Time goes on, without him. I feel like I’m being dragged away from him, I’m on a train and he didn’t get on before it left. I would have walked with you, Chris, even if I broke my leg jumping off…
I want to go back to work. But I can’t seem to face it. I think because at home, I can mostly forget that time is passing by, taking him ever farther away. In my office, I can’t ignore it.
And there’s the fact that every time anyone asks me a question, my mind goes blank. And random thoughts make me bawl for 5-10 minutes at least fifty times a day.
I said I don’t feel guilty, and I don’t. But the ‘what-ifs’ are driving me insane. He didn’t give me a clue, but I look now and I can see that if I’d sat down and just thought about what was going on with him, I think I would have seen it. But who ever sits down in the middle of life to think things through? I had four appointments last week, and, until this happened, was supposed to work forty hours. And keep my house, alone, and take care of the animals, alone, and take care of our daughter alone.
And the other ones. What if Jennifer had still been his case manager? What if he’d gotten a case manager who called him every day with a progress report? What if they’d given him counseling along with the medicines he eventually used to end his pain? What if the parent aide had visited him on Tuesday, and let him know she was making arrangements for him to see Hope for the first time in three weeks?
What if someone had said, “You know what, we were going on bad information. You’re not schizophrenic after all, and you’ve never been violent, so we’re going to let you go home. We’ll keep working on your problems, but you can go be with the people who give meaning to your life.”
Oh God. Why couldn’t they say that? They wouldn’t have even had to admit a mistake (gotta watch those liability things), they really were going on bad information.