If Only I Had/Hadn’t… I Should/Shouldn’t Have… Maybe She Would Still Be Alive: The Guilt Parents Feel When Their Child Dies

​​The grief journey is long and torturous, particularly for parents. Feelings of guilt occur as bereaved parents begin to search for the reasons for their child’s death. During this process, many parents blame themselves by thinking that something they did, or neglected to do, may have in some way contributed to their child’s death. Guilt is a powerful emotion and can feel very heavy and hard to handle. Holding on to these kinds of emotions can be exhausting and create lots of problems, now and in the future.

When our youngest daughter died at 19 almost ten months ago, my husband and I both experienced guilt. We blamed ourselves for what we may have missed and what we could have done differently. We will never understand why our daughter died and we will never know with certainty if her death was accidental or intentional.

Our daughter Orli was a sophomore in college and away from home. We had seen her less than two months before during Winter break. She seemed her usual self, perhaps more tired than usual and under stress. We figured it was the normal college student state of being. She had suffered a concussion a few months prior but had told us she was completely healed and had a clean bill of health. We had no reason to doubt her words. After her death we searched through all her computer files and texts, we talked to her sisters and her friends, and we found no sign that this would happen. She had many friends, interests, and passions. Her grades were excellent. She was an activist for social justice and a leader and motivator. We did find out later that her concussion was more severe than she led us to believe. Also, she was being pressured by some adults at her university to take on duties at the school newspaper that she was not prepared to take on. Yet there were no signs of depression. Nobody had a clue.

These facts did not assuage our feelings of guilt. Just because you feel guilty doesn’t mean you are guilty. There are many, many times that grievers are completely irrational. Grief can make you feel and act irrationally. Just when you start to get a grip (or not), the demands of daily life require you to step back into your pre-grief life. It seems absurd that the world would keep moving in the face of your tragedy, but it has. Most grievers can’t abandon their duties for long–parenting, chores, work, and mundane tasks. You now have to figure out how to continue to exist in the roles that have been yours since before the death.

We dissect every moment of time with our loved ones. We would have done anything to stop it from happening, but sadly it is a reality, and we feel overwhelmed. Usually, guilt comes as we look back over events surrounding the death of our loved ones and we imagine how things might have unfolded differently. We sometimes come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, we could have done something that would have changed the outcome. We say ‘if only…’ or ‘what if…’ and it gives us the feeling that death was our fault because of something we did or didn’t do. Guilt allows us to impose meaning on a meaningless world by allowing us to feel that the tragedy had a cause: our action or failure to act. One would think that no one could be more blameless than the parents of the children murdered in Uvalde, Texas, yet even they report feeling guilty–for sending their kids to school that day or for not pulling them from school earlier in the day. It’s obvious to outside observers that their guilt is irrational, but for them, it is real, and they live with it every day. They don’t want to live in a world where shootings randomly occur and there is nothing one can do about it.

As much as the rational side of us tells us that our guilt is unfounded, another side of us craves meaning so badly that we keep slipping into our feelings of guilt. These feelings need to be validated and we need to find ways to accept, integrate, and move forward with these feelings. We can’t stop feeling guilty because someone tells us to. So, when it comes to why we feel guilt, it is important to reflect on the reasons for our guilt and then consider ways we can cope with guilt.

First and foremost, we need to accept that guilt is a common and normal feeling in bereavement and grief. Rather than looking back and wondering what could have been different, try to focus on the present and ask yourself, ‘What can I do now?’ Accept that your loved one has in fact gone. This is difficult to do but if we can, it really does help us move on to the next stage. I still have fantasies that my daughter will walk through the door. I think to myself that it was all a big mistake. These feelings will pass in time, especially if you acknowledge to yourself that these are just wishes. Try to get a correct perspective on your feelings of guilt. Could we really have done any more given the circumstances at the time? Usually, we find that people actually did do the best they could. As time goes on we can begin to let go of the guilt from the past and enjoy new things that life brings. Our loved one will always be a part of us and we will not forget them. We will always grieve our loss but we will integrate it into our lives and not move on, but move ahead.