LIFE

Why My Late Father’s Lack of Regret No Longer Bothers Me

Life, even with its regrets, is worth cherishing to the very end

Image by author: Author’s mother, author, twin brother, father (pictured left to right)

Regret can be a painful companion, but it’s also the birthplace of understanding.

I often wondered if my father, who passed away in 2018 at 83 years old, had any regrets. We’re taught to accept, to move on. But sometimes, the most healing thing we can do is ask “why?”

Why didn’t my father, who lived a life of professional success and personal failures, have any regrets?

Eighty-three years. That’s a long time, isn’t it? A lifetime of laughter, love, loss, and everything in between.

But as my mind takes a trip down memory lane and I reminisce about my late father’s life, it’s not the frail body he possessed during the last three months of his life I think about, or about transforming a bedroom at his home into a hospice care unit. Thinking about regret has been unexpected for me, absorbing my heart and mind at random times since his passing. Why is that exactly?

It’s the absence of whispers of regret he had, the “what ifs” that echo in the silence, louder than any mournful symphony playing in my mind.