Mom passed away July 14, 2020...

My mom passed on June 15th of vascular dementia at 96. My brother and I cared for her in her home for 11 years. I share your grief although not the same situation. I know we did a good job but I’m still struggling with feelings of what more could I have done. I too thought I’d be relieved when it was all over. I sometimes wished it would be over so I could enjoy my life but now I feel guilty for those thoughts. One grieves with every decline. I ache for the mother who reared me but I can’t get past her dying days. I know grief is a process but it hurts so bad. Condolences to you. Be good to yourself. You’ve done well.

You will come to be glad that your mother is no longer suffering and take comfort in knowing that you did a better job than your siblings ever would have done based upon the way you describe them but you seem a little judgmental about their lifestyle and little off-putting in the way you acted out your disapproval by keeping your children away from your siblings or so it sounds. If you really expected a love letter from your mother expressing her affection and undying appreciation for the kind of daughter you think you have been, you aren't being very realistic. Your mother and father lived in the same home with you and almost no one writes goodbye letters like the one you seemed to be hoping for. No one ever knows how or when they are going to die and that's how God intended. Its far better to get up every day expecting to live forever and don't write any goodbye letters to anyone. And practically no one really ever knows their parents and thank goodness for it! There is nothing good or positive about parents or children knowing everything about each other. Adults need to leave separate, independent lives. You don't need to know everything your parents valued or all the mistakes they made. There's no value in knowing all their intimate thoughts. They are your parents, not your friends. If your mother's list of activities didn't include fun activities she had with you, perhaps she was simply more like your siblings and enjoyed the kind of partying that you find distasteful. That doesn't mean you were not close; it means that you were in intimate contact on a daily basis and your mother took her relationship with you for granted in much the same way she probably took your father for granted. Your mother relied on you and knew that you would be the one who would take care of her until the end and then settle all of her affairs. You were her ace in the hole. You will know this and learn to enjoy the quiet and feel the peace you expected when you come to terms with the reality that its all over for both of your parents and you have entered a new phase of your life whether you like it or not. I hope you will embrace it eventually, knowing that you did what was right and proper, and, more importantly, what YOU decided you wanted to do...take care of both of your parents in your own home. Make peace with your siblings whether they came to visit her or not. Their inheritance is about much more than who cared for your parents in their last years. Giving each child a share of an inheritance based upon what a parent thinks each one has done for them is a recipe for sibling disaster after they die. I know of one situation in which that happened and it caused a total estrangement between a female and a male sibling that lasted the rest of both of their lives. I see so many posts on this website about the final caregiver being bitter about having to share an inheritance with non-caregiving siblings that may or may not have been pulling their weight in their last years. The truth is that it is almost always only one child who elects to be the caregiver or allows the job to be forced upon them by their other siblings. But its still a choice that the one who ends up being the caregiver chooses to make. I hope you will let your resentment of your siblings go eventually so you can move on to the next phase of your life with forgiveness and joy.