Serenity…

This was the first week where I didn’t cry every single day. I cried, don’t get me wrong. Just not daily.

Progress?

Maybe. But more, I think I am finally starting to emotionally accept what happened. My logical, nursing-educated brain understood my mother’s death the day it occurred.

My heart and my emotional brain? Not so much.

But the absence this week of the daily tears, the heartbreak, and the guilt I was experiencing, and at the oddest, most inopportune moments, has abated.

For now.

I know that doesn’t mean I’m done caring about my mother. The furthest thing from it. I live with the daily wish I could have been there, held her hand, and told her I loved her one last time. And done everything I could to prevent her from dying.

But I wasn’t, and I didn’t.

What this suspension of daily waterworks means, I think, is that I’m coming to terms with my mother’s passing, knowing nothing I could have done would have prevented it. Nothing I could have done would have altered the course God sent her on. Nothing I could have done would have made what happened any less horrible – for her and me.

Accepting her death, how it came about, and what it means for those she left behind has been a tortuous road these past 13 weeks, one which I wasn’t prepared to travel and have been having a great deal of trouble navigating through.

I always assumed being a nurse, having watched so many patients die over my career, would have prepared me better for the end of my mother’s life.

What’s that old saw about assuming something? Yeah, joke’s on me, isn’t it?

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened. Or for losing her. Nothing. I think I am finally starting to understand that.

With a little time, a little self-reflection, and a little emotional distance, I think I’m starting to fully accept it and am learning to move forward.

As I do, I’ve been reciting The Serenity Prayer during those times when I find myself falling into guilt again:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

It’s the wisdom part that’s taking a while to grow within me…

~ Peg