My mum passed away 2 months ago of a massive heart attack and it was quite a shock. She had ongoing heart issues and heart disease managed with medications. She had a stroke 4 years ago and I was the one who found her in the shower and called an ambulance straight away so she was able to get clot recovery done and regained most movement.
My dad looked after her but then he had a heart attack and passed away 6 months later. Now, 4 years on, she has been doing ok but is frail and can't drive or go out on her own. Because of covid I moved back into her home to help out, take care of her and drive her to appointments while working from home.
Over the last 2 years I've worked alot overseas and so covid was a chance to spend quality time with her though I've had ongoing depression about being single and no kids at 35 and feeling like a failure. Working overseas I got used to having Ubereats and take away food alot and working long hours and late into the night meant I wasnt keen on cooking that often, so I feel like I brought my bad habits to mum's place and ordered food alot for both of us! I looked at my credit card statements and saw this was around 10 to 16 times a month!
Though there were many times these were healthy Vietnamese salad sometimes they were pizza or fried chicken! Now I feel like my takeaway addiction killed her and it's all my fault and if I was away from her she would probably still be alive! After seeing those statements I feel so sick and selfish that I didn't realise what I was doing. She saw her cardiologist in December 2019 and everything looked ok so they were shocked she had such a massive heart attack in August 2020, and now I believe it's all my fault and I'm to blame! I already felt like such a failure for not being married and providing any grandchildren, how do I reconcile this massive guilt and move forward?
Often we almost "choose" guilt because it stops us from having to grieve. We think that guilt infers it could have been otherwise. Something could have been changed. Grief recognizes that it is over and there is nothing to do but weep. You are not a felon. You did not do evil knowingly and with aforethought for the pure pleasure of making someone suffer. THOSE are the people who have need of guilt. You are a person experiencing limitations of not being able to fix-it about everything, of having limitations, of making a few bad choices (about dinner, for goodness sake). You are grieving. Please be as easy on yourself as you can. I would guess your Mom had on one side or the other of her family history of relatives with heart disease. It is my belief having been a nurse on Cardiology for a long long time that it is family history that tells the story more than anything else. We are born with a set of genes that have our future written large all over them.
I am so sorry for your losses. Please know you did your best. You aren't a Saint, but Saints have a REAL BAD job history, and end badly almost every time, then we pray to them to fix everything for us.
Give yourself the time you need to grieve, but remember to celebrate as well, and for myself I would love my daughter remembering the time we ate Chinese take out cold for breakfast after eating it hot the night before, and watching junk while we did it, laughing and sharing. It would hurt me to know she grieved me instead of celebrating our times together. Do your Mom honor by celebrating. There will be tears. And I am sure a good many of them, but that's just us feeling sorry for ourselves. Your Mom is at peace. Hugs. I send my best wishes to your loving heart.
I'm sure you didn't force your mom to eat the food you ordered. She ate it because she wanted to. That was her choice. And I am a firm believer in when it's our time to leave this world, we will leave it. No matter what. Just be grateful for the precious time you got to spend with your mom, since you normally would be overseas, and just know that your mom was grateful for that time as well. I'm sure she was very proud of you for stepping up and taking care of her. Now I'm sure she wants you to take care of yourself, and start enjoying your life. You can't do that when you're carrying around uncalled for guilt. Time to let it go. May God bless you and comfort you in the days, weeks and months ahead.
It looks like this was simply your mother's time. You could have fed her the most perfect food for her and she still would have died. Unfortunately, we don't have a say in when those we love leave this world.
You want answers, and that's normal. You want to know WHY she had to die. Even though we all will, it's like we can't imagine our loved ones up and leaving us like that, surely someone made it happen!
You won't get the answers because there just aren't any. It was her time.
As for being unmarried/no kids, I know a lot of people who didn't marry until their late 30s or 40s. I myself didn't marry until I was 35... took me a long time to find Mr. Right! Just because you haven't married doesn't mean your life and work are useless! I know how hard it is when most of your friends are married and having kids. Just keep doing your own thing and he'll come along. Once I kind of gave up on ever finding someone, I met my husband in the most random way ever.