I have a lot of regrets. I live with a lot of regrets. And for all of the grief and regrets I carry, no regret will ever be greater than the regret I carry about how I behaved and felt during the final weeks of my mother’s life and how as we prepare to come out of this pandemic; she won’t be there with us. I cannot ever fathom her feelings as she let go of life following her rapid decline in health, I cannot ever imagine what she thought as it became clearer and clearer, despite her dimming eyesight, that her family, me—most of all, felt as though she was becoming a growing burden on their lives. The feelings that she must have felt as I intentionally and purposely abandoned her during her greatest time of need under the guise of work. It is painfully obvious to everyone but me that I do not need to go to the office to work. But I just could not be bothered, I could not be bothered to show affection to her, I could not be bothered to care for her, and I could not be bothered to be there for her. My last true interaction with her was me testing her blood sugar and then, most likely, making some cold and unfeeling generic comment as I worked out the door. Hell, even as I was leaving work to return home, I thought of ways to prolong my commute until I received the call from my father that something was wrong with my mother and that I needed to come home immediately. And even as I arrived home that night to the scenes of emergency vehicles leaving and my aunt, my uncle, and my father trying to figure out what was next, all I could think of was how much of a pain this was going to be on me; having to go to the hospital in the midst of a pandemic. At one point, a neighbor came by to check in on what was happening and I pretty much brushed her off; the EMTs had restored a pulse and she was headed to the hospital for what I thought would be another prolonged stay but she would be back and we would have another round of medical debt to add to the already large debt we had already accrued. Honestly, I did not think much of it as I left the hospital that night. I figured that it would be tough but that they would get things fixed and she’d be facing a tough and lonely recovery but she would be at the hospital where they would take care of her. I was oblivious to the possibility that within less than a day; I would have to be the one to make the decision to formally end her life. Yes, that’s right; I did it! I ENDED MY MOM’S LIFE! And that is just more blood on my hands that I have to live with for the rest of my life. But let’s be honest, I ended it long before the decision to take her off of life support was made; I ended it by being a failure as a child despite my claims of being the “good son”.
