How do I Forgive Myself

I made a decision in a hospital room that cost me the rest of my life.

I’ve spent the last two weeks fighting myself to get ahead, but only fell further behind, feeling the weight of the present. When the now feels too heavy my mind tends to drift back to a moment in my past where 'heavy' took on a literal meaning.

That was when Glenn had his stroke. We have had plenty of discussions on whether or not we would want life saving measures taken if something catastrophic were to happen to us.

I said no.

Glenn said yes…

…and then it happened

Most people think life-changing moments arrive with a trumpet blast. For me, it was a noise in the night I didn’t get out of bed for. It was a private room with a doctor who had seen my devastation a thousand times before.

I’ve spent forty years trying to be a peacekeeper, a business owner, and a wife. But in the Neuro Critical Care Unit the “trying” was stripped away. I was given a new role, one I never applied for.

(The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir)

The doctor brings me into a private room. “Mrs. Varga your husband has suffered a massive stroke—a left middle cerebral artery infarct. “He is awake and alert, but unresponsive to questions. We have arranged transport down to the Level 1 Trauma Hospital where the Neuro Critical Care Unit can better address the situation”.

I stand motionless, tears burning as they track down my cheeks. My throat constricts, a physical closing of the world. “I can’t believe this,” I whisper, my voice a panicked rasp directed at no one and everyone. “I heard a noise in the night... it’s my fault. Why didn’t I get out of bed?”

The doctor looks at me with eyes that have seen this devastation a thousand times. He tells me there is no way to know. He tries to offer me a shoreline to stand on, but I am already under.

All these thoughts are just racing through my mind. The nurse, God bless her soul, could not have been more supportive for Glenn: “Right now, Mrs. Varga, your husband needs you to be calm. He needs your love and support. You will have time to fall apart when you are alone, but when you are with him, your husband needs you to be strong. You need to be his strength when you are with him.”

The nurse meant it as a lifeline, but looking back, it felt like a sentence. Be his strength. In that moment, I became a Doer of Must. I didn't have the luxury of the "shoreline" the doctor offered; I had to learn how to breathe underwater.

I stood there in that sterile room, nodding at the nurse, but inside I was counting the decades. I had been “the strength” for so long that I didn’t know how to be anything else.

I didn’t realize it then, but I had spent forty years in a masterclass of endurance. I had been a peacekeeper, a wife, a mother, and a business owner—always trying, always bracing.

We talk about “all life-saving measures” as a heroic choice. We rarely talk about the person who has to provide those measures every single day in the silence of a bedroom that no longer sounds like home.

I chose “Yes” to the surgery. I chose to be the strength. But some days I wonder who is supposed to be mine.

I realized then that I wasn’t just a wife in a hospital room. I was a woman who had been unknowingly training for this weight my entire life. I had spent decades being the one who held the line, the one who didn’t break, the one who simply did what had to be done.

I was, and am, Doer of Must

How do I forgive myself for the choice that saved him, but cost me the rest of my life?