Years ago, a friend and I were talking about loss.  We each independently had a rule that we treat people well and do the right things for them, so that when they are no longer here, we can live in as much peace as is possible with the loss of someone you love.  When put to use, this rule saves a lot of pain and anguish in looking back.

Two years ago, I got caught in the middle of my own rule.  I was caring for my mother.  I was a sole caregiver, and I basically cooked, cleaned, took care of Mom and stocked the house by day, and researched supplements and listened to see if Mom was stirring around overnight.  I had success finding supplements that helped her, always had the groceries and the meds up-to-date, and I appeared to be keeping up with things rather well.

With medical home health people in and out at any time of day, seven days a week, I had to be much more spontaneous than I am naturally.  I was always on call for Mom and for the home health workers.  We had constant appointments with them at home, and a variety of other appointments at doctors’ offices.

In the process of being a good sole caregiver, I found myself to be a terrible soul caregiver, according to my rule.  At least that is how it seemed to me.  Thankfully, in the way of soul and God, Mom had things covered without me.

In the way of lonliness, however, Mom needed me as a companion, and although I was always in the house, I spent most of that time doing the things that needed to be done for running a good caregiving household.  I made sure that there were other people for her to talk to while they were there meeting with us and caring for her, an hour at a time, so that I was not her only contact.  Still she, most of all, wanted to spend more time with me.

Mom and I had similarities.  In earlier years, we could go into a clothing store, look around separately and present to each other our great finds, which would be the exact same pieces of clothing with an occasional color variation.  Things like this happened frequently.  We had our own lives but were close, very close.

With that in mind, it was obvious in a lot of ways that she knew how I thought and I knew how she thought.  That was both my salvation and my downfall.  When it came time for me to take over medical decision-making, I was able to meet her needs and follow her wishes.  God took care of the last decisions that I would have had difficulty making, long-term, and He didn’t allow her to suffer extensively.

When we were at home, and I was caregiving, part of me emotionally shut down, so that I would not be overwhelmed, and could keep going day and night.  The problem was, I shut down the very part of my heart and soul that my mom needed present.  Sometimes it was much easier, and always necessary anyway to cook, do laundry and clean than it was to sit and watch someone I loved the most on earth, someone who loved me, had cared for me and taught me everything, die in more little ways every day.

There were so many days for a long while after Mom died that I asked myself how I could have shut down like that, taking good actions on her behalf but with an almost frozen heart.  All of life was cold for me then, when she needed my caring words and my time spent with her more than at any other time of her life.  I could not fully do or be what was needed.

Always, there will be a voice present in me that will repeat the question.  There will always be a thought in my mind that tells me that I, in ways, actually did let her down.  In the schedule I organized to keep Mom comfortable and try to make her well (which I knew was impossible), I didn’t frequently enough add her most important need to the list.  That question keeps coming up.  “What about the rule?”

I ran out of time…  I ran out of time every day, in doing what was absolutely necessary to take care of my mother.  I couldn’t accomplish everything, and had to make a choice.  I made both the right choice and the wrong choice every day…

When Mom died, I ran out of time permanently.  There was not going to be tomorrow or next week to finally take the time to sit down beside her often and for a long time, to tell her again that she was the best teacher to me and others, a wonderful mom…to tell her she was everything to me.  Not always, but way too often, my frozen heart went silent, and not from lack of feeling or appreciation.  Sheer fear and impending loss led a lot of my actions and inactions.

Thoughts must be spoken.  The soul is worth so much more attention than the pots and pans.  Souls need tending.  As death nears, the tending of a soul should be even more, not less, frequent.

Hopefully, as in my relationship growing up with Mom and beyond, there is a lifelong spoken and unspoken love and dedication firmly in place already.  We noted and appreciated each other’s efforts all along, through to the end.  This is the reason that I can somewhat more easily forgive myself for the mistake that will reappear in memory the rest of my life.  It will now become a thought, and not a driving force.

And two years later, I am findind out that Mom’s need was my need, as well.  I miss that extra time we could have had.  I am also realizing how critical it is to always follow the rule.  A well-fed soul is worth the reheating of a dinner gone cold every time.  I know better how to prioritize that now, though I also know that the choice I was given was an almost impossible one to make with only twenty-four hours in a day.

Sometimes, we find ourselves living outside our own rules.  At that point, we have a different choice to make.  We can condemn ourselves, which shuts down our full usefulness to anyone else, and deprives those who love us the chance to share time and caring words with us, possibly delivering them into a round of the same guilt we face.  Alternately, we can forgive ourselves in a way that frees us to move forward, bring the bent or broken rule back into place, and live again comfortably within the limits we have set for ourselves.  For me, self-forgiveness wins.  I have too much to accomplish to decide otherwise.

I’ll never be fully free of regrets, and I never expected to be.  However, the facts before me show me that I took many right actions in a situation neither of us could win.  Mom’s words to me showed me she understood and that she appreciated me.  If there was any forgiving of me to be done, she did that, too.  So, once again, with Mom’s wishes in mind, I will have to do the same.

We all amass scars and regrets in living.  The goal is to have as small a collection as possible so that we are able to go on and continue to live life.  The right approach is not to sort this out using only my own “rule”, because if Mom can forgive me and God can forgive me, then it gives me little other choice than to forgive myself.