No regrets

We all live with regret. If we’re lucky our regrets are trivial, the could-have-been, should-have-been type questions we ask ourselves late at night about actions not taken, words left unspoken. Some are the product of inevitable self-doubt where we channel our inner Marlon Brando: “I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody.”  

I’m lucky; my regrets are trivial. The truth is, though, that I’m supposed to have enormous, searing regrets, the kind that exist after a teenager acts like a teenager toward his mother but never has the chance to say “I’m sorry” or “Thank you” when he later grows wise. The kind that are fashioned by unresolved grief and slowly grow stronger, more fierce. I don’t experience the worst kind of regret because my mother stood up for me in the face of death.

Mom knew she couldn’t cheat death, but she was determined to steal some of its power. So she grieved with me rather than let me do it alone. As her tumors grew larger and her days grew smaller, she told me she would soon die. I was only 14, but there was no room for false hope. No time, more accurately. Instead, mom wept with me. She laughed with me. She overlooked her pain in an effort to heal mine.

A popular image of grace is that of a magnificently dressed woman sauntering down a staircase before a captivated audience. My image of grace features my weakened mother, rapt with pain, being carried down our home staircase by paramedics. As she passed in front of me – an audience of one, captivated by fear – she instructed that I must not worry about things I'd ever said to her. All was forgiven. Her spirit was graceful even when her appearance was not.

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