What I Did With Guilt

It was 6 1/2 years ago at 3am I was awake, looking up cookie recipes for my son, totally oblivious that my mother was literally dying and unable to get help.

She had dialed 911, begging for help, she was bleeding. But the call was dropped and they couldn't locate her address via her cell phone.

Then they called me, the person whose name was on the cell phone account. But by the time I put my laptop down and got to the landline phone they called, it had stopped ringing.

The number was one I’d never heard of and when I dialed it back, it was a non-working number. But by the time we figured this all out, it was already too late. 

Her neighbor found her passed. She had called for help. But No one came. She died alone, scared, bleeding out.

The design of life with its pursuits and defeats all occurring simultaneously has always fascinated me.

I grieve everyday what could have been with my mother (maybe we could have started a restaurant together, maybe she could have moved in with us and taught my son all the old standards) and yet I try to use the experience to expand my perspective—to be more of the kind of person who finds time, in the midst of my own pursuits, to notice when someone else is in the middle of a defeat, no matter how great or small, and to offer something I have that might make a difference.

I see now that people can be great gifts to each other. My mother was such a gift to me. She was here once and I carry her in my heart forever.

I saw my therapist a lot that first month. I was in perpetual agony thinking I could have prevented all this. I’m so many ways And yet there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it now.

It wasn’t as though her life had been a healthy one. She suffered. A lot. And needed support when things got bad. And my life had changed for the better. I was a mother now. And no longer had time to devote so much of my time to her problems. I had my son to protect. And in many ways I was trying to protect him from her problems.

My therapist reframed the situation in a way that helped: “If the situation had been reversed, she asked, would you be angry with your mother?”

No. I wouldn’t. I would never hold onto any negative thought about my mother because my love for her was always stronger. Anger didn’t have a chance to fully blossom in the enormity of my love for her.

“Well, consider that your mother feels the same for you.”

Yes. This logic was sound and true. And I believed it.

Some days, I still feel shocked about my mothers passing and yet other times I hold onto it is what it is. Some people don’t like ‘it is what it is.’ I wouldn’t like it if someone said it to me and I am well aware it’s not my place to say it to anyone else.

But alone, with myself, when caught in the crosshairs of conflicting circumstances from all directions, most of which already happened, and I have zero control over any of it, ‘it is what it is’ are the words that move me out of reaction and into acceptance.

It’s like a version of ‘so be it’ except it’s for events have already happened.

And in this space I breathe. Not in any meditative way. Just in a natural noticing-I’m-alive way. And I accept what’s real. Not with any love or reverence. Just with the awareness of what happened, from all those angles at once, mine included.

There’s no agony in this space. Just a deep anchoring to that center of the crosshairs where I sit, aware of where I am, one actor of many; humble where I am, knowing my actions have consequences; but solid where I am, knowing I am available to understand all this without falling apart.

-JLK