Losing Madison has been hard enough, but add the guilt on top of it and sometimes I can’t cope. There are many times in my grief journey when my mind rushes back to that night and I see where I made mistakes. I see exactly when I should’ve spoken up and called an ambulance. I feel like there were several opportunities when I should have seen “it.” I should have seen how sick she was. I should have seen that her symptoms were more severe than a typical stomach bug. I should have noticed that she wasn’t responding to me instead of cleaning her up to get her dressed to take her to the hospital. I know now that her heart stopped several minutes before Brian started chest compressions. It happened so suddenly and we were so focused on getting her ready and to the car that we just didn’t see it. I’ve been told that it doesn’t matter. Her condition was such that the only way she could have survived is if we had called for help several hours earlier. Septicemia is hard to survive and moves quickly and even if she had recovered, the recovery would’ve been awful with a potentially life-long disability. Knowing that still doesn’t help. Those moments when my motherly instinct was working and I wasn’t sick yet and I didn’t scoop her up and race to the hospital will haunt me forever. I’ll never forgive myself for not acting because my inaction led to a life without Madison.
No one can help me with this. I’m her mother and I was supposed to protect her and help her and I didn’t. I selfishly thought I could do it all myself. The guilt just won’t let me go.