The Blame Game

Many, many times, I have heard Robert’s grandmother (Margaret) blame herself for the fact the HD was passed on to her daughter and her grandchildren and possibly some great grandchildren. In fact, she has said on more than one occasion that she would never have had children if she had known about the disease before she began to have children. She feels it was all her fault that Cheryl inherited Huntington’s disease and passed it on to three of her five children.
Is that fair? Should she blame herself for something that she did not know about at the time and that only affected one of her three children? I don’t think so. First and foremost, she did not know at the time. Her husband did not pass away until Robert was a teenager. That means his mom was in 30’s! Add to that, when her husband was diagnosed, the disease was still relatively an unknown. Most of what we know about the disease today has been learned since he passed. Plus, she only passed it on to one of her three children. We have established that it is an unpredictable disease.
I do not have children of my own so I cannot say exactly how I would feel if I knew that I was personally responsible for essentially killing my child by passing this disease on. However, I can say that I know it would be heartbreaking to me if I knew that I was responsible for doing something that killed or injured one of the many nieces and nephews that I have. Plus, Robert and I thought long and hard about the whole thing before we decided to have children. It was not an easy decision but it came back to faith for us.
Faith that whatever happened to any children we might have was all part of God’s plan. Faith that God would help us through whatever trial we faced as a result of passing this disease on. And, it is like Robert’s sister, Debbie, has always said – For all we know, we might be raising the next president of the United States or the person that finds the cure for this devastating disease. Of course, Robert and I did not have children so we will not have to face the same situation as Margaret did and that Debbie does.
For many years, Margaret took care of Robert’s mother because she felt it was her responsibility since it was her daughter. Now, keep in mind that Margaret isn’t even five foot tall and probably weighs 75 pounds soaking wet and Cheryl was about 5 foot 8. So, when Cheryl could no longer dress or bathe herself or use the restroom, it was very hard for Margaret to help her. Still, she did not want to relinquish care of Cheryl to anybody else. Since she was the one that had a child with somebody who could pass on HD, it was her responsibility to care for that child. That is how Margaret saw it. It took a lot of talking from Robert’s brother Craig to convince Margaret to relinquish care of Cheryl. And once Cheryl was no longer there, Margaret’s health began to very rapidly deteriorate. And since Cheryl’s death, it has become even more severe. I think blame plays a huge part in all of that.
I have told her a few different times that she should not blame herself for what happened. Besides the fact that she did not know it, there are other reasons, too. She would have missed out on the many years of happiness that she had with Cheryl while she as alive. Plus, if she elected not to have children, then her remaining son and daughter who do not have the disease would not be around to care for her now. She would have to be in a nursing home all alone because there would be nobody around to help her. Plus, she would have been denied the privilege of knowing the her grandchildren and great grandchildren. While Jeff did have two boys, Cibby never had children. And Jeff’s two boys don’t have any grandchildren. Cheryl, on the other hand, had five children who in turn have had children of their own. So, she has witnessed yet another generation continuing on through Cheryl. Plus, if she had never had children, I would never have met Robert. And I cannot imagine my life without him in it. I am definitely glad that she did have Cheryl.
The disease being passed to Cheryl and then to Robert, Debbie and Bill was all part of the plan that God devised long before any of them were born. We may not know why it is that this all happened, but we have to believe that God knows what he is doing and it has all played out this way for a very specific reason. Blaming ourselves for any part that we may have played does not take away the hand that we have been dealt in life. Instead, it just makes us feel that much more miserable. Instead, what we can do is accept life for what it is and enjoy the moments that we have been given together because they can all be taken away in an instant – whether it is because of HD or a car accident on the way to work.