I keep feeling so guilty after my dearest friend died should I have enticed him to live elsewhere or should I have left him where he was-would he still be alive. Could I have done more-If I hadn’t have done this-should we have done that? Does anyone else have guilt feeling if so how do you justify it???
Hi Kris
A bit late replying but I have been “off site” for a while. Yes I have guilt feelings too, and I suspect that more people feel it than admit it. After Helen, my wife, died I cried every day for 5 months and often on my knees. Of course partly out of self pity, and if you cannot feel sorry for yourself after losing someone close when can you - it is after something of a tribute to them. But a lot of tears were for what I felt I should have done and should have said not only during the last months but through our life together.
How do you justify your guilt feelings? I don’t think you can. I think you learn to live with them and it isn’t easy. You cannot explain them away but some of them you can see after a while as part of a bigger whole not only of your life but theirs too. Spike Milligan wrote a book “Adolf Hitler, my part in his downfall”, thoughts and feelings fall more into proportion after a time. Sometimes what you say and do at the time is the best of a less than an ideal choice. Sometimes you just have to face up to a bad mistake (and some of mine were serial) and say sorry to the one you’ve lost.
Don’t be hard on yourself, I am sure your dearest friend would not want you to be. Take care and best wishes.
Alan
Thanks Alan
I hope life gets better for you in time. Ive just been to MIkes grave I “like” going there just to talk and I pretend he can hear me it does make me feel better by getting things off my chest -the biggest consolation is he died in hospital and I am getting his enquiry results end of January so whilst it wont bring him back it might give me some peace of mind as to there is nothing anyone could have done
Hi Kris
I am sorry that you have lost your dearest friend and I think felling guilty is something we all feel after a loss .
I lost my husband George on the 26th November and I felt so guilty about had I done enough had I fought hard enough for him did he know how much I loved him we all have different kinds of things that make us fell guilty but I do agree these feelings will pass I have told my husband many times since he passed I am sorry but that I love him and always will .
Be kind to your self and take care best wishes .
Lily