Cooperation
Catherine and Nicholas were cleaning the kitchen, which they do, or else I will not cook food for them.
Nicholas dropped a glass and it shattered.
I cleaned it up, but I missed a piece, and Catherine stepped on it and cut her foot, which bled all over the floor.
Chris dealt with the bloody mess of her foot with a washcloth, Neosporin, and a Band-Aid.
Nicholas cleaned the blood off the floor and the chair. There was a lot of blood — not head-injury blood or miscarriage blood, but it looked like a crime scene from a family-friendly TV show. And he cleaned it up, and mopped the floor, without my telling him to.
Catherine said, “It’s my fault for having bare feet in the kitchen when I knew we broke a glass.”
Nicholas said, “It’s my fault for breaking the glass.”
I said, “It’s my fault for missing a piece when I cleaned it up.”
I don’t know whether my family would be functional like this if we hadn’t been through cancer and its aftermath. I like to think so, but I’m unfortunately lacking in the ability to peek into the alternate universe of my life without cancer, so I will never know.
Dance with the Reaper 
A lot of your posts make me tear up, but this one actually made me cry. I wish I had your ability to see things so clearly.
Lubs you Moxie. I think it’s age rather than wisdom-from-cancer, since I was pretty insightful before I got sick and cancer just sucks. But I could be wrong, and there is no way to find out.
How about, it’s nobody’s fault, sh*t happens?
I’m with Maureen on this one. But then, I’ve had to spend my adult life learning that there are things that aren’t my fault, and that weren’t under anyone’s control.
Also, I’ve spent much of my adult life learning that unwise as a carpeted kitchen might have seemed in the kitchen of my childhood, there are benefits to a softer kitchen floor.
In your alternate universe the recriminations never stop. See, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good!
The rocket scientist