I am currently reading the book, Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore.As part of the book, Professor Moore has writing exercises. This is number four.
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The guilt of failure can be overwhelming. It often sneaks up and strikes out of nowhere. My dad died at the end of August. I gave him CPR, but failed to resuscitate him. Now, you can tell me that it was his time, he was ready to end his fight against cancer and COPD, and ready to be free of pain. I know those things on one level. But that doesn't keep me from feeling the guilt of failure, and shedding tears as I write this.
My training says I did everything I could... breaths, compressions, shock when advised by the AED, but I still feel the failure because I wasn't ready to let him go. I thought he would live till November, see one more harvest, one more turn of the calendar to Autumn, maybe even one more snowfall.
So I am moving through grief, burdened by a guilt that others say I should not carry, yet can't seem to set down.
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