I shared this with a friend yesterday because I’ve had a few really hard days. I questioned whether or not I should post it here, but I think it’s all part of this journey and could help someone else who might go through something similar. I hope it does.
“I’ve reached the point of dealing with crushing guilt thinking about that night. Wishing we would’ve taken her to the ER sooner or had recognized the severity of her illness. Parent guilt is horrible because we were supposed to protect her and we struggle, believing we didn’t do enough or act quickly enough. Her heart failed so fast and we thought it was just dehydration from severe rotavirus. We’re beating ourselves up for not being more proactive. I’ve done pretty well pushing away all the “what ifs” until now. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to forgive ourselves. We also think about the days leading up. Madison has a couple of videos on her iPad two days before we lost her. We were getting ready for the party where she picked up the stomach bug. I was busy in the kitchen gutting pumpkins to carve at the party, Brian was vacuuming. She loved to video everything and we had become used to it and kind of annoyed by it. We both noticed that we never smiled at her while she was filming us, we just went about our work giving her little looks because she wouldn’t stop getting in our way or she was trying to get our attention. She had a very hyper personality, always talking, trying to push our buttons, especially in anticipation of something fun. But we both feel horrible that neither of us smiled at her in those videos. I know I was happy with her at the party and the next day in the car on the way to school and home. We always laughed at her or with her, just not in her last videos and it hurts. Then I think about what I would do with those videos if she were still with us. I would’ve probably looked through them once her iPad became too full and deleted them because they were so long just to free up space. They were just minutes among countless moments and most of the time she got love, laughs, and smiles. She was just excited about the party and couldn’t contain herself.”
These feelings of guilt are all part of the process. It’s extremely painful but necessary to take these steps in order to heal, like my friend Kim said. My relationship with Madison wasn’t encompassed all in those last hours of her life. I have to look at the big picture, all the minutes of daily living from the moment she was born until I had to say goodbye. She knew that Brian and I loved her so much.