I had a friend in university who used to advocate the philosphy of “no regrets”. He believed that we should never regret the things we do or those we didn’t do. Since the past can’t be changed, we can only learn from our mistakes (or triumps) and grow from them – if we’re lucky. It seemed like the perfect matra to live by. It had great guilt reducing tendencies and helped me to move from one disaster to another with suprising speed.

For years, I’ve found myself following this policy. I didn’t regret not finishing university for nigh on a decade (although I did eventually return to do so). I didn’t regret marrying so young. I didn’t regret slowly losing touch with my old university friends. I didn’t regret departing the party scene and slowly accepting more responsibility in my life. I didn’t regret choosing to not have children. I didn’t regret moving from one end of the country to the other with each successive posting to a new base – even when we left close friends behind. I didn’t regret the crazy hours I was putting in a work. I didn’t regret leaving my husband for large chunks of time to travel for work purposes.

There are so many things lined up on my “no regrets” list. It would take me months to detail all of them.

Since dad’s death, I’m re-evaluating a lot of my core beliefs and values. I suspect many people do so upon the death of a parent or other loved one.

Technorati Tags: death, grief, grieving, regret, healing

I’ve discovered that when it comes to my dad, I have many regrets.

I regret:

• never telling him how much I loved him each and every day.
• “freezing” during dance competitions and banning him from watching them.
• never sharing a father/daughter dance.
• eloping and not having a big family wedding for him to participate in.
• never telling him how proud of him I was.
• cutting him out of my life for a few years in my late teens and early twenties in order to “find myself” and deal with personal issues. Then, when I’d discovered my balance, never explaining why I did so.
• never telling him how much of an influence he had on me – education, career, values and ethics.
• never digging deeper and asking about his childhood and early years. Now I must rely on the memories of friends and family to fill in the gaps to flesh out my knowledge of my dad.
• never finding the time to visit more often than we did. Meeting up every 1-2 years for a few weeks just doesn’t seem enough anymore.
• never learning to play the pipes when I was younger, so I could play with him, rather than in memory of him.
• never taking the time to make silly family home videos.
• never asking him to sing for me. Roseanne and I heard him sing so rarely when we were young.
• never showing him the magazines or books I’d been published in – or sending him copies.
• not being able to put past issues with other family members on the back burner in the final years. I couldn’t let go of the anger and pain long enough to try and be as supportive as I should have.

There are so many other things I regret at this particular moment in time that I can’t stand to detail them all. My heart is aching.

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