Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death

I know it's been awhile...but remember what I said.  COMPLETE CONTROL.  I had to slam on the brakes briefly.  Alot has happened in the past few weeks, hell the past month and a half.  Besides this mess, I've also had big changes in my family life.  So, it's easy for me to see how I ended up here weeks later.

I've been dealing with something that I will describe to you as an emotional tug o' war.  Last month my mother finally broke her silence. I received a letter from her.  To sum things up without getting too sappy, she loves me, she's proud of me, and she didn't know what had happened to me.  At first, I was angry with the letter!  I wondered why this simple letter had taken her so long to write.  I was angry that for months I stewed about her not writing me soon after she received my letter.  Let  me remind you, my letter did not contain blame, anger or hate towards my parents.  So, to not immediately hear back from them was highly painful.

For the next few days I thought about her letter.  My anger was now shifting to guilt.  Naturally, I didn't  like the way I was feeling.  Guilt is not a part of my treatment.  The only guilt that I want to allow myself to feel is the guilt I have for my little Wendy Sue.  I guess you could say I was feeling guilty that my mom was upset.  That she was having a hard time with this, and was very emotional.  The grapevine "spoke" to me and informed me  that this was all taking a huge toll on her.  So, I decided that I needed to wait until I could get back into my survivor mode.  After 2 weeks, I wrote her back.  I told her what my partner and I had been up to, as well as our kids.

I felt good about it.  I had responded.  I didn't ignore it.  I didn't just let it be.  Yea for Wendy!  But, a few weeks later, my doorbell rang.  It was my mother.  I don't really want to go into much detail about her visit. But I will tell you this, I held myself together very well.  I listened to what she had to say without feeling much emotion.  I didn't get upset. I didn't get angry.  We talked about the kids, and then she was gone. I closed the door, sat on the chair and took a deep breath.  I didn't feel guilty.  I felt sadness for her, but not guilt.  What she was feeling was not my fault. For whatever reasons (and I have some ideas) she was now feeling the pain and hurt that victims have no control over.