I can remind her to do her walks around the house each day and encourage her to do the PT exercises she was taught by her physical therapist, but she has to do the work. She does, for the most part, but there are times when she's just too tuckered out from doing the normal things she does around the house, so I try not to push on those days.

But there are days I do push, and some of that stems from watching my dad spend the last two years of his life sitting in his recliner, only getting up when it was absolutely necessary - like when he needed to go to his dialysis and doctor's appointments, the bathroom or when he was ready to go to the bedroom to take a nap.

Looking back, I feel guilt because I didn't push my dad much over those two years as far as the exercise went, leaving that to Mom, who told me it was best if she handled it. The few times I did mention something casually about him doing his PT exercises, I was shut down.

Even though it was his choice, I felt like I was watching my dad waste away in that recliner, only doing physical therapy when the PT person was here. And after he passed away I vowed I would do everything I could to encourage and motivate my mom to stay as mobile as she could be, as at that point she was experiencing low energy levels and iron deficiency anemia which we later found out was due to colon cancer.

In addition to going through cancer and chemo, Mom is 80 and has the normal aches and pains that many senior citizens do, so I have to keep all of that in mind when advising her to do her walks.

When she does them, I'm proud of her, but I feel guilty too because I can see how hard it is for her sometimes to do them, and then I wonder if I'm pushing too hard. But the only alternative is for her to just sit down all the time, so I have to try to keep her moving.

It's a Catch-22.

After I lost my dad in June 2022, I was consumed with guilt for months, wondering if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. Should I have done this or that differently, pushed for this or pushed against that?  The questions rolled around in my brain on a loop.

Mom kept telling me to stop thinking about the past so much and blaming myself in part. "God has a plan for all of us," she told me again and again. "And He had decided it was your dad's time."

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point, her words got through to me. I thought back on some of the signals I think my dad was sending in the last year of his life, saying in his own way that his body was tired and that he was tired of fighting and was ready to let whatever was going to happen happen.

And now, as we head into 2024, Mom has some important doctor appointments right off the bat related to the post-chemo monitoring phase, and of course, what do I do? I think back to well before her diagnosis and wonder if there had been something I could have done to have gotten her in sooner to have her colonoscopy performed so that maybe she wouldn't have had to go through all of this.

The guilt over issues big and small, past and present, comes and goes, but I'm hoping to get a handle on it next year because it's something that can consume and control your life if you're not careful.

I need to concentrate on the present and future, not dwell on the past, because that is something that can't be changed, and I need that energy here in the present to help with Mom's well-being... and my own.

Note: To read my previous Caregiver's Diary entries, please click here.