Hey Andrea, For me and everyone it is different and also they have all lost their children in different ways, had different relationships with their kids, and different family dynamics. So i can only read what you have written and think about how i feel. One thing i know is that the emormaty of your pain sounds like how i feel. The only escape is when i am asleep. I wish i was dead too. The only reason i need to stay here is i have another son and he deserves the best out of me he can otherwise i would be putting Timothy my son who has passed as being more important than Philip. That is it the only reason i keep puhing myself. The pain is unbearable and i feel like i am going to explode from the inside.
Timothy was 26 when he died and he had been sick with lung problems from the age of 19 - he got a blood clot and it went into his lungs - i have so many "wot ifs" about this. I think as parent guilt when something happens to your child is a natural thing. Even when something happened to them at school or they got a cold i would think" i should have" something to stop them from having something bad happen to them. Guilt is crippling, and i should have taken Tim to another transplant centre, i should not have allowed or supported his marriage because his new wife made bad choices and she was his new next of kin. i should have made him go to the doctor earlier, i should have not moved him to another school and then maybe he would not have been in the situation to get a clot. I should have stayed longer with him after he passed. I should have done more to get overseas medications . i can think of over 100 reasons for me to have changed what happened.
I think no matter what had happened you as a parent have always been responsible for this child and you will take their death as being partly if not all your fault - i think it is a natural instinctive thing to do. This might be natural but it is not right to do this, things happen that are COMPLETELY out of our control! Even if they are not then you make the decisions you make at the time in the situation and it is always easy to go back with clearer eyes and hours of thought behind you and say you should have done this. But you cannot and you have to look after yourself in honour of your child. They have lost their life and i have mine - Timothy would be so mad at me for being miserable and alive!
I know this sounds so simple and it is not, i am struggling every day, i hate living, i feel no joy at all, i pretend for my other son. But i will keep do that for him, i am an empty shell and i am hoping that one day i will feel a little better.
Yesterdayi found a coke bottle in the cupboard, the morning Tim died we new he was going to die that day- and that was torture, people say also that we are lucky to have said goodbye but i would give that up in a heart beat for Tim to not know he was going to die, i saw the fear in his eyes and it will be with me forever. but anyway i found this coke bottle and he said " mum i just would love a drink of coke before i die today" ( he was on fluid restrictions) so i went and got the coke and he drank about half of it......when he died a grabbed the coke before a nurse took it and put it in my handbag, i just wanted to keep it for some reason - his last drink" anyway when i found it in the cupboard i was back in that morning and i fell to the floor on the study and wailed and cried and vomited and if i could have died i would have easily - just free me of this pain PLEASE. this was only the daybefore yesterday.
If i died it would kill my mother becuase she too would have lost a child, my son Philip would hate Tim for losing me, i thought of all the repercussions of my death. Philip almost resents Tim as it is because i am changed and he to is in pain. So it is best for my family if i can endure this and live with it somehow. That is what i have figured out. It is best for ME to be gone but i will put and have always put my family first. Thats is the only way through it for me and talking to people on this site who KNOW almost exactly how you feel. i am sure we all think the same thoughts from time to time here.
Sorry about the rambling disjointed email , but i just typed as i thought. YOU are very important to your family and YOU cannot change what has happend. but YOU can change how it affects the people you love the most and that is what i am trying to do, and it is not easy, and somedays i can't... somedays i can.... somedays i can do both.
Love, light and hugs to you from me
Annie - Tims mum in Australia
PS - i do not feel anything of Timothy around me at all and he had a brilliant mind, i was sure i would and he would find away to connect with me from where ever he is.... But i think the amount of pain i carry blocks everything out, the pain is too big to let anything else in, to feel anything else. Maybe when the pain lessens a little something else will have room to come into my life, i just have t wait it out. i send you love.
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