Regrets

They say the dying man rarely commiserates about not having a perfect lawn, or bigger house, or spending more time at work. More likely a dying man is often heard saying he wishes he had spent more time with his family, or tried more things on his bucket list,or  even showed up when it was important to do so. So why do we spend so much time making sure we have perfection in "things" in this life? Why is it so important to some people that they dress in the latest and greatest? Why do so many people spend their lives chasing the "American Dream" or keeping up with the Joneses or worst yet, trying to be the Joneses?

Why don't we spend our lives instead making memories that will last with our families? Why don't we focus more on helping people around us? Why don't we spend our money on things that actually matter in the bigger picture and in the eternal perspective?

Do you ever think back on events in your life and wish you had done it differently? Does that come with age or maybe just perspective change? Sometimes it's with the best of heart and intention at the time that we make the decisions we do. Sometimes because we just aren't capable of seeing the big picture, we don't choose wisely. Sometimes, often times, we are letting our emotions drive our decision making. We are angry so we react instead of choose. Perhaps we are grieving and can't see the situation clearly and react in sadness.

I can honestly say I don't have a lot of "regrets" in life. I hope to not have many more. I have a philosophy that  I try to live by to guide my life. Basically I think we generally do the best we can with what we have at the time. And if I do the best I can with what I have at the time, then what I do experience or choose only makes me a stronger person. After all I am still living, therefore, it hasn't killed me :)

One regret I do have, and a lesson I learned and have come to appreciate and understand is regarding death and life. Funerals are never easy to attend. Depending on the circumstances of death, we usually struggle to say our good-byes. But it's a ritual of healing for us. Really it is. Funerals are a necessary part of the grieving process and that's why we go through this rather morbid ritual. It is necessary for us to have a moment to say our absolute final good-bye.

I grew up with my cousin, who was just one year older than me. Most of my life, outside of school, we did nearly everything we could together. When we were really young, our mothers (who are sisters), were very good friends. So we were at their home a lot. We used to ride bikes around the neighborhood or play games in the yard. We used to play "office" in the basement of our grandparents house and pick fruits and vegetables in their garden.

      One time when he was about 12 years old he had a paper route. He made a little bit of money and it was like play time for us. Now, understand I am not telling this story because I am proud of what we did. We were stupid plain and simple. We thought it would be funny to get on a city bus and ride it to wherever it would take us. Mind you it was a Sunday afternoon in Flint, Mich. There are so many things wrong with this scenario, I won't even go into all that. haha  So we got on the bus and rode and rode and rode. Until the bus driver said, "Final stop. Everyone off."  What??? Are you kidding me? Where the heck are we? Yeah, see we hadn't thought through this plan at all. Like I said, it was Sunday. The buses stop at 5 p.m. We were now left to our own accord to figure it out. This, also mind you, was WAY BEFORE cell phones had been invented. Besides that who would we call? What would we tell them? I wasn't about to call my mom. She would kill me. He wasn't about to call his mom, besides she didn't have a car. I also won't get into how neither parent really even noticed we were actually gone all day. So we did what we figured we had to do. We started walking. How on earth we knew what direction in which to go is beyond me. I suppose we just went the opposite direction of the bus. We came to the highway and decided it would probably make a shorter trip home. So we followed the highway. Sometimes walking on the highway shoulder (I warned of our stupidity already) and sometimes on the high walls that lined the highway. Eventually we made it home, miraculously unharmed and unscathed. But oh the story it made for us to laugh at for years to come.

We took trips to Cedar Point together. We went to movies and roller skating together. I kept his secrets and he kept mine. He was the oldest grandkid and I was next in age.  He was the best friend I could have ever had not just because of the fun we had but also he understood to a deep level, just how difficult it was being kids in our family. After high school he went into the Navy and was later discharged.

When I was in college, I received the most devastating news I could have ever received. See he had been sick and in the hospital for some time. I visited him but he was in a medically induced coma and it tore my heart out when I learned he wasn't expected to recover. The disease was taking over his body. He wasn't going to survive. He was going to die. He did die. I literally couldn't take it. I couldn't handle the thought that I would never see him smile again. I would never hear his voice again. We would never be able to hold another secret for each other again. He wouldn't know my children, who had not yet been born. I wasn't really prepared for his death. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I chose to not attend his funeral.

I couldn't stop crying and I certainly couldn't get out of bed. I had every excuse in the world why I couldn't go. But the truth was, I couldn't get up. I couldn't come to terms with his passing in time to get up, get dressed and travel back to Michigan to say that good-bye. So I let grief consume me and paralyze my life for that time. I did not go to the funeral to make that one last necessary good-bye possible.

It was a lesson I learned really the hard way. There are some choices that we make in this life that don't really matter. There are some we can't ever fix or take back. I am left with the biggest regret in my life. I have had to rely on the faith I have in a God of healing to really put my heart back together over the years. That faith and restoration power of the love of Jesus has been the only thing that has been able to comfort my broken heart and fix the mistake I made. As OK as that part of the story is, the lesson was still huge and definitely learned. Regret is an ugly thing to live with.

 From there on out, I have attempted to look for the things that matter in life and choose them. I don't want to get to the end of my life with a list of things I wish I had done or taught my kids that is longer than the list I did accomplish with them. I don't want my kids to get to the end of their lives and say "I wish my mom would have bought me better clothes. or If only mom would have taught me how to treat people better..." I want to invest in the things for my children and my life that matter most, the things with an eternal perspective.