Deathbed Regrets?
I wonder if my mother blames herself for using the last seconds of her life to shoot a skunk-eye at a hapless volunteer because he interrupted us. I also wonder if she blames me for attracting the interruption.
I’ve been interrupted so many times in my life that I’ve begun to believe that it must somehow be my fault. I don’t know if Mom shared my view on this, but she never in her life hesitated to take me to task for whatever she thought I had done wrong. It was not in her nature to allow flawed behavior to go unmentioned or uncorrected. Continue reading
KEYING UP – a court jester fortifies his wit with a little brandy – Oil painting by William Merritt Chase – 1875
When I was a young man, I told my mother that I had no regrets—that everything I had done or failed to do to that point only added to the sum total of me, which sum, in my opinion, seemed to be tallying up just fine. It turns out though, 40 some years later, that I had already accumulated many regrets by then. I just didn’t know it yet.
Now that I’m washed up on the shores of an uncertain dotage, ill-provisioned and with dim prospects, all those early and unseen regrets are coming due like markers to a loan-shark.
Now, I understand perfectly all the places where I went wrong. I know where I didn’t apply myself as I ought, when I skated or took the path of least resistance or effort, where I caved to idle self-indulgence, and where I wasted monumental effort on things that were bound never to pay dividends. I knew what I was doing when I did it, and I understood there would be consequences. Continue reading
