Enough guilt, already!

This guilt could be all consuming. I am trying desperately to prevent it from eating me alive but I don't think that I'm succeeding. My conversations with my mother are always centered on her opinion that I ( not collectively with my brother) decided to place her in a nursing home before it was really necessary. She accuses me of looking for the easy way out of taking better care of her and for "dumping" her. I intellectually don't accept those explanations because I know how hard I worked at finding alternative solutions with little success. HOWEVER, emotionally she is able to push every guilt button that exists within me. I find myself questioning and re-questioning our decision. Was there any other way? Could she have managed at home for a while longer without serious consequences? I know that her finances wouldn't have supported it for very long, but I find myself entertaining the notion that it would have been worth the few months in order to avoid the daily barrage that greets me each morning and the consuming guilt that we didn't even try anything else.

I seek help from friends and medical advisors but everyone seems to believe we did the right thing except for me. Maybe Mom isn't the only one having difficulties with her less independent status. Maybe I'm the one who finds it too painful to see this powerhouse reduced to anything less. Maybe I'm the one who is fearful that it will be me some day who must endure the same end. Maybe it's not really guilt, but it's just fear? I never operated on guilt very much. I always prided myself that I just try to do the right thing out of love, Herein lies the crux of the problem. This decision doesn't feel like a loving gesture. This decision feels awful and convincing myself that sometimes love includes making painful choices is the hardest part of all.