An Honest Death

[HPB]

Loss of spouse, loss of a priest, loss of a medical doctor specialized in palliative care.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/vod/worldprime/3016007/

 

 

[HPB]

Guilt.

I struggle with guilt. As many in this forum do.

Recognizing that even the wife of the deceased clinic director/priest is haunted by thoughts of not having done enough (as a medical doctor herself / video at 41:15sec) is heartbreaking, but consoles me, that whatever we do; it is never enough.

Not enough ...that's only the view when looking back. It could and probably should help us to accept, that at the very time ...we probably did all we could.

 

[ModHerc]

Guilt is horrible.  I still don’t know if I did “all I could”.  What I have come to accept is that I did everything that was reasonable at the time. I could have been there when my wife passed.  It was Christmas Eve, what kind of husband isn’t with his wife at 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve?  The answer, specific to me, is the one that loved his wife so deeply he still feels the pain every moment of every day.

The feeling of guilt blinded me for a while of things I did do for her.  Guilt resulted in my thinking I could have had more time with her if I had been “better”.  Guilt kept me from understanding, for a time, the beauty of the life we shared together by offering the life we “should” have had if only I had “done more”.  But my view on it is that guilt is a lie.

The truth is the life we had was perfect, every moment of it, even the difficult ones.  The difficult moments, even the ones I now regret, were part of the whole.  If any of those hadn’t happened the way they did, then the entirety of our relationship would have been changed.

This realization led me to distinctly differentiate between guilt and regret.  Regret for me is wishing I had done something differently to improve that specific moment.  Guilt is blaming myself through hindsight for not having changed something.  For me there is a distinct difference.  I can deal with regrets because I know how wonderful things were in my relationship.

Guilt is destructive, and hubris on a grand scale.  I was a part of something beyond wonderful.  I think the concept of losing that is what hurts so deeply now.  But in my opinion guilt is the thing that is trying to rob me of that.

In reality I am still a part of something wonderful.  Through me our relationship continues.  But it is up to me, and me alone unfortunately now, to continue the wonder of the love we shared.  If I let guilt make me think it could have, should have, or should be better, I throw shade upon what we had, and still have.  

As a result I deny guilt.  While daily life is often painful for me now, it is worth it in every way to have experienced what I did in my life with her. I wouldn’t trade any of it, and I won’t delude myself into thinking I could have improved on the perfection that I enjoyed.  Wishing you the peace of hard earned fond memories,

Herc

[Marcel]

There are countless things I wish I didn't do or didn't say.
Would things turned out differently? I have no %&§" idea!
I think what torments us most is that we can't change the past. But that's exactly the nature of "past". It's not to be changed. We did what we could giving the circumstances of our life, our past, our knowledge etc.
It's like saying "I know what lottery numbers were drawn last week, why didn't I choose them".
Well we just didn't know then.
Getting rid of the guilt is one of the hardest things of being left behind. Only reason can help us here.

[KayC]

Guilt seems to me to be that insidious monster that attacks us, knowing full well our love for our spouse, that we would have done anything we could for them.  Guilt doesn't take that into consideration.  Guilt doesn't consider the absolute faith and trust and commitment we had in each other.  We do not deserve guilt...yet it hits all of us who pass from whole life into grief.  Herc, I'm glad for what you said, and that you deny guilt it's due for guilt, in our situations here, is a falsehood, wanting to destroy what we had...while our continued relationship does the opposite, it commemorates this great love we have between us!

Is there more we could have done?  I don't know, that's something that haunts us if we let it.  I've often wondered' "Should I have forced George to go to a different doctor?"  But that wasn't my place, our relationship was one of respect, I didn't treat him like a child, but like the adult he was.  I suggested it, more than once, but it was up to him to take those reins...or not.  Neither of us had any idea it was a deadly ramification...we didn't know.  How can we be guilty, either of us, of what we did not know?

[foreverhis]

I couldn't watch the whole documentary.  Parts of it were just too much for me right now.  But the part toward the end where his wife, a doctor, is talking about her guilt, her "Why didn't I...?" and "How could I not have known...?" and her pain from it hit me full on.

I ask myself those questions often.  Rationally, I know my husband and I made choices together based on the best information we had at the time.  Still, I'm the one here, so I take it all on my shoulders.

I have asked myself a couple of times who the heck do I think I am?  Do I think I'm all powerful?  So I guess I have started to try to shift my constant guilt to a more reasonable feeling of regret.  How long it will take and how successful I will be is anyone's guess.

Thanks for the link.  The documentary was really well done.

[adventure]

I learned to carry the guilt only for a short time. Guilt says I should have had power in something that I don't. If I had that kind of power there would be so many experiences that wouldn't have happened in my life. We are just not as powerful as we think. 

