How do you deal with the guilt?

Hello everyone. I recently found this forum and have been reading a little here and there.

My mother was diagnosed with Dementia back in 2018, or 2019. Type or cause is unknown, although there is evidence of a small stroke. I, their only child, was living far away and Dad took care of Mom. Then Dad went through a round of medical issues and lost the battle to cancer in 2022.

I don't think I've even grieved for Dad yet. I stepped immediately into Mom's protector and provider. For three years I drove 5 hours every other Friday evening to spend the weekend with her, ensure she had groceries, set up her pill dispenser, fought with insurance, bills, and the VA for her. Drove the 5 hours home on Sunday. She never seemed to get worse in those years. She'd turn the water on to water the flowerbeds and forget to turn them off resulting in water bills that were out of this world, but she was fixated on making sure the stove and burners were always turned off. To the point of turning them off if I was trying to cook something and wasn't standing immediately at the stove.

The house is a few miles outside of a small rural town. Emergency services would be delayed if needed, possibly by the trains that stop across the main road into town.

This January she started being unsafe. I got a call from the local Sheriff, a neighbor had found her walking down the road. She put a bottle of water in her pocket, and a roll of coins and set out to walk the 14 miles to a lake house that our family members sold decades ago, because that is where my Dad "was with his family". (True enough, but they're all deceased and Mom can't get there by walking.)

She fell in the house and hit her head. She managed to get to the neighbor's house and they were kind enough to take her to the emergency room and kept me informed. I was out of the state for work, so of course I was panicked and distraught.

The city police called next. She was trying to walk into town to find the bus station, because another deceased person was waiting for her. A kind neighbor had picked her up and given her a ride to the courthouse not knowing of her mental challenges. Our very good friends took her back home and essentially lived with her for a few weeks until I could make arrangements.

Every time I would get there, Mom would be upset because during the evening the house was full of people. Her parents, her sisters, Dad, in-laws, but when she would wake up the house was empty, and no one would tell her that they were leaving. She won't believe they're all deceased and I don't argue. She calls me wanting the phone number to her family's old cafe, that was torn down before I was born. There are days she doesn't remember giving birth to a child, so I become Sister instead of Daughter. (This concerns me because Motherhood is core to my mother's entire being.)

I finally gave in. Last week I brought Mom down to where I live (no more 5 hour drives) to a Memory Care facility near me. It has been a rough week for both of us. She realizes the other people in care are "crazy", but she isn't crazy. She needs to go home. She has to ask permission to go outside. She just wants to go fishing and walk in the woods. She has absolutely no idea about the things she does that are so unsafe. She just cries that she wants to go home. that neighbor boy has probably broken into the house and stolen her things by now. (symptom, 'that neighbor boy' has done so much good for her.) Now I feel like the biggest piece of poop that ever walked the earth for doing this to my beloved Mama.

How do y'all deal with this guilt?