50 WORDS
Daughter Guilt Like Never Before
Thrifty Word Challenge #22: Guilty
She often found fault in me, but I would not feel guilty. Then she got Alzheimer’s and we took her car away. In her mind, her brain is sharp as a razor. Instead, she lives in a fantasy world. They can’t drive cars there. The guilt is excruciating, but necessary.
I feel as though my mom’s Alzheimer’s consumes my writing these days, but that’s because it consumes my own brain. Guilty seems to be my constant state. It’s a daily battle, telling her she cannot drive because it is unsafe for her and others.
She, however, feels she could drive anywhere, even wonders if she could have her car shipped over to Wales when she moves back (which her five children know can never happen). She has not lived in Wales since she was 18, she became an American citizen and gave up her British citizen before having her first child, and most of the people she remembers from Wales have preceded her in death. She forgets this. As her sister says, she also forgets she has only been a tourist there since 18 and could never live there now.
She also has never, ever driven in Wales (my dad or other relatives always drove there when they visited) and she was so overwhelmed with the idea of driving through the one roundabout in our North Carolina town that she used to go out of the way to avoid it.
I felt no guilt as she criticized me when I was making decisions for my own life, be those decisions right or wrong. Yet even knowing we are right now, the guilt consumes us all.
Thanks to Marla Bishop and The Bad Influence for another great prompt. Next time maybe I’ll write about something fun like the guilt of eating that extra cookie.
Kim McKinney had gotten over feeling much guilt, other than those times she knew she hurt others as a result of careless or heartless or inadvertent actions. This journey with her family as they deal with their mother’s Alzheimer’s is a never-ending guilt trip. She wishes it on no one, but also knows it is a privilege to be there to make her mom’s world better, even if she doesn’t always believe that to be the case.