Friday, June 17, 2016

Acceptance

Since Dayna passed away I've felt strange in that I haven't felt guilty. I took responsibility for her care and have maintained that for years so ostensibly I bear some responsibility for her passing. I've worried that my lack of guilt indicated that there was something wrong with me.

I've begun to accept that I did everything I could. Everything I could was limited by my capacity. I was also in a very difficult situation and my failures and missed opportunities were expressions of that. She was the only one who could save her but she was stuck, trapped by her illness and the habits it had instilled in her.

I made mistakes but I never intentionally acted against her. Were there a solution available to me I would have acted on it. No one can know if there was a solution available to her. That weight was only hers to carry and she couldn't bear it. Many of us reached out to her because we felt responsible for helping her but we could to nothing to fix her. Sometimes that's just how things work out.