Questioning

The other night my Mom was watching a TV show in which a character had witnessed the death of a friend, and suppressed the memory of how it happened.  The show was mediocre at best, but it did get me to thinking about how people perceive traumatic events.  When I think about the night that Ryan died, which I do often, I sometimes wonder if I'm remembering it right.   Even more often, I wonder if something was done differently, would the end result have changed too?

That night was obviously extremely stressful and traumatic for me, and I spent many weeks after it replaying the night in my head, trying to find some small detail that might have changed things. I'm sure that I was in shock for some time, and in retelling the story to my family, I found that I couldn't recall what order things happened in.  At what point did I call 911?  Was it before or after Ryan stopped seizing?  What did I say on the phone?  How long did it take for the ambulance to get there?  These are questions that I'm pretty sure I know the answers to now, after being able to think about it, but in the stress of that night, I don't know that I can be sure I'm remembering it correctly.  And inevitably, I get to worrying that I did something wrong.

I think many people in my support system would be dismayed to hear that I still think about that.  We've talked it over dozens of times; the coroner told me that there was nothing I could have done differently, several impartial doctors have told me the same.  I think though that there's a chance I will never stop thinking about it.  Part of this is because of what I mentioned before- that maybe I'm forgetting something or remembering something wrong, and therein lies the key to what happened to Ryan.  With how sudden and unexpected Ryan's death was, it's impossible to stop thinking about why it happened, what caused it, and how it's possible for someone to just not wake up one day.  The mystery of why Ryan was sick in the first place gets into my head, and I struggle every day trying to figure out how this could have happened and what puzzle piece I'm missing that could explain everything to me.  

Probably the more significant reason that I can't let go of what happened that night is that I was there.  I was the only one that was there.  Ryan and I were the only two people in that room, and I can't help but feel an accountability for the way things happened.  I feel like I should have been there for a reason- I should have been the one that could have helped him, and kept him here where he belongs.  The fact that he's not here anymore feels like it's because I couldn't stop him from leaving.  Nobody else in the world had a chance to help him, but I did, and I couldn't.  Regardless of what my brain tells me, that there was no stopping it, the simple fact that I was in the room makes me feel responsible.  I also know that if the situation were reversed and I was the one who died, Ryan would probably be feeling the same thing.  

We were responsible for each other.  Caring for each other was our number one purpose in life.  I think that's part of what being in love is.  It's comforting, knowing that someone is there to care for you above all else, and that you can return the favor.  Now, the person who cared for me above all else is gone.  Beyond that, what was my biggest purpose in life is gone too, and I can't help feeling responsible for him not being here.  It's not because I did anything to cause it, but because I wasn't able to do anything to stop it.  What happened to Ryan was rare and inexplicable, and it's no one's fault.  So there are only two places to direct the blame; at God, or at myself.  I know that it's not my fault that he died.  But there's simply no way to stop these thoughts from coming into my head and from weighing on my heart.  I'm not sure that I'll ever really be able to stop asking myself questions about what happened to Ryan and if anything could have stopped it from happening.