The ‘R’ Word

I have this friend who adamantly claimed once that he didn’t have any regrets in life. Granted, that was a few years ago, I somehow believe that he still feels the same way. And, knowing him as well as I do, I think a little bit of ‘regret’ would humble him, and maybe help him treat people better. Look at me imposing my opinion!

To each their own.

I remember how I felt upon hearing him claim this. I felt immediately guilty - I even felt ‘less than’. Because, you see, I have regrets; a lot of them. Back when he and I had our initial conversation I guess I wasn’t strong enough to see the big picture. I actually imagined he was a better person than me, on the sheer fact that he was claiming he hadn’t ever made any errors in his life. I saw me as weak and him as strong. I saw myself as a ‘mistake maker’, and he was ‘wise’. I wondered – can I start fresh from here on out – and not have any more regrets starting today? But then, that afternoon, I found another choice to make, that I would later - you guessed it… regret.

Please don’t think that I wallow or drown in the big bad ‘r’ word. It’s not consuming my being and acting as quicksand attaching itself to the ankles of my sense of self. I see regret as kind of a beautiful life lesson, now at this stage of my life. Yes it sometimes causes my throat to tighten – because of sickness or sadness, depending. But, I genuinely feel that every ounce of regret that I have been panged with has woken a different part of me that needed its eyes opened.

Closely linked with regret, I am willing to argue that disappointment is one of the heaviest emotions one can carry. Whether you are disappointed in someone you believed you could count on, or trusted. Or, someone you love and admire is disappointed in you, it carries an equally thick and heavy burden. The hopeful light at the end of the tunnel of disappointment is that we can learn very valuable lessons from it, if willing. If we are blind to the lesson in our feelings of disappointment (in others, or ourselves), then we careen forward in our lives – not being fully aware of how our actions affect others, and vice versa.

My regrets span from very simple every day happenings; to hair cuts, large purchases, past clothing choices, weekend plans, and some of the men I chose to give my heart to.

For example, the other day I was merrily eating blueberries while driving, and a few were too mushy to be enjoyably consumed. I had a paper bag in my car that I had put a few other ‘green bin’ items in that I planned to dispose of when I got home (did you know that throwing mushy blueberries onto the road can attract wildlife, which are then at risk of being killed in a hit and run? Gum even has this affect. Please be mindful!) Before going home I stopped to check my mail at our local general store, and decided to check my lotto ticket while I was at it. It was a dud, so I ripped it up into tiny pieces and put it in my pocket. When I got back to my car I threw its remains into the paper bag, fully aware that I would have to separate the pieces from the green bin ‘stuff’ and put it in the recycling bin once home. But, I thought that better than leaving it in my pocket to be pulled out and scattered at a later date – knowing I would forget it was there.

The only problem? Where the paper bag was placed in my front seat, my purse strap was wrapped around it. So, unbeknownst to me, when I grabbed my purse first, it spun that paper bag around real quick and scattered its contents throughout the front of my car. Oh joy! This is where I had a laugh, and thought ‘just my luck’. Trust me - it gets better! I didn’t realize, but some of the contents fell into a big reusable shopping bag that had pharmacy purchases in it, that was sitting on my car’s floor. When I went to unload its contents in the bathroom, I just dumped everything inside it on the off-white bath mat we have. Well, if you haven’t already guessed, by the time things were nicely put away, I had a few big and beautiful purple splotches on my nice clean bath mat. Woops! If I had only grabbed the paper bag first!

Still, the blueberry stains have come out, and I can now laugh about this now – lesson learned.

Some regrets are bigger. Some leave very important things in your life empty. For example: your gas tank (has never happened to me – but close!), your wallet, your bed, or most importantly - your heart. If we aren’t careful with the hearts of those we come in contact with, karma has a funny way of kicking our hearts in the ass in return.

I think we can be defined by the company we keep. And, I can very proudly say that I have some of the best friends a gal can wish for, from so many neat little pockets in my life. I am willing to give myself some credit for that, because it doesn’t just happen because I’m lucky (I’ve had my share of some bad luck too), but good relationships take work. And, regret is often part of that. There are times that I regret not calling, or not paying a compliment that teetered on the tip of my tongue. There are times that I regret not stopping in, or making an extra trip ‘just because’. There are things I regret doing, in place of other options that would have made my heart happier in the long run (selfish – admittedly). There are people I regret giving so much of my love and energy to, because they didn’t appreciate it the way someone else would have.

