Blame
When there’s a serious accident or death, everyone wants to place blame on someone. Something bad happened, it has to be someone’s fault. Someone did something wrong, that’s why it happened. Everything is ruined because someone stepped left instead of right. All. Their. Fault.
It would be easy to place blame on Ian’s accident on my husband. He was with him. Obviously it’s his fault. He wanted to take the kids swimming on the first day of spring break (fucking asshole). He got Ian dressed and said they were going to go in a few minutes (terrible father, truly). He left him in his bedroom to finish getting the swimming stuff together and to see if his sister was getting dressed (negligent prick, leaving a child in their bedroom while you’re in the house). Must be my husband’s fault-right?
But not one piece of me has ever felt blame, anger, or hatred towards him. What can I actually place blame on him for, going in one direction to get through the house instead of another? I’m not sure if it’s because I love him so much, if it’s because I’m insanely rational about this matter, or if because I see the WAY bigger picture of Ian making the moves he made that day for a reason-but none of this is because of my husband. I think he saved him. Seriously, how many of you know someone who has saved someone who has drowned, and successfully performed CPR after cardiac arrest?!?!? Can you name someone? Guarantee most EMTs have never done that. I mean, this man deserves to be a legend. This man gave me three more years with my son. Yes, EMTs, doctors and nurses worked their asses off to keep him alive, but they only could because his daddy saved him. I can’t blame the man, he’s my hero.
And by blaming him, I would in turn become a person who inflicts pain on another. He carries the pain of losing Ian. He carries the pain of blaming himself. He carries the blame of feeling like he took a child from their mother. Why, why, why would I want him to feel worse? Punishing him with blame would bring me zero satisfaction and would do nothing to change what happened. The only outcome of blame is more pain.
We’ve been raised to believe in punishment. If something bad happens, someone needs to be punished. But Ian’s accident has forced me to reflect on that. If I couldn’t blame or punish someone for the worst possible feelings I’ve ever had in my life, then what? It would have been 100x easier to be mad and bitter instead of heal. 100x easier to drink and numb. 100x easier to say everyone has ruined my life and it’s their fault I’m miserable, their fault I’m using, it’s their fault I’m failing. Making someone else feel bad wasn’t going to make me feel better. Making someone who was already suffering definitely wasn’t going to make feel better. Then I realized that essentially, every person that had ever caused me pain must be suffering in someway. For instance, people who were supposed to show me love (and didn’t) had obviously never been loved the way they were supposed to to begin with. That’s a lifetime of suffering.
Stop blaming, start healing, keep loving.
Dedicated to my loving husband and devoted father to my babies, Brett.