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How long for the dread/guilt/total disbelief to dull a tiny bit?
Loss & Grief | Last Active: Nov 7 9:03am | Replies (27)Comment receiving replies
Hi to anyone that may read and maybe have any advice.
My 38 year son is dying of a very rare and aggressive cancer, Thymic Carcinoma.
I’m extremely empathetic, have so many regrets which I have voiced to him, but he just wants me to forgive myself because he has.
You see, I had to put him in foster care at 9.5 years of age because I couldn’t discipline him. I had a parent aide but knowing what to do and doing it were very different.
I was raised in multiple sexual, mental and physically abusive foster families and I swore to never do that to my children. So I ended up the opposite end of the spectrum.
Now you have a tiny part of my situation. How do I do this? Any advice is very appreciated.
Replies to "Hi to anyone that may read and maybe have any advice. My 38 year son is..."
I am so sorry to hear of your sons illness. I hear the pain and remorse you have for the past on so many levels.
What an amazing gift your son has given you in forgiveness and even spoken it to you.
I am hoping that you can step out from under the darkness of the past , in courage , and spend the last days or months with him in the joy of the love you share.
Don't let the pain of the past carry into this time and steal the tenderness of it away from you.
Push those thoughts away and focus on his needs and time with him. Grieving is hard.
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I’ve heard of that type of cancer, it can be very aggressive and hard to treat. As to the guilt you’re feeling, stop beating yourself up; I’m sure your precious son wants you to forgive yourself, because he’s already forgiven you. I have guilt over the fact that I let my son visit his father with his brothers in another state, and didn’t know that my 11 year old little boy was being groomed by this 24 year old woman whose child was in my ex-husband’s wife’s daycare. They even let this pedophile take my son to Tennessee, and she had relations with my son at the motel they stayed at. She gave him gifts, and even went so far as to tell him she would leave her husband and marry my son when he turned 18. I never let him visit his father again. It’s not good to hold onto guilt, and your son knows you’re a good mother, that’s why he’s forgiven you. My son and I are estranged now, but I’ll always love him, and his children and his wife, who I think of as a daughter.