No need to feel guilty

It’s been a very long day. I have so many thoughts, which seem to be jumbled tonight. I’m indifferent, calm and very tired.

There comes a time in every one’s life, when we reflect on our relationships and it usually happens around the time we know someone we love dearly is terminally ill. It’s so hard watching that someone fade-away. Relationships are about expression, we have to be able to express ourselves.

It would be so easy to look back and pick fault or feel guilty about something we’ve done or said to someone terminally ill, but I believe that is unhelpful and counterproductive. If we are to react because of something that’s said that isn’t right, that’s perfectly right to do. That doesn’t change just because that someone is terminally ill.

We’re made to feel guilty, but what isn’t brought into the equation is that we behaved in a certain way because we didn’t have a choice. If we had a choice that situation would never have arisen and we wouldn’t be feeling guilty. We all have to be responsible for the way we behave, regardless of whether we’re the one who is terminally ill or we’re watching someone who is.

On a conscious level as we go about our lives, we don’t stop to think how we behave or what we say to people. It’s only when we look back, but not many of us do, that we see that we could have done things better and that’s when guilt sets in.

I take the view that it’s better to get things right now, rather than live a life then worry later about what we’ve said or how we’ve said it. So the next time you feel guilty, think about whether you’re really responsible. Remember it takes two to work a relationship. A terminal illness doesn’t change that.