No Regrets?

[WaltC]

The January 7th selection from Martha Hickman’s Healing After Loss offers some good advice, in my opinion.

It may be difficult for some (many?) of us to follow, but I believe it will be worth the effort!

“Regret is an appalling waste of energy. You can’t build on it….” Katherine Mansfield.

“Of course there are things that we regret. Things we wish we’d done differently…..Surely our loved one has forgiven us. Can we forgive ourselves?”

“I’m sorry. Please know that I loved you. I know that you loved me.”

I certainly regret that my Jeannie died last April, BUT there’s nothing I can do to change that horrible FACT.

So the best that I can do is to honour her memory EVERY day for the rest of my life and NEVER forget our everlasting love for each other.

I hope this new year is one in which we can have NO REGRETS and find some comfort in the good memories of our lost loved ones.

[ustwo]

Me too!

Always Gene!

Always!

[charlieslove]

It's strange how you feel guilty or have regrets. Some times when I get into my crying fits I tell my husband how sorry I am...I'm sorry that he was the one to get sick - I'm sorry this had to happen to him. It does kind of make you feel a little guilty for still being able to be here.....

I think when people get ill, maybe we feel guilty for not having "done more". Problem is that when you are talking grown adults, it's not always easy to GET them to see a doctor sooner or more often. Especially if they are the kind of person that "hides" things from you. Maybe doesn't tell you when they are feeling bad. I know there are things that my husband didn't tell me right upfront - I mean at the on-set. I'm sure it's mostly because they don't want us to worry.

Walt - I thank you for those words of wisdom. I will make every effort to not live with regrets! Thank you!!!

My thoughts are with all of you.

Patti

(Charlie 6/10/58-11/16/04)

[Maylissa]

As the child of an alcoholic, Regret is my second name! I spent the larger part of my life trying to 'fix' everyone in the family, especially my Mom - a common reaction for one family member to take on as their 'role' in an alcoholic family. So trying to abolish this reaction in myself after my Mother's death has been a renewed and ongoing battle. Logic plays no part in this, unfortunately, but is what I must use to push through it, in order that I survive my loss.

As you said, Patti, it's often hard, if not impossible, to "get" someone to do what's best for them once they're set in their ways. My Mother would almost never listen to my advise, and frankly, her doctors wouldn't listen to me, either, as they ignored far too much of the inside information I told them and didn't seem to have a clue about all the ins and outs of alcoholism and how that should influence their choices around her care. They stupidly, continually gave her prescription drugs that even non-alcoholics often abuse, for years before she got so ill, just as one example. So all I can tell myself, and believe!, now, is that I DID try to help...maybe not perfectly, maybe not as much as some others might have, but I did what I thought best at the time, or the most I could do at any given time. I did more than others were doing, for years....and the rest? Destiny? The Way It Was Supposed To Be? I just hang onto the fact that, in the end, it was ME my Mother loved so much, and I loved her more fully and unconditionally than I ever had before, and though our time in this new psycho-spiritual space was too brief, at least we GOT that. At least we had something no one else in our own family had ever achieved....together. At least our sheer determination to love each other and BE Mother and Daughter 'won'....and I can never regret that!