Regret

Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.

Kurt Vonnegut

Regret. 

What do I regret in this grief? Never dressing him up in a tuxedo and going out for a fancy meal. Man I would have first loved to see him look so handsome and second, peoples faces at the restaurant 😂

Not hiking more. 

Not going to his favorite places more. 

Not knowing what was really wrong in 2014 when he started laying on the floor. 

Not understanding megaloblastic anemia and listening to the geneticist that said it was no big deal. 

Listening to all the doctors who told us it was fine when it wasn’t. 

The majority of my regrets come from what we didn’t know but I wish I did. We weren’t doctors but we figured out what was wrong with him often before they did. Except for the final terminal diagnosis that has been coming like a tidal wave and we were completely unaware until it smacked us down. 

We gave our boy the best life we could and showed him the world. But the regret still comes, ebbs and flows with the remains of that tidal wave. 

Yet another thing we live with after loss. And people can say it’s okay, you gave him a great life. I know we did, that is not the cure for regret. Nothing is. Just like with grief, regret is it’s friend that we carry. No matter where we are or what we do or how we feel, regret stays as we live this duality. 

After the loss of a child, we do live in this duality forever. And it’s okay. It’s the coming to peace with it, the accepting that reality and acknowledging its existence that’s hard. After two years I see it, know it and live with it. 

Regret. It is what it is and there are things I wish we had done and wish we had known. But at the end of the day, I always know we did do the best we could.