Despite drinking more beer than is healthy, I just can't sleep. I didn't sleep very much at all last night, and during the 30 minutes or so that I did sleep I dreamed that I rushed home to find my mother was actually ok and hadn't died.

I am exhausted but somehow sleep refuses me. Damn, how selfish is this? My mother just died and I am bitching about the fact that I can't sleep. Good G-d I'm a selfish piece of shit!

I keep thinking about my mother, the funeral home I have to visit in the morning to schedule everything, and the fact that my mother never quite finished the spoon collection she had going. I think she lacked three or four states to complete the collection. I could have picked them up for her and completed it easily. I bought quite a few of them as I had traveled, but more often than not I just didn't think about it. It would have been such a minor thing to buy those few more spoons and complete her collection. After all, it was mostly started to track the states I traveled through so she thought about me when she looked at them. Great son I am I just didn't take the time or thought to pick up those few more.

Her good friend Naomi was at her house when I got home today. As we talked one of the things she told me was how much Mom looked forward to my returning home again. She would excitedly tell her that I would be home again in three or four days. To me it was just getting home again to get some rest. I totally took her presence for granted.

Do all adults go through these guilt feelings when a parent dies? Or am I just now realizing (too late) what a real piece of shit son I really was?