It finally hit me yesterday morning, at 6 am while I was getting ready for work, that nothing I did that summer would have made it end any differently.
I could have moved in with Mom, I could have spent every ounce of energy I had taking care of her. We would have driven each other crazy. I would be in even worse shape than I am now.
I wouldn't have been able to save her.
Maybe she wouldn't have fallen on the floor that day. Maybe I wouldn't have found her calling for help, maybe that scar and that sound, that pleading for help, wouldn't be burned into me forever, but I wouldn't have been able to change anything.
Maybe there would have been more good times, I would like to think that it would have been possible, but I dont think it would have been like that. It would have been the same power struggle, the same arguments, the same anger-but intensified because we would have had no space from each other.
I am mad at myself for so many things over that last year.
Of course the one year I decide to be moody and selfish and wrapped up in my own crap at Christmas and not sing Christmas carols with her would be my last chance ever. I wish we had sang out Christmas carols together. I will forever wish I hadn't given up that last chance.
I am so mad at myself for rushing through my last birthday dinner with my mom. I was uncomfortable. I was impatient. I rushed. I always rushed her. Sometimes I feel like the worst daughter in the world. All she wanted to do was be around me and all I did was rush and now she is gone, forever.
Forever is such an unfathomably long time. I still can't understand it.
But I would not have been able to change the outcome of it all. I could have hounded her to take every pill right on time. I could have watched her every minute, followed her around and done it all, and it would not have changed a thing. That realization is huge.