I mean, I was ‘best friends’ with the man I am now married to for 2 years before I let him kiss me! I often think, “I wonder what we missed?” But then the regret subsides and I realize that we have many kisses to come, and that there was learning going on in those 2 years that I will never be able to define. When I finally did let him in, the earth shook, and I knew I’d never kiss another boy again – gladly. It may not have been as magnificent if I’d just let it happen as ‘something to do’, and I will forever be grateful for the patience he gave because he felt that I was worth the wait. I doubt I would have ever had that stamina.

How does this connect to my relationship with my Mom? Should I even go there?

I regret being embarrassed when she did the eccentric and unique things she used to do (in public, mostly), that I didn’t think were ‘cool’. I would be 13 forever and in her creative company if I could go back in time and press pause. It’s only now that she’s gone that I truly value her unique approach to life, and her ability to not care what people thought (or she did an awfully good job of pretending!).

I regret arguing with her about going out on a Friday night, or using the car in a horrendous snow storm. Now I know that a) she was lonely, and just really loved my company, and b) that she was genuinely worried about my safety, and wanted to protect me by being proactive.

I regret some of the guys I dated, or ‘chased’ without success (thank goodness). Cancer was what got her in the end, but I’m surprised I didn’t give her a heart attack! Thankfully I have married the only one she ever truly loved. And, did she ever! She even told me once (and I believed her) “If you break his heart, I’ll kill you”.

I regret not helping out more around the house. Now that it has been left to me, and I see what she did for 24 years all by herself (physically and financially) I wonder how she managed. I sometimes find myself cleaning or organizing into the wee hours of the night, ending up in tears. I always end up saying things like, “I don’t know how you did this”, and “I’m just not good at this the way you were”. I did my best to do the little things, but there were so many things that I could have done to make things that much easier for her, but didn’t.

I also regret not showing her enough appreciation when I could have. I’ve said it before; we don’t know what we have until we don’t have it anymore. Talk about regret! The good thing is, and I know she is happy that I learned this – even if it is a bit too late, now I get a lot of joy out of showing people (and life in general) more appreciation. And, I always make a point of being specific about it. What good is appreciation if it isn’t directed. Productivity is rarely born out of aimlessness!

I regret not helping her to do a huge purge in our house/basement while we could (for 2 reasons). Do you want the selfish one or the unselfish one first? For one, I hate that it’s all up to me now, because it takes a lot of time – but even more mental and emotional strength – to do it. But, mostly because I know she felt a lot of guilt at the end of her life knowing the ‘mess’ she was leaving. She even told me it would be ok to fill the basement with cement and forget about it. But – I hope she can see now that a messy basement is a tiny hiccup when you leave someone a beautiful property and house to call home.

I regret saving all of the nasty emails she ever sent when she was mad at me. Scratch that – I regret telling her that I did. She even, admittedly, tried to break into my email account to delete them once, as she didn’t want me to have those to remember her by (this happened when she was much healthier and able, of course). Sly woman she was! I may never read them again, but, she sent me lovely ones that I will forever keep and read repeatedly. Good or bad, she was the best writer I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

I regret not being more helpful when it came to the big jobs around the house she had hoped to accomplish in the last years of her life. New decks? A French door in her bedroom? A repaired chimney? The fence being taken out? We did it all – last summer – after she was gone. I guess her wishes became my crusade, and I felt like I was honouring her by doing it. Her death lit a fire under me, and we have accomplished a great deal. The regret part comes into play when I know she didn’t get to step back, sigh, and enjoy it. I hope she is, from wherever she is.

I regret letting my school work and then teaching take priority over my quality time spent with her. Somehow, as a teacher, she had a magical way of making it look easy. She was somehow able to balance an incredibly successful teaching career, with a beautiful home, and raised me (I’d like to say well) in the meantime. I don’t juggle ‘life’ as well as she did, and find I have to do one thing at a time, and it takes me longer. I have gained a great deal of perspective about what my career means to me because of her passing. And, luckily not too late. I left a full time teaching position to return to supply work when I knew her health was starting to fail. We were able to spend 5 months of more ‘quality’ time together because of it. That, my friends, I do not regret at all.

I regret not being able to see the ‘big picture’ of my Mom when she was still here. I always saw her as her smaller parts, and never looked at her upbringing, and how that made her who she was. I didn’t realize how hard her job was, or owning a home was, until I did both myself. I didn’t realize how crucial it was to have a friend that you can rely on and love to be your partner in life, until I found one. She didn’t have that, for far too long. If I could have seen all of this, I would have had a much fuller and warmer understanding of her emotions and why our relationship the way it was. I guess if I had known how limited my time with her was going to be, it would have certainly altered my determination when we disagreed.

