I'm Sorry

I’m sorry. It is as simple and as complicated as that. I’m sorry that after two years I still can’t speak about you without getting choked up. I’m sorry because I want to keep the memory of you alive, but remembering you opens the wound of losing you causing heartache and grief to pour out. What if I am not able to close that wound? I fear what will happen if that proves true. What if all of that pain floods out draining my life force? That there will be nothing left but a shell that once held my soul. Just the thought of that and entering into a permanent zombie state terrifies me. But I’m also sorry for not grieving you every day. I feel I should be. I should be deep in my eternal grief to not move on. Yet, life does go on and I have begun to participate in life again. Is that disrespectful? Please forgive me if it is, but I think you would have wanted me to move on with my life. To live for both of us. This dichotomy of my feelings has me stuck in a weird limbo-state of living. Continuing with my life feels wrong, but to wither and wallow in grief is not living. Instead, it is a slow, cowardly death. That, I am sure you would not want for me. 

I resist the urge to run, run away from all the emotions building in my chest. A pressure that is so desperate to escape that only screaming in the most primal and animalistic way can begin to quell that beast.  Knowing screaming until not a single molecule of air is left in my lungs is futile in the long run, I instead move between the two states of my feelings. However, I don’t dare stay long in the wallowing though, because I know I will become too comfortable with its familiarity. It was the safe space I hid right after losing you. It didn’t ask anything of me except to just be. I needed to just be so I could feel everything and feel nothing at the same time. But when I do return, I process everything up to the point of you taking your last breath. I analyze it as though it is an academic exercise where the answers will become clear if I run just a few more iterations of the analysis. 

When I perform my “analysis”, I spend many nights tiredly awake, rehashing our last moments together. I keep replaying memories, looking to see if I missed something. Something that I could have done better or something that you needed but I overlooked. I run through this repeatedly. When I hint to others that I do this, the response is always the same: “Of course you did enough”, and “You took great care of her”, and “She knows what you did for her, and she appreciated it all”. But I still wonder. I should not have lost my patience that one time. I should have prioritized you more. Why didn’t I catch that you weren’t doing well? Why wasn’t I able to heal you? Yes, I know these are silly questions for these are all things beyond my control, then and now. And I do know I did the best I could for the most part, but I also know that I could have been better in some situations. These are all logical things that I know and understand, yet I feel the guilt. I feel as though I failed you. You needed me, and maybe I didn’t show up for you as much as I thought I did. Perhaps I tell myself I did enough to lessen the guilt. I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know how to put into words the feelings coursing through me right now. And because I can’t articulate my feelings, I ruminate. Somehow, expecting a new answer to be revealed. There is never a new answer, nor any answer. There is only me, overthinking as I do, everything I did and didn’t do.

I made the mistake one time of sitting too long with my jumbled mess of grief and emotions. Doing this brought something to the surface, and if I am being honest, I believe this is the root of the guilt. The guilt is from being angry at you. And the anger was not actual anger. No, instead, it revealed its actual name, grief. That last year of your life, you were changing. You weren’t the same person I had always known. You weren’t the best friend I had had my entire life. I didn’t realize at the time how sick you were and how much your body was worn out from fighting for so long. All I knew was that you ignored me when I told you about my day. You would even go as far as to just randomly interrupt me. You never did this to me. You never would do this to me, for you knew that was a dagger of betrayal to me. You knew I had spent most of my life feeling invisible and dismissed. But you never made me feel that way. You were, in fact, the only person who saw me and truly knew me. So, when your behavior changed, I thought perhaps you finally had gotten fed up with me … like everyone else seems to do. I thought we were growing apart.

I couldn’t handle that; I didn’t know how to handle that. How could I lose my best friend? How could my best friend betray me like that? So, I was hurt. I started to pull back. I wouldn’t tell you everything because I thought what was the point. You didn’t seem too interested in hearing what I had to say anyway. I know now that you didn’t stop loving me. You didn’t tire of me. You weren’t yourself anymore. You were starting your transition from this world. Hence why I feel guilty. I was so hurt by how you were treating me that I know I wasn’t going above and beyond to care for you as I always had. And in that realization, I can’t help but wonder, did I miss something because of that? Did I let you down because I was too worried about my feelings?

I’m sorry if I let you down. I’m sorry if you ever wondered if my love for you had waned. I’m sorry I didn’t realize just how worn out you were. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner that you could take your final rest. That I would be fine. That I would always carry you with me, and I will always be proud to be your daughter. I’m sorry.