What have you found it difficult to forgive yourself for?

Me too vq.

I was born guilty because I should have been a boy

I don't think I totally forgive myself for anything. I can take on the guilt of the world.

I wish I hadn't gone home for a sleep the night my father died. The nurse assured me she would contact me if there was any change and then in the early hours phoned to say he had gone. I'll always wonder what his last few hours were like and if the morphine injection wore off. He was down at the end of a corridor in a private room and there were few, if any, nurses about.

I also really regret running away from a kitten in the local woods. It came from a traveller site and appeared out of bushes and ran after me. DH doesn't like cats and urged me to run off and leave it. Which I did

I forgive myself for the thing with my father but still feel ashamed about the kitten.

I am glad that you are smiling falcon - keep it up!

Thanks so much Mishap - You've had your share of troubles as I guess we all have by the time we become Grans.

I had to smile a bit sadly when I read my words "a big lie" that is so much a 20 year old thing to say.

Falcon that's a very long time to have carried guilty feelings for something which you really couldn't have done anything about, that is prevent your father dying. If he really did die as a result of just the drip being removed then he stood very little chance of surviving.

My father died after a stroke 55 years ago when I was nearly five - it still pains me to say that.

Oh dear I have just read through this thread and I do feel for anyone carrying a burden and unable to forgive themselves. In answering personally to the question posed by the thread I have to say I have done so many awful things and indeed left undone a great many things that I ought to have done and this is probably why I get so down dwelling on it all. I say this to myself as much as anyone then. Give yourself a break. We readily forgive others but not ourselves. Let's a least have today off and enjoy the flowers.

Falcon - that really is quite something to have carried with you all this time. I agree with Nfk that he and your Mum are most likely to have discussed this privately and they would not have shared this with a 20 year old just starting out on life. I do not think you should assume it was a "big lie" or that you should have spoken up.

A 20 year old and a 56 year old have very different views on life and death and he, as the more mature, may not have chosen to share his views with you because he knew that you, as a young person, would find it hard to grasp.

This is another example of no blame, so no need to forgive yourself. Please try and put it aside.

Nfk Dumpling - I have thought of that over the years and it may have been the case that they had spoken privately. Like a lot of posts on this subject I guess we will never really know.

When mum was breathing her last I did ask a ward sister about it and she had she couldn't really comment but my mother had been very "decisive."

My mum's dying some 40 years later was exactly how she told me she wanted it so I feel sort of good about that.

Tanith - Don't be too hard on yourself about your dad. I have a strong feeling that maybe people want to be alone - it is a very private thing.

My Dh was surrounded by family at the end and I don't think he really liked it because he was a very private man.

We can only do what we feel is best and circumstances can too often overtake us.

Thanks Loopylou. My father was a very private man and he could well have been holding on until he was alone.

Falcon It could be that your dad had told your mum his deeper wishes but kept them from you as he knew it would upset you. He may have wanted to live to be a hundred, but not at any cost. Perhaps impaired mental capacity wouldn't have been something he'd have wanted to live with?

to you all.

When my dad was 56 and I was 20 he had a stroke and was rushed into hospital. At some point my mum went into an anti room with some hospital staff.

When we arrived home she told me that the hospital were of the opinion that he would recover with some mental damage.

Mum had told the hospital that his greatest wish was not to be given any treatment and be allowed to die if this ever happened to him. She had told them to remove the drip and let him go.

This was a big lie because he had often told me he wanted to live to be a hundred.

No-body asked me because I was under 21 but I wish I'd had the courage to step forward and say I wanted him to be given every chance of living. He died - its been nearly 50 years and I still regret that I didn't say something. I was an only child and the only person who could have spoken up for him.

Sometimes we feel the need to forgive ourselves when there is no fault to forgive., like tanith and NfkD.

