yet I do.  Maybe I never will. I just don't know anymore.   The pain of losing a parent is tough but you must get through it. The pain of losing both parents they way I did (my father died 5 days after we buried my mother) is unbearable.  But I had an additional devastating event - my mother in law died 30 days later.  The mother in law, with Alzheimer's, who lived with me and my husband for 3 1/2 years.

I needed a 6 month respite my mother in law left to go live with my brother in law.  During this much needed respite from my mother in law we were driving to NC to pick up my mother because I wanted to spend time with my mother, in our home in Dallas.  She was not ill. I thought of all the things we could talk about. How I could pick her brain, on various topics and how we could watch C-Span 1, 2, and 3.   In fact my brother was driving my mother to her physician's office to transfer her patient information to the doctor here in Texas when he called me.  Mom was full of life even to the very end.  She instructed my brother to turn up the volume on the radio.  It was a 10 minute drive.  She took her hat off.  He drove up to the door of the doctor's office and when he arrived at the doctor's door she was non responsive.  I am grateful to God that she was not by herself.  She was there for my brother's first breath and he was there for her last.   

For over a year, I have been depressed, angry, and pissed off  at life, while trying to understand the meaning of my life.  I have regretted past romantic relationships, I regretted past employment choices and I have regretted life decisions.  Dealing with death made me question each decision I have made in the last 20 years.  I had so many regrets regarding their deaths  -  choices of funeral programs, choices of funeral homes, choices of cemeteries.  I believed I made so many mistakes.  I was not certain as to what was wrong with me, or what I should have or could have done differently.

My regrets were many:

• I should have gone home more often
• I should have left Texas and returned back to NC to live, with my Mom
• I should have made her come to Texas more often
• I should have adopted 8 years earlier
• I should have cared for my Mother the way I cared for my Mother in law with Alzheimer's.  Each day I woke her up. I cared for her. I drove her to comedy clubs, church, Adult Day Care, long walks, to the gym, to Lubys, to JC Penney get her hair done, and to the Cedar Hill library so she could listen to the volunteers read to the children.  As a retired educator she adored children. 

Two nights ago I had chest pains, and pains in my leg and foot.  I could not sleep. I could not think.  I was weary.  I did not want to leave my bed, I could not leave my bed and then and there I decided, I did nothing wrong.  I decided I was tired of being tired.  I was tired of being angry, and sad. I deserve more out of life.   I have wasted a year with regrets.  No more. My mother and father raised a thoughtful, loving, compassionate child.

After all I was the one who:

• in 3rd grade would choose Suzanne to be on my kickball team because if I had not she would have been chosen last and cried 
• mailed our neighbors post cards while I was in college just to keep in touch
• in the 1st grade wrote a letter "in cursive" to Charlie Brown telling him he should "bop" Lucy in the head once and she would never move  the football causing him to fall again
• wrote a Thank You note to a family friend who helped me get a summer job at Taco Bell, that brought tears to his eyes (my Mom told me he was hesitant to help me because he had been disappointed by so many young people)
• took care of an ailing woman as if she were my mother

I did not have the opportunity to take care of my mother the way I took care of my mother in law.  Had the opportunity presented itself I would have.

So now I am on the road of forgiving.  Forgiving my parents for leaving me.  Because the lesson of the day and everyday is forgiving. 

Beginning today I am Forgiving myself for the choices I made.  Because I am right where I am suppose to be - to be a blessing to those seen and unseen, and that I will never regret.