The If Onlys

As I worked on my grieving book today, I added a description of what happened to Anne.  When several people had asked by email, "What in the world happened?" I decided to write down the events that led to Anne's hospitalization and death rather than having to re-explain it each time.  That description fits well into the early part of the book to lay the groundwork for my experience and reflections.

So I read my own account several times and expanded it in some details.  I didn't realize the impact that would have on me.  Off and on all day I returned to those events and what I could have done differently.  I could have seen her sore chest as heart-related rather than bronchial already on Thursday.  I could have taken her to the hospital on Friday as I thought I might at some points.  I could have carried her to the ER earlier on Sunday, even though she was feeling a bit better.

If only...if only...if only...if only the chiropracter hadn't said her neck and shoulders were way out of whack.  Then I might have made some other connection.  If I had ever once in my life actually heard of endocarditis or thought about the ubiquity of staph infections, I might have done something else.  If only...

I began to think of all the times I was gone for church events and activities, all the evenings away and the times when Anne and the boys came in second place on my schedule.  I cried over the hours and days I could have spent with her but didn't.  If only I had made other choices, we could have had so much more life together.  If only...(and, never again will I allow such skewed priorities).

My CPE supervisor one day shared with us what he called several "noble half-truths."  One went like this.  We make the best decisions we can at the time.  Otherwise we would make other decisions.  I know it doesn't always quite work that way, but it's a noble half truth.  If I had known something else, I would have done something else.  But I didnt...so I didn't.

I didn't.  It gnaws at my heart even though my brain knows the truth--that I did my best and that's all a person can do.  What helped me most was a friend this evening who shared some of her own experience.  Her family also suffered a tragic death and lived with the "if only's."  Some family members still say out loud that if only they had insisted on a small schedule change, the accident would never have happened.  But that would require a kind of foreknowledge we don't get to have.  So we do the best we can.

Thank you, dear friend, for the story and the reminder.  I think I can let go of the "if only's" for tonight and get some sleep.  Tomorrow is another day.