I run over and over in my mind the fact that I encouraged my Dad to take up a respite hospital bed for my Mum, so that he could get a break. He was exhausted, emotionally and physically. He came to us for the weekend and he had been here only a few hours before the hospital rang to say Mum had fallen out of bed. To cut a long story short, she never came home; she went from the hospital to a care home where she died.

Sometimes I wish I had not encouraged him to place her in the hospital, but at the time it seemed the right thing - so I have to forgive myself for my part in it. There is no point in doing otherwise.

I think sometimes the dying want to be alone at the end. I've told relatives to go and get some rest because I felt the end wasn't close, and I've been wrong.

Equally I've see it in the few moments a relative leaves the bedside.

Please forgive yourself tanith and NfkD, you have nothing to blame yourself for, and I'm sure that's the last thing your fathers would have wanted.
to you all

tanith my unforgivable thing is much the same as yours. Mum and I had sat with dad who was dying with lung cancer most of the day. It wasn't good and by about eight in the evening mum was obviously exhausted. It had been an horrific few weeks - social services had messed up big time - and we were all emotionally drained. The care home manager said to take her home and for both of us to get some rest.

I took her home - and then went home to bed myself. Dad died some time after midnight. I cannot forgive myself for not going back to the care home.

Riverwalk you have reminded me of a homeless man I used to see when we first arrived in Hongkong in 1974. He slept in a windowsill of a building in one of the main shopping areas. I saw him several times and he just looked sad and hopeless, probably an illegal immigrant from China and I can still remember his face.
Perhaps we can't help those individuals, but there are charities we can support who help those in the same situation.

I think most of us are in a quandary about beggars or people who seem to be down on their luck in the street. What to do? Can we help them all? If not who should we help and how?

And getting irritated with a spouse who has a degenerative illness is entirely forgivable. We all do it, because we are all human. Please forgive yourself.

Just a few months ago, in a smart London street, I passed what I can only describe as a probably homeless, east European-looking woman, aged around 60.

She was trudging along and we passed each other and somehow we made eye-contact - in that split second I observed her ... she was absolutely ragged and filthy with dirt ingrained into her many wrinkles.

I keep thinking that I should have stopped and approached her to see if I could help - in what way I have no idea other than give her a few quid.

I'm 60, she looked 60 but could have been younger ... for some reason I keep thinking of her and how I could have done something.

As some of you know my DH has Alzheimer's and I do say things that I wish I hadn't. We have just been to ex DinL's for a meal and I went across to see her neighbour who lost her husband a few weeks ago. We both admitted to such guilty feelings at reacting to relentless repeating things and sometimes bad tempered reactions but agreed that you do have to forgive yourself and just to try harder. Perhaps not quite the scene the OP was referring to but relevant to some of us .

Poor woman indeed - I can still see her face when she saw the swastika. It must have been horrific for her.

Children can be so cruel Mishap, and not just to each other. It must be so terribly hard for teachers if they come up against this kind of bullying from their pupils, and that is just what it is - bullying. I felt so sad reading about your Polish maths teacher. Poor, poor woman.

I always remember our Polish maths teacher - her language skills were poor, and the children in class used to tease her unmercifully. On one occasion they drew a swastika on the blackboard - to be honest I had no idea of its significance - and when she came in the room she completely broke down.

And our RI teacher was clearly in the brink of a nervous breakdown, and some of the boys on the class used to treat him dreadfully - they would look up the "dirty" bits in the bible and when asked to read a passage would read that instead - the poor teacher was totally unable to step in an stop it. He was taken from the classroom in tears one day and never reappeared.

For both these teachers, life must have been hell and, although I was not part of the teasing, I always wished I had had the courage to tell them to stop, instead of just keeping my head down.

A lot of people 'slip away' when there's no one with them, even if people are with them for most of the time.

tanith that must have been heartbreaking for you, and so hard to come to terms with. You do know, though, that even if you had popped in before your shift, he may still have been alone when he breathed his last. Nothing you could have done. But I do understand. (((hugs)))

Thanks

Jane 10 (((hugs))) x