Hello and welcome to the Choosing Happy Podcast.

I'm Heather Masters, your host and today is a real tough and vulnerable episode for me, so bear with me through it.

Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads you desperately didn't want, stirring down a decision that no one ever should have to make?

Maybe you've been there, maybe you're there right now, carrying the kind of stress and burden that makes the world blur at the edges.

Well, in today's episode of the Choosing Happy Podcast, we go deep, so stay tuned.

I want to share something really raw and true today.

This memory is as sharp and blurry as the day I was there.

It's painful, precious and heavy on my heart.

Not long ago, some of you may know, I was caring for both my parents.

My mom was bed bound at home, gentle and fading.

Lots of, lots of things wrong with her.

And my dad was a strong willed, stubborn, bigger than life character.

Sometimes infuriating, always loved.

And he was in hospital, dying and in pain.

And I was juggling hospitals and home care, stretched so thin sometimes that I could hardly bear it.

I could hardly breathe.

And I'm sure some of you can relate.

That day I went to the hospital and the doctors looked at me.

I was the daughter who held the assigned role of decision maker, the one my dad trusted for his care.

I was honoured about that.

I truly was.

But in that moment, I had no idea just how impossible and lonely that choice would feel.

The choice was he was in pain and the consultant said to either give him morphine, knowing it would take him out of pain, but also he was likely it would end his life, or send him to A and E for interventions that would be painful and prolong his suffering and strip him away of what dignity he had left.

A fun decision to make.

I sat with him, my hand wrapped around his, his skin papery thin, his pulse weak.

And the air had that sterile hospital chill, that smell that's just unique to hospitals.

And beyond the click and whirr of machines, the rest of the world just vanished.

I remember wanting time to stop.

I remember wanting someone else to make the choice.

He slipped into sleep, the kind he wouldn't wake from.

And I sat watching him breathe, watching his chest rise and fall, caught between wanting him to stay and wanting his pain to end.

And I couldn't stay.

I had to go get my mum, whose conditions and frailty meant she couldn't come on her own.

She was on oxygen, she was wheelchair bound.

My sister took over at my dad's bedside and I rushed home.

And while I was home.

We got the call.

We'd missed him.

Minutes after my leaving, he'd passed.

I still took my mum to the hospital, but, you know, it was.

The whole world just shrank to grief and guilt.

And I had to pull myself together for my mum and get her there.

And the question still tapped me on the shoulder.

Did I fail him?

Did I make the right decision?

Should I have stayed at the hospital?

My heart always says yes, and my circumstances say no.

Some days, the judgment is fierce.

No one should have to make these decisions for someone they love.

And yet, who better than someone who loves them that deeply?

So here's some gentle truths, three gentle lessons.

1.

Choose courage, not shame.

These moments aren't about perfect answers.

They're about bravery, standing in love, not judgment.

If you chose with your heart and you chose with your knowing in that moment, that's all anyone can ask.

Two, make peace and allow yourself to let go.

Guilt's a shadow that follows us, especially after loss.

And I've had to learn slowly to forgive myself.

In fact, writing this episode helped me truly move forward.

And love guides every choice, even the hardest ones.

And if that's where you've made the decision from, then forgive yourself and practice resilience in the present moment.

That's number three.

After surviving the unimaginable, those breaths in the hospital, holding a life as it slips away, and then doing the same for my mum.

Every business decision, every ordinary care feels light in comparison.

There's a quiet strength that grows in you, a knowledge you can weather more than you ever, ever imagined.

So if you're holding an impossible choice or haunted by decisions past, please know you did the best you could with the resources you had at the time, with all the information you had at the time.

You loved was all you had.

And that is enough.

Even when it doesn't feel like it.

And if the tears fall, like they definitely did for me, writing this, let them.

It means you cared that much.

And if this story touched something in you, I just simply want to let you know that you're not alone.

Carrying hard choices is something we all do, but often quietly.

But here you're seen.

I have a feeling there are more people than ever facing choices they never thought they'd have to make.

And if you want to share your impossible choices with us, whether in a message or a comment or just by holding yourself a little bit more compassion today you can find the community at Choosing Happy Podcast and wishing you the strength and the grace in the days ahead.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this week's episode.

If you enjoyed it or think it would be valuable to others, please do share.

And if you really enjoyed it, please leave me a review.

It really helps the podcast.

All of the links are in the show notes and I look forward to seeing you next week on the Choosing Happy Podcast.