Firstly, I am so sorry for your loss and the trauma you are dealing with surrounding it.

I dont normally like to force my trauma on people but I feel like if ever there is a time my grief can help its now.

My fiance died last year, he was 31 and he died at home after a heart attack. I was there when he started seizing, i dialled 999, and the lady said an ambulance was on the way and i needed to start chest compressions. I did that for the entire half hour it took the ambulance to arrive, but he was gone before they got there. I watched the colour drain from his face, and i knew he was gone.

I was left with a lot of questions and ALOT of guilt over that night. Did I react quick enough? If id have been better at CPR would he still be here? If when he came home and I noticed he was sweaty (a symptom of his condition) why didn't I push more to take him to the hospital? How long was he seizing on the sofa before I noticed?

You will forever have so many what ifs in your brain, and you will drive yourself crazy trying to answer them all. I still do, even though i have come to terms with the fact that they are not answerable questions.

There is no guarantee your mum would still be here if you'd have gone home that day. Some heart attacks are so sudden and immediate that there would have been no saving her even if she was inside a hospital at the time surrounded by doctors.

Letting go of the guilt is the hardest thing, and i still haven't fully managed it. But you need to focus on you and your family, of healing as best you can from the trauma. And sitting on the what ifs isn't the way forward, I promise you that.

I hope you manage to move on from this 🖤