I don’t know how you feel, so I won’t pretend that I do. I haven’t lost a child, thankfully. But I know it would be the absolute worst thing that could ever happen in my life. My heart goes out to you a million times over.
My heart goes out to you mostly because I understand why you immediately blame yourself and think that you could have avoided this horror somehow. I know I would do the same at first if I were in your shoes. You were her mother...you can’t help but feel that you could’ve and should’ve done something differently to avoid this tragedy. I also know how wrong it is to think that way.
WE All could always have done a little bit better, at almost everything we do every day...it could all be done a little better, But we’re HUMAN. We’re not perfect people with the right amount of foresight and motivation to truly do our best every single day. Some days are awful, some are just about perfect. Most are in between somewhere.
Your pain is unimaginable to me so I don’t even know why I’m trying to console you. I just know it wasn’t your fault, because it couldn’t have been. I try to strike the right balance with my kids every day to make sure I’m tough enough when I need to be and soft enough when I need to be too. It’s HARD to get it right. Near impossible. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I mess up all the time.
NOBODY is guaranteed good, safe, healthy kids, no matter how consistently good a job they do at parenting. Just look at how uniquely different your children are from one another....if you had as much influence on them as you think you do, wouldn’t they all be more or less alike??
They’re individuals, they are all different, and as much as we feel like they’re our blood and guts and we feel so connected to them, they are their own people, not extensions of us, and beyond the age of complete dependence on us physically, we HAVE to let them go and be themselves and make mistakes, etc... because they’re NOT us. They’re themselves. We have to let them get hurt, even killed, just as Mary had to stand by and let Jesus be crucified. What a horror. I’ll be she blamed herself too, for a time.
Mary knows exactly what you’re going through. Pray to her for comfort and peace. Don’t blame yourself, please don’t. You need to slowly heal and not torture yourself any more than you’ve already been tortured.
I hope this is a little helpful. Just know there are people out here that care and will pray for you to find peace.