My mom finally passed away in December from Alzheimer's. She was in a residential care facility because I was convinced I could not care for her. She was there 3 months before she died. She did need a hoyer lift, to be fed and changed and lost her ability to walk. I keep thinking if I had brought her to my home, she may not have went downhill so quickly. I know she did not want to be there. I visited her 2-3 times a week and got to know the staff quite well. She never became beligerant or angry. I was afraid she might and did not want to expose my children to that. There was no other family here to help with her care. My husband was against her living with us because he knew this could go on a long time. But it didn't and looking back, I think we both reacted out of fear instead of what may have been best for her. How do I deal with the guilt?
Your mom was very ill and very needy. If she had come to live with you, you would have been doing the work of three shifts of caregivers around the clock. You would have had no quality time with your family. The things the facility staff did for your mother were most likely medical procedures and things, like the Hoyer, that required training to prevent injury to them or to her.
If Mom was not belligerent or angry, it probably means she was accepting and content with her situation and they were taking good care of her.
Allow yourself to mourn for your mother. She is at peace now and you should be too.
You did well. Let yourself off the hook.
You did what was best for her and for your family. Do you think your mom would have wanted to be a burden to you and your family? I think not! I think as Ahmijoy stated "mom was not belligerent or angry it probably means she was accepting her situation..." You did what you thought was right. There is no way for you to know if your mom would have lived longer living with you, she might have passed away anyways. Let yourself off the hook. Your mom knows you loved her!
Hugs!
If you are a reader of Scripture, be blessed by this little gem: "All things work together for good to them that are called of God ..." you were obviously called by God to take care of your LO. So therefore, the decisions you made were the best possible ones. They were God-led. And God blessed those decisions. He says so. Accept it. Believe it, whether you feel it or not, because He says so, therefore it must be true. Accept it by faith , not by feeling.
So those What ifs and If Onlys can take a hike to the bottom of the river. They don't exist! Only God's Word exists. Amen.
Blessings to you.