Death and Regrets

When someone dies, it reminds us of our mortality, but also our regrets.

The thought of ourselves dying is daunting. It’s unsettling when someone in our life passes on–stirring up the vision of our mortality. There are so many emotions that we go through while mourning. We can experience sadness, guilt, loneliness, anger, and regret.

Broken hearts eventually mend, although sometimes it can take years. The longing for the person to be there subsides, but the regrets remain. Those regrets often make us reflect on our life choices, and they can be tough to come to terms with.

When a person you have had a complicated relationship with dies, the emotions are even more confusing. Usually, multiple feelings are being experienced simultaneously.

I remember when I found out my father passed. It was my usual routine. I had finished some college classes and was at home having a bite to eat before heading off to work.

I received a call from my cousin, who was also my dearest friend. Her voice sounded pained, and I thought she might have issues with her husband. I asked if she needed to tell me something. I wanted to know if everything was okay. She said yes, everything was fine, and we hung up shortly after.

I was reading the paper while having lunch, and I flipped past the obituaries. Something told me to go back. I was twenty-five, and I never read the obituaries. Why would I? Only older people did that. I turned the pages backwards, and there was my father’s death notice, complete with my name in it. I feel I was led to this by a higher source. If I didn’t see this announcement, I might not have known until days after.

An unfathomable pain shuddered through my body. In your teens and twenties, you never think you will lose someone, and I had already lost both grandfathers and now my father that I was estranged from. When you are that age, you believe that you have so much time. But that’s not always so.

I felt like life just smacked me hard in the face, just as my father did the last time I saw him. I was numb and in shock. I raced to the sink and vomited. My legs felt shaky, and I had to prop myself against the counter, so I didn’t fall down. I started sobbing. The guttural sounds that came from my body I had never experienced before, and I could not make them stop.

I called my cousin back. I was crying and said that I just read that my father had died. I asked her if that was what she had wanted to tell me? She said yes. I was very close to my cousin and her family. I spent many years staying at her house on weekends and celebrating holidays with them. Her dad was like my surrogate father and worked with my father. She told me she couldn’t get the words out, and I understood.

Deep guilt weighed on me. What could I have done differently to convince my dad to love me? Maybe if I didn’t confront him and tell him my true feelings and just pretended everything was alright, we would have never had that argument?

My father was on my mind for weeks, and I debated reaching out to him, but after that quarrel we had seven years earlier, others told me I was not to contact him. Plus, even before our disagreement, I was never integrated into his family.

Months before our falling out, he mentioned it was best that I didn’t call him at home. He didn’t want his wife or family to feel uneasy, so I never phoned his house after that.

Our dialogue clarified that I wasn’t a priority. He told me he couldn’t tell his wife when we saw each other because he didn’t want to get divorced for having a relationship with me. It made me feel like I was “the other woman” and not his daughter, but I didn’t want to mess things up for him or make anyone uncomfortable.

Why would I now call and subject myself to being rejected by my father again? I didn’t know how I would have contacted him all those years later, anyway. So sadly, I never reached out.

Once again, the Universe was trying to warn me of this event as it did before when my maternal grandfather died. When my grandpa passed away, I was nineteen, and in college, days before he passed, I felt as if I needed to talk to him. I called family members, and no one knew where he was. The day he died, I had an extreme fear that if I didn’t talk to him, I would never again, and my premonition came true. I loved my grandfather so much and never got to hug him one last time. The pain of this eventually subsided, but some guilt always lingers.

I was unsure if I should attend my father’s wake, but because I was raised Catholic, I felt I needed to pay my respects. I decided I would go.

I went to the funeral parlor, paid my respects, and was ready to leave. One of my father’s family members asked where I was going. I said it wasn’t my place to stay here, and that it was better for me to go. The family member said, no, you are his daughter and belong here.

Yes, I was his daughter, but this family was all just related strangers to me. I reluctantly stayed and went through the motions. Looking back, I should have departed. This incident affected me so much; for years I could not discuss my father’s death without falling to pieces.

It was an event that, when reflecting on it today, causes twinges of woe. It was highly traumatic, and after going through this extremely uncomfortable episode, I swore I would never put myself in any situation again where I didn’t feel comfortable.

I don’t remember how many days his service was. It all seemed like a fog to me. I recall that everyone was outwardly kind to me. I met family members for the first time. There were interactions with some of his good friends, and they told me how much my father loved me and that he talked about me all the time. It was very nice of them to say such caring things but painful, and I’m not sure they were genuine.

People try to tell you something they think you want to hear at a difficult time. I needed to leave the funeral. My heart was aching, and it was all too agonizing to bear.

I remember when I went back home; I fell apart. It wasn’t a little breakdown; it was days of nonstop sobbing that I wasn’t able to control. I was experiencing severe remorse deep down in my soul. I was not only mourning my father’s death; I was mourning a family and a relationship I would never know.

Sometimes in our life, we encounter sorrow, and at that moment, we don’t know why God would give us so much affliction. When someone dies, this is the case. Our heart is breaking. We experience many mixed emotions, but in the end, we realize that these dreadful moments in our lives strengthen us, make us wiser, more self-reliant, and a better person.

Time softens our heartache. The pain that we experience during our life brings growth. When we grow, we are forced to search within ourselves. We find out that these life lessons teach us to value and love ourselves, as well as those authentic connections around us. We cannot turn back the hands of time and change the events in our life, but we can learn from our past.

A friend recently sent me this quote by C. S. Lewis, and I felt it was synchronicity, “getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward”. You may never truly get over your repentance, but at some point, you need to make peace with it, move on, and release it all. We have to have faith that everything that happens in our life unfolds precisely as it should. There is never room for regrets, only forgiveness for ourselves and others.

©2021 Victoria Gregg. All rights reserved