Writing this post tonight with a mix of heavy emotions while my mum sits right beside me on the couch, quietly watching TV.

After a gruelling few years of chemo, seeing how much her body has deteriorated and the cancer has progressed, my family came together and made the decision to stop treatment. Rationally, I know it was the right call, chemo was no longer fighting the cancer, just robbing her of quality of life. But I can’t convince the rest of myself.

To be honest, there was an initial wave of relief, which makes me feel like the worst person in the world. As her primary caregiver, my life has revolved around her. I was drained from caring for her and watching her suffer, and part of me was relieved her torture was ending.

But then im always stuck in suffocating wavess of guilt. Am I relieved for her, or secretly just for myself to get my life back? Am I logically preparing for the worst, or using a defense mechanism to avoid the pain? I’m grateful we can say goodbye, but it’s deeply draining to feel like I’m just waiting for her to die. Now that she’s in palliative care and looks more comfortable, I constantly wonder: Did I give up too easily? 

I don’t know how to feel anymore. It feels like I’m already grieving her while she’s still breathing right next to me, even catching myself packing up her unused things. But every night, I realise how Im completely unprepared for her to leave. I feel an uneasy dread realising we aren't fighting anymore. We're just waiting.

If you’ve been through this exhausting limbo of stopping treatment and waiting for the end, how do you survive the mental weight? How do you quiet the guilt and just be present?