I’m going to go out on a limb and assume most of you reading this are familiar with the phrase “The Five Stages of Grief”. This concept is not new to me either but lately I find myself looking them up from time to time, just the same, to refresh my memory: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. From the perspective of someone who has suddenly found herself an intimate partner of grief I can confirm these are spot on. Well mostly. I can’t claim to have experienced the acceptance part quite yet. But as I begin living through these in real time, I can’t help but think there is a sixth stage that should have made the list. This stage takes one of the more dominant positions among the many feelings I battle on a day to day basis and the one most likely to rob me of sleep at night. This stage is guilt.
Right off the bat you may assume I’m referring to the guilt associated with Londyn’s death, and you wouldn’t be wrong. That is a big part of what rolls through my head like a never ending movie at least once a day. As parents we are automatically geared to ferociously protect our children from the moment they come into the world. So to discover you were absent when your child passed, unable to be there when she took her final breath, is a guilt-laced feeling of helplessness beyond comprehension.
But as these things go, it’s so much more complicated and, like the relentless tendrils of an ivy always searching to quietly coil around the neck of its next victim, this stage finds itself worming its way, first through her final moments, and then ever so slowly backwards in time creeping through the precious memories we have of her twenty years here on earth. It’s like I’m suddenly a student called in to sit for my final exam and the professor of life is methodically replaying all the moments I failed her as a parent.
And so the guilt parade begins. The barrage of memories big and small marching through my head uninvited. It’s the many times I was overprotective, fighting against her demands to attend concerts and other various events because they were located at venues down dangerous highways and often late at night. Or the regret I feel for specific parent-fail moments like the time I lost my temper while she sobbed, shortly following yet another rear-end fender bender. It’s the broken promises, always made in good faith but never enough time to fulfill, vainly confident there would always be time to make it up to her. It’s the occasional sparks of lightness and happy moments I experience today only to abruptly remind myself she’s not here to do the same. And it’s the guilty suspicion that at some point in the past I made a wrong decision or took a wrong turn, one that ultimately lead us down the path of her accident and death.
I want to pause here and assure everyone that, despite these dark and heart breaking thoughts, there’s a reasonable part of my brain that continues to persist. There is no doubt that I love my daughter more than life itself. My efforts as a parent, although definitely flawed and maybe even questionable at times, were applied with a tireless effort invested with every ounce of my soul. I understand I am not an anomaly and all parents have many moments we wish we could do over or take back. But, unlike others who have opportunities to apply the nuggets of wisdom they’ve collected through the trials of parenthood, my chance to address past mistakes with Londyn has been taken away. And so I’m left with a guilty conscience in addition to a broken heart.
So what to do? My journal to Londyn, a near daily ritual I now observe, has become hugely therapeutic. It’s in these writings I can place my thoughts in pen and ink, and through this practice, feel as if she’s there with me talking things out. The writing of this blog has been another significant outlet for me. To share my thoughts in hopes it may serve as a bridge to others has become medicine for my soul. And I’ve been encouraged by many in my circle to apply my feelings artistically, a favorite pastime my daughter and I shared. And maybe one day I’ll find I can do that. But for now I think I will work on the one stage alluding me, acceptance. Accepting that there will forever be moments for which I will never get to apologize. Accepting that there are many things in this world truly out of our hands and beyond our control. And finally, coming to terms with the reality that accepting these things will never totally stamp out the guilt. And so once again I put the guilt monster gently back to sleep, quietly slipping out the door to delay his inevitable awakening. But for now at peace knowing just how much I love my girl, and feeling her love in return.
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