I’ve worked hard to adopt the attitude that I did the best I could when I was taking care of my husband after his stroke. Afterall, we were all dealing with a pandemic, I had never been a caregiver for someone with the high level of needs my husband had before, and the person I would typically turn to for support—my husband!—wasn’t available to support me. I was exhausted most of the time and making things up as I went along, learning skills like how to assist with a wheelchair transfer on the fly. Given all that, I did a pretty good job most of the time.
I still find myself wishing I had done things differently, but I’ll follow up that thought with a quick reminder to myself, “But I did the best I could.” Sometimes even after that reminder to myself, I would feel the heat of shame on my face. I would wonder had I really done the best I could? Would someone else have done a better job? Did I make my husband’s last year worse than it needed to be? Or—the big dark question—was his death actually my fault?
Those last two questions are the ones I struggled with the most. “Did I make my husband’s last year worse than it needed to be?” because I had failed to help him reconnect with someone he had lost touch with during the pandemic and “Was his death actually my fault?” because the surgery he never woke up from was necessitated by an infection that I had not noticed until it had progressed to a life-threatening level.
I did a lot of work in therapy on accepting that I had done the best I could at the time. I was imperfect, as we all are. Many things fell through the cracks during that time. I was working remotely, which allowed me to be home and take care of Tom, but balancing my job with his care was tricky and I was imperfect at both. That doesn’t mean his death was my fault or that his last year would have been measurably better if I hadn’t forgotten to get in touch with his friend.
A couple months ago I did a search of my text messages looking for something related to one of my dogs. The search results showed a conversation from a few months before my husband died with the friend he wanted me to reconnect him with. We’d had a text conversation spanning a few days. How had I forgotten that I had done what he asked? I had been holding myself responsible for making his post-stroke isolation worse than it had to be—but I hadn’t done that.
Ah, but what about me possibly causing his death by not noticing the infection?
Around the end of the year, as I was reviewing my notes for a chapter of my memoir, I was reminded that there were at minimum three healthcare professionals seeing my husband every week. Each one took his temperature and asked him questions about his health. He mentioned being worried about the infection to them. None of them were concerned.
I had been holding myself responsible for something health care professionals didn’t notice. That realization made it possible for me to release the feelings of guilt. I’m just sad about it all now. Sad that he was worried about an infection that went undetected, sad that he had the bad luck to get an infection, sad that he died. But I know it wasn’t my fault.
Our memory is unreliable at best and when you add grief and stir, memory gets even worse. I’m grateful for my journal and notes, but even those rely on memory to some degree. When I journal each morning about the previous day, who knows what inaccuracies and misinterpretations I’m introducing. I’ve taken to understanding my memories as interpretations.
The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. I told myself the story that I should have recognized my husband’s infection for years. Although I’ve released myself of the guilt, my mind does sometimes try to seize on the idea again that it was my fault. I have to remind myself in those moments, “No, that’s not true, multiple medical professionals didn’t notice it, either.” The story is still real to me sometimes, despite what I know to be true. The story feels true.
And I still don’t quite believe that I got in touch with the old friend. I reread the texts from time to time to reassure myself that I did reconnect my husband with his friend.
I trust that at some point, the facts will outweigh my false memories.