Somewhere Deep Inside..

So I was meditating at the park, on Saturday after my 2 hour bike ride, and I think I touched upon something deep down inside. This "thing" is the belief that part of me holds that I might hold myself partially responsible for my mom's death.  There is guilt there, and I can't really say it doesn't belong there. Which makes sense, because maybe my mind has gone into defense mode, trying to forget feelings rather than feel that I had something to do with her death.

Now, obviously, I didn't give her the cancer.  I didn't kill my mother through any direct physical act of my own, but upon further navigating those feelings I touched upon, I found that maybe I hold myslef INDIRECLY responsible.

My mom was very sick, by the time we got back to California. She was in rough shape, and deep down inside, I knew she wouldn't last another year.  But who knows, maybe she would have lived for at least a few months longer had we not come back to live with her.  Kid's carry germs, I carry germs, Katie carries germs, we all do. So now, all of a sudden we are 4 extra people (2 being kids and kids hold every germ imaginable) contaminating her space. And what if we were the ones that gave her the infection that eventually shut her body down, a body that had no immune system? 

I know that she went to chemo, and still had business to do in the outside world, that was filled with germs but we were around her all the time.  What if I decided we should stay in NY, would she have had more months on this earth? Knowing my mom she wouldn't have wanted it any other way, to spend her final days with her family all around her, with the sound of her grandkids voices, but I can't help but wonder if we brought those final days faster.

And I can't help but blame myself for it.