Regrets, I've Had a Few*

In which learning comes too late.

Regret

It's not for laws I've broken
That bitter tears I've wept,
But solemn vows I've spoken
And promises unkept;
It's not for sins committed
My heart is full of rue,
but gentle acts omitted,
Kind deeds I did not do.

I have outlived the blindness,
The selfishness of youth;
The canker of unkindness,
The cruelty of truth;
The searing hurt of rudeness . . .
By mercies great and small,
I've come to reckon goodness
The greatest gift of all.

Let us be helpful ever
to those who are in need,
And each new day endeavour
To do some gentle deed;
For faults beyond our grieving,
What kindliness atone;
On earth by love achieving
A Heaven of our own.

- Robert William Service 

My dad’s beloved partner, L., passed away last week. (I am not going to share even her first name, because I would like to keep her identity private.) She had been ill, and in various medical facilities, for many weeks, but it was only eight days before she died that she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. 

I found out she was dying on a Saturday night, and had the grim job of telling my dad on Sunday. I sat with him and held his hand while he struggled to absorb the news. “I was supposed to die first,” he kept repeating. I imagine he was thinking not only of L., but of my mom as well, who was ten years younger than him, and not supposed to die so young, never mind before him. 

On Monday I brought him to the hospital to say goodbye to L. I stood outside her room as they talked, stifling in a mask and gloves and gown. He had been anxious about seeing her, and so I checked in every ten minutes or so. They kept asking for more time, and I did not have the heart to tear them apart, knowing that it might well be their last meeting. When we finally had to leave, I felt myself going numb - my familiar coping mechanism. I recognized the tragedy intellectually, but could not feel it.

Through the week, my dad kept saying he wanted to see L. again. But I knew from her daughter that she was fading fast, and I did not want his last memories of her to be ruined by her confusion or a visit she could not wake for. She had been lucid and sweet when he saw her on Monday, and that is how I wanted him to remember her.

By Friday she had stopped talking and she slept through most of the day. That was the day her family moved her into hospice care. By Saturday she was not waking at all. And on Sunday, she passed away. Once again - being the only one of my dad’s children who lives near him - it was my responsibility to share the news with him. It was gutting to see how anguished and lost he looked when I told him, and I was left with the overwhelming fear that his twice-broken heart would never mend.

In the week that has passed since L. died, my dad has sounded up and down, and every day he tells me that he misses L. Now I am gearing up for Thursday, when I will bring him to the cemetery for her graveside service, and then take him home to his empty apartment, the place that she filled with life, especially through the terrible, isolating months of the pandemic. I do not know that it will ever feel like a happy place for him again.

That is (the end of) the story of my dad and L. But there is another dark tale beneath this tragedy, for me at least. Because…I didn’t like L. For much of her relationship with my dad, I simply thought she was not right for him, and I responded, too, to his lack of enthusiasm for her at first. Then, when the pandemic hit, I became actively angry at her over what I perceived as a laissez-faire attitude towards COVID safety protocols. This feeling was reinforced when one of my dad’s aides called me to say that L.’s visits were making her feel unsafe.

To my discredit and shame, I never spoke to L. directly about this; instead I pressured my dad to either set ground rules about COVID precautions, or to stop seeing her altogether. For a short while he broke things off, but then she returned, and things became tense again. When, in June 2021, my dad almost died from a choking incident that L. witnessed, and she called me to find out how he was doing (he spent the night and following day in the hospital), I was curt with her, and did nothing to make her feel better. Again, I am ashamed of that now.

Over this past summer, L. tried to find out why I was angry at her, and I rebuffed all of her attempts. Instead, I informed my dad that he was free to do as he pleased, but I did not have to have a relationship with her. It was needlessly cruel and cowardly, but I felt justified in my anger, telling myself that it had been hell to keep my fragile father alive through a pandemic, and that I was right to be upset. I brushed aside any whispers of doubt about my feelings, or any hint that maybe my emotions had roots all the way back in my mom’s death. It was easier to just dislike her, and to keep her at a cold arms-length.

When L. got sick at the end of the summer, although my feelings about her had not changed, I pushed my father to visit her, even though he was reluctant. “If you love her,” I told him, “you do what’s right and show up for her when she needs you.” I figured that I could keep disliking her but also encourage him to be a good partner to her, since he had chosen her and she had - to her credit - supported him through his own health challenges.

Of course, when the worst news came, all of my bad feelings about L. disappeared. I was scared taking him to visit her in the hospital, worried that she would excoriate me (and rightly so) or express deep hurt over how I had treated her. But there was none of that. She smiled at me brightly, her skin stretched tightly over her emaciated, but still beautiful, face, and asked me about my girls. There was not a hint of anger in her voice. 

As I stood outside her room, listening to the murmur of their voices as they had their last conversation, I finally saw what I had missed for so long: She was a lovely, empathetic person who gave her whole heart to the people she loved. I thought about how this kind soul had offered my dad warmth and care and companionship in the midst of his crushing loneliness, and had been unwavering in her commitment to him throughout some truly tough times. “I’m losing my best friend,” her daughter told me later. And that made perfect sense - she seemed to embody the kind of unconditional love that would make a daughter feel safe and accepted, and would lead to a closeness that many mothers and daughters would envy. I had failed L. by being far less than my best self when she had brought her best self to loving my dad, and for that I am deeply and forever sorry.

I wish I could say confidently that I had learned an absolute life lesson from this experience about withholding judgment about any other person, especially based on distant impressions, and especially if I have never given them the benefit of the doubt or interrogated my own motives for judging them badly. I am not sure that is something I will remember in every situation, although I do think I will be less reactive and more accepting with the people in my orbit, living as I must in the endless shadow of regret.

But there is another lesson for me in this as well; one that taps into a happier set of emotions. This autumn I have fallen quickly and deeply into a startlingly beautiful new relationship. And this has baffled me, because there are ways in which we do not make sense, or do not have natural and immediate connections. Thus I have spent an inordinate amount of time puzzling over why I am so giddy about him, and why the relationship is working so well, despite the disconnects (I am nothing if not an over-thinker). But maybe one of the morals of the story of L. is this: Sometimes the heart is stronger than the brain, and wiser too. And so, in the same way that my dad and L. loved each other deeply despite their differences (or maybe because of them?), perhaps the best thing I can do is open myself to the possibility that I can just feel love without understanding it. If that is one of L.’s many legacies, then I would honor that legacy best by simply letting it grace my life. So thank you, L. I will miss you, and I am eternally sorry.

*I have been on a bit of a break from this labor of love, for reasons best left unwritten. Did you miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? (Don’t answer that!) Anyway, I am back, at least for a bit, for the few folks who read my random scribblings.