Never regret anything that has happened in your life, it cannot be changed, undone, or forgotten, so take it as a lesson learned and move on. -Anonymous

After someone you love passes often regrets come to the surface, we feel there was so much more we should have said and done. We also dwell on the things we wish we could take back. One of my biggest regrets happened after learning my husband probably had less than 6 months to live. His doctors informed him he was in active liver failure from the chemo treatments he had been taking to prolong his life. We both knew how serious this was, because almost 3 years earlier when he had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Back then, they had not given him any timeline at all. We later learned that 2 years into his cancer diagnosis, he had amazed them with the way he had responded to his treatment. He had been able to live a fairly good full life. When they explained they had not expected him to live past 6 months.  He was a miracle patient to them. So, when they told him his time would soon be up, my husband knew it was time to make peace with dying. My mind was not so ready to give up.

     This fatal diagnosis happened in August when I was on summer break, soon it would be time for me to return to work at school. My husband asked me to please not return to school at that time and to stay with him for the rest of the time he had left. Unfortunately, I let my fears get the best of me and I returned to my work, even though I wanted so much to stay home with him., I justified my decision because I feared losing the income and health insurance we were receiving from my employer. At that time there was no Affordable Care Act with the protections for keeping health coverage. My thinking at the time was if we lose my health insurance, how could we afford to pay for the treatments he needed, especially since he had beat the odds before. I had no reason to believe he would not do it again. He might even live past the 6-month time frame that his doctors gave us.  After all, they had been wrong before.

      So, I returned to work, but sadly within a few weeks, my husband deteriorated. Once this happened, I took medical leave to care for him. Within a few weeks, he gave up his fight and passed away. For months I was angry at myself for not listening to his plea to stay home with him. I thought of all the last days I had missed with him when he was able to have a coherent conversation before his liver failure affected his brain. I could not help feeling I should have listened to his last plea for me to be with him. I was angry at myself for denying him one of his last wishes. To this day, I sometimes wish I had made another choice, but I cannot change the decision so I decided I must forgive myself for it. I have realized I could not have known how little time I was to have with him.

     I wish I could say that was my only regret. As time pasts, I began to come up with a list of things I regretted. I regretted when he had been healthy and he wanted me to just sit with him, but instead made cleaning the house more important. I regretted the little arguments I had over things that seem so unimportant now. I also regrated all the times I failed to appreciate and say thank you for all the little simple things he did for me.  Now that he was gone all those simple things, making me tea in the am, fixing a door, and telling me he loved me whenever he left the house and before bed were big things I missed every day, now! It was the worse feeling to know I could have shown him an appreciation for those things but failed to. Today I have forgiven myself for all of these times because I could not know the future in which I would lose him so early in life.  I have used this insight now to show appreciation and thanks to those in my life today, I no longer take all those little things for granted anymore. I try to say thank you and show my appreciation more than I ever did before.

     So many who lost loved ones have these same thoughts of regret, yet I believe our loved ones who have passed have forgiven us and would never hold those things against us. We are the ones who need to forgive ourselves for being human.  We need to go on to remember the lessons we can learn from regrets and bring positive change to the present relationships in our lives today. Our lost loved ones would want us to cherish the relationships we still have. Holding unto regrets does nothing to bring them back nor to honor our lives with them. Holding unto regrets can also not change the past, but we can allow them to change us so we live in a way that allows us to forgive ourselves and others for the mistakes we all make. We can use this knowledge to be a better person in all the relationships we have now and also the ones we will have in the future!