Forgiveness

I have been trying to do some soul searching.......

I am usually a fairly forgiving person. I look back on the times when I have kept a grudge and for the most part it has been when someone has hurt one of my children. When things are said or done that I could see the pain in my child's eye, I have seemed to have held on to that anger for a while. In the end I have gotten over it and forgiven, forgotten. The problem is , this time it is me I have to forgive. It is me that I am so angry with. It is me that caused all of this. It is me that just did not see that truck. It is me.

Aren't we harder always on ourselves? When we hear our own voice on a recording, don't we say, oh my I sound like a dork. When we look in the mirror we are never what we want to be, to thin, to fat, to gray, to flat, to much... When we judge ourselves as mothers don't we say, I wish I had done that differently or said that better or been nicer or taught more or loved more .... Well how does one live with the knowledge that you are responsible for your own son's death, that you, not anyone else, you caused this accident. The look you see in you other children's eyes, the pain, the sorrow, the grief is all because of you. The guilt is overwhelming, the anxiety that you will screw up again encompasses almost all of your thoughts. When I raise my voice or correct bad behavior, I question whether I am right. What if I never see them again, like Loughlin. How can you be a good parent if you are always worried about not living up to what you could have been, when you see all of your shortfalls with the raising of Lough? I look around at my dirty house and weedy yard and know that right now I am failing again. I want to be so much more but I cannot see my way through this fog. It is all I think about, even in happy moments, the memory of the crash comes barreling through reminding me of what I have done.

Tomorrow is another birthday without Loughlin to share it. True turns 11. The world is still moving. I want it to stop, just for a while and let me catch up. It still feels like October. Where did the days go? Where did my life go?How can he be gone?