I regret my frustration, as I listened to her long voicemails that I would get at the end of my work day. I often thought, “wait to tell me in person! I always call you as soon as I’m out of work! Listening to you on my answering machine is just a waste of our time”. Now I wish I had saved every single one, so I could sit and listen to her rambles and tangents whenever I got the urge. I also regret how I felt while sitting in my car in the driveway, when I got home from work and she was still talking away. Sometimes my drive was 45 minutes, but I’d sit in my car for another 15 thinking, “there’s so much inside that apartment that I should be doing instead of sitting out here”. Oh what I would trade to have one more sunny afternoon in my car, listening to my Mom’s beautiful voice talk about nothing, and everything, without pause.

I also regret all of the time we spent disagreeing, arguing, or not talking because of really simple and trivial issues. If I had only known how little time we had on this earth together, I wouldn’t have wasted those precious moments (even if at times that would have been very hard to do).

I’m sure I could go on and on, but the biggy is the one that came in the end. I regret that I believed my Mom was invincible. If you knew her, you know that not much slowed her down – let alone stopped her. I genuinely thought that the cancer would be just another blip on her radar, that she would stomp it down and out, and move on with a new lease on, and appreciation for, life. Even when it came back, and they said it was terminal, I thought my time was limitless. I thought that if I believed strongly enough (even when she couldn’t) that her cancer couldn’t bring her down. Because of this, I didn’t research enough. I should have read more books, and helped her completely change her diet. I should have found more holistic approaches to building her immunity. I’ve since read so much about people who stop cancer in its tracks (it may not be gone, but frozen in time). I would have coached her and persisted so that she could feel as confident and sure as I did. I would have asked for second opinions, demanded better treatment, and stopped at nothing to make sure we tried everything in order to have no – you guessed it – regrets about our approach to her illness. I wouldn’t have missed a chemo treatment, or the days that followed where she was sick and scared. For years my mom had independently and staunchly fought and won against all the other injuries and unwell times in her life – how could this time be different?

I maybe wouldn’t have gone to Ireland, last May, when her health took its ultimate dive for the worst. I thought I had covered my bases by reaching out to neighbours and friends to check in on her while I was away (they did – and I love them for it). You see, she had a bit of a stomach problem in the 2 weeks leading up to our departure, which had been planned since January. We thought she had a flu bug that she was having trouble shaking, due to her limited immune system from the chemo. Turns out she had brain cancer, and bad. While I was away, and she was at the house alone, she very quickly lost complete control of her self. She was very unwell, and injured because of it. I came home to a Mom in the hospital, who was never going to come home, and a house that the police and ambulance drivers treated as a ‘crime scene’. If I had only stayed in Ontario!

But then, a wonderful friend of mine who has a funny way of making me see the bright side of things said, “If you had known how sick your Mom was, you never would have gone to Ireland”. She was right. She also pointed out that I had a purpose in Ireland, too. I had gone to see the beauty the country has to offer, but mostly to meet my husband’s extended family – namely his Nana. When I met her, she was 90 years old. Her age was slowing her down, but she was still living independently. And, if the purpose provided itself, she could stay up until the wee hours singing old Irish tunes and drinking Jameson straight, on ice, while being nothing but a proper lady. In November, Nana passed away. And, if I had known how sick my Mom was back in May, I never would have gone, and I never would have met her. This friend of mine made me see it this way. She also said, “try and wish as hard as you could, you couldn’t make your Mom well”. So true. And, on our last night in Ireland, Nana turned to my then boyfriend (her grandson) and said quite loudly, “So when are you getting’ married?” [insert thick Irish accent here]

At least now I know we have her blessing!

If we genuinely think that we are perfect and incapable of any kind of error that might be regrettable, then we may just be leaving a trail of destruction in our wake. If we let ourselves regret a little bit, but we learn from it, the empty space where the regret was born will quickly fill up with the good we can do in place of the thing that started that very cycle.

So, you see, regret doesn’t have to be a dirty word, as long as we learn from them and try not to make the same mistakes again. And, as long as we have one person in our lives that is going to love us no matter what, then we can continue in the process of learning from regret our whole lives. If that person (who loves you no matter what) is your Mom – thank her for that, would ya?

And, since you can see that there are a lot of regrets that I have with respect to my relationship with my Mom, and I can’t make changes here and now about that to better my relationship with her, maybe you can learn from mine. That, my friends, would make my regrets feel all the more worthwhile.

But, even with a long list of regrets, I don’t regret the way I loved my Mom no matter what. In the end, I know she knew I did, and she deserved every bit of it.