The documentary was well done. As a nurse, I found it informative to see a different culture. I've done palliative care in the hospital. I'll be inquiring with the next hospice nurse that comes in if they practice the continuous sedation in hospice house. I would truly advocate for that practice. My heart kept breaking for his wife, watching her go back and forth between roles of doctor and wife. What an incredibly strong woman. 

I wish they would have extended the project. THAT would have been very very helpful. Showing HER journey after his death. Dealing with grief. It would have been as individual as his death. I explain to my patient's families that hospice wraps its arms around the family. It's there for one year after the person passes on, for counseling. Then there is a one year ceremony. 

Moving on and or forward is the biggest challenge. 

[Sunflower2]

16 hours ago, HPB said:

I struggle with guilt.

I struggle with guilt.  It isn't has overwhelming as it was during the initial rawness but it still will surface. When guilt decides to re-visit it is overwhelming but I have noticed it is not a constant visitor 

 

16 minutes ago, adventure said:

I learned to carry the guilt only for a short time. Guilt says I should have had power in something that I don't. If I had that kind of power there would be so many experiences that wouldn't have happened in my life. We are just not as powerful as we think. 

Such a helpful supportive reminder for me. Guilt does give us a feeling of control and empowerment in our moments of despair. It isn't productive in healing but it is part of the process.  Thank you for this reminder! 

[Sunflower2]

13 hours ago, Marcel said:

There are countless things I wish I didn't do or didn't say.

I understand this.  I do go back and wish for that one moment to say "I love you so so much." To curl up with him and share just for a precious few seconds on what we created together and even with some laughter. Yes laughter. I just didn't have that with a sudden loss. In time I will find peace with this. 

[LeannC45]

15 hours ago, Herc said:

Guilt is horrible.  I still don’t know if I did “all I could”.  What I have come to accept is that I did everything that was reasonable at the time. I could have been there when my wife passed.  It was Christmas Eve, what kind of husband isn’t with his wife at 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve?  The answer, specific to me, is the one that loved his wife so deeply he still feels the pain every moment of every day.

The feeling of guilt blinded me for a while of things I did do for her.  Guilt resulted in my thinking I could have had more time with her if I had been “better”.  Guilt kept me from understanding, for a time, the beauty of the life we shared together by offering the life we “should” have had if only I had “done more”.  But my view on it is that guilt is a lie.

The truth is the life we had was perfect, every moment of it, even the difficult ones.  The difficult moments, even the ones I now regret, were part of the whole.  If any of those hadn’t happened the way they did, then the entirety of our relationship would have been changed.

This realization led me to distinctly differentiate between guilt and regret.  Regret for me is wishing I had done something differently to improve that specific moment.  Guilt is blaming myself through hindsight for not having changed something.  For me there is a distinct difference.  I can deal with regrets because I know how wonderful things were in my relationship.

Guilt is destructive, and hubris on a grand scale.  I was a part of something beyond wonderful.  I think the concept of losing that is what hurts so deeply now.  But in my opinion guilt is the thing that is trying to rob me of that.

In reality I am still a part of something wonderful.  Through me our relationship continues.  But it is up to me, and me alone unfortunately now, to continue the wonder of the love we shared.  If I let guilt make me think it could have, should have, or should be better, I throw shade upon what we had, and still have.  

As a result I deny guilt.  While daily life is often painful for me now, it is worth it in every way to have experienced what I did in my life with her. I wouldn’t trade any of it, and I won’t delude myself into thinking I could have improved on the perfection that I enjoyed.  Wishing you the peace of hard earned fond memories,

Herc

I really needed to read this post. There are times that my guilt over what I should have/could have done differently has literally taken me to my knees. If I can think of guilt in the way you described it some how makes things feel much lighter. YES I have regrets, things I wish I would have done differently but guilt can steal the reality of my experience. Thank you for this post.

[loveboo]

The two things that I am struggling the most with is the last 48 hours and the guilt and regrets.

[KayC]

John,  That's common in grief, I struggled greatly with the images of him in cardiac arrest, I will never forget it.  In the beginning those images haunted me.  I regretted not pushing harder for him to see a different doctor, but I had no idea he had heart trouble until that fateful weekend.  I have to fault his doctor, he had the symptoms, he saw his doctor, he complained of the symptoms...I didn't know ankle pain was a symptom, nor did I know his passing out six months earlier was heart, not diabetes.  I am not a doctor.  You are not a doctor.  We wish we could turn back the clock and somehow save them...whether it was possible or not we cannot know.  But that does not make us guilty, the doctors are trained to know, we are not.

I do know we loved them wholeheartedly and would have done anything within our power...if only...

I hope these articles are of help to you, they were to me.

http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2012/12/grief-and-burden-of-guilt.html

http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2012/03/guilt-and-regret-in-grief.html