Remembering, Regret, and the River (Remembering Tom 16/30)

Coming up on five years without my father, I am familiar with the feeling of regret; unspoken, unaddressed, unanswered, in dreams and sensations and memories.  Regret: one of the many layers of grief that unmistakably contributes to persistent sorrow, but that when addressed, spoken, and given its due holding in time and space and experience, may perhaps be the very seed that when watered, grows the tree of self-forgiveness.

David Whyte writes about Regret:

REGRET

is a short, evocative and achingly beautiful word; an elegy to lost possibilities even in its brief annunciation, it is also a rarity and almost never heard except where the speaker insists that they have none, that they are brave and forward looking and could not possibly imagine their life in any other way than the way it is. To admit regret is to understand we are fallible: that there are powers in the world and even in our self that are beyond us: to admit regret is to lose control not only of a difficult past but of the very story we tell about our present; and yet strangely, to admit sincere and abiding regret is one of our greatest but unspoken contemporary sins.

The rarity of honest regret may be due to our contemporary emphasis on the youthful perspective; it may be that a true, useful regret is not a possibility or a province of youth; that it takes a hard-won maturity to experience the depths of regret in ways that do not overwhelm and debilitate us but put us into a proper, more generous relationship with the future. Except for brief senses of having missed a tide, having hurt another, having taken what is not ours, youth is not yet ready for the rich current of abiding regret that runs through and emboldens a mature human life.

Sincere regret may in fact be a faculty for paying attention to the future, for sensing a new tide where we missed a previous one, for experiencing timelessness with a grandchild where we neglected a boy of our own. To regret fully is to appreciate how high the stakes are in even the average human life. Fully experienced, regret turns our eyes, attentive and alert to a future possibly lived better than our past.

…

‘REGRET” From CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.© David Whyte: Many Rivers Press

 

While on my power journey at Ghost Ranch a couple of weeks ago, we experienced ceremonies; experiences with the intention of honoring endings and beginnings, or the depths of our human experiences with reverence, time, solace, and deep listening.  Rare and yet essential moments to the rising of our true selves and connection to what cannot be seen in flesh, but felt, heard, and witnessed.

We carried our grief to the river and we gave it over to her, in solace, under the light of the moon and the ever present knowing of the stars, burning overhead.  Flowing, steady, consistent, the river moves onward, carrying what is needing to be carried and leaving in her bed that which needs to rest.

I carried my father’s ashes and a shell from Nora Shea’s fishing pier – my great grandmother who’s being I first encountered on my journey home to Ireland this summer.

I carried my regretful moment – my father was standing in my kitchen, asking me about the pain he had in his abdomen, back, legs.  He had carried pain for many years; back surgeries, pain meds.  It persisted.  I was making dinner and multitasking.  I wasn’t any more concerned than I had been.  I always wanted him to explore other options for his pain, some physical therapy, massage, body work and movement, check ins with his doc.  I left it at that.  I didn’t ask any other questions, probe or suggest he see a doctor while he was with us.  I didn’t insist.  I didn’t even follow up.

It may very well be the most regretful moment of my life.  What if I had asked, probed, insisted, followed up?  What if I hadn’t been busy doing the things I was doing and just stopped and listened and looked and asked?

My rational mind knows of course, that those actions likely wouldn’t have changed the duration of his life at that stage, but perhaps it would have changed how those last 4 months unfolded for him, for me, for all of us.  Regret.

In my experience of grief and regret at the river, I poured out my sorrow and my sorry.  Sorry I did not ask.  Sorry I did not insist, take you to the doctor, follow up.  Sorry I was not there when you died, sorry.  I should have known, I should have known, I should have known.  I should have known.  The gavel of judgment is often rendered at the hands of regret.

The web of my father’s life, and death, is woven with fate, genetics, manifestations, actions, inactions and elements that I may never know, until I am on the other side of the veil, when knowing becomes a pointless endeavor because being is all that remains.

In my experience of regret and grief, I heard that I came to listen.  “You came to listen” they said. You came to listen.

The river took my grief.  Some washed away, and some remained to rest on her bed.  And some, some stayed in my heart, to hear the whispers of regret in myself, and in others.  The cloak of the healer is not donned by the one who knows, but by the one who embodies the experience and returns again and again to receive and give the medicine of forgiveness, the medicine of listening, watering the seeds of compassion and love.

There is not much I regret.  My life unfolds with great intention in many ways.  But acknowledging my regret and giving it voice, space and opportunity to be heard offers me a pulsating cord, a tether to the depth of my experience and the desire I have to “turn my eyes, attentive and alert to a future possibly lived better than my past.”

gratitude to regret

 

***This is the sixteenth part of a 30-piece writing series dedicated to my father, Tom Sheehan.  Fall was his favorite time in New Hampshire.  His last visit was exactly five years ago.  He stayed for about 30 days.  I write 30 pieces in memory of him and in honor of these last 30 days he spent with us which we fondly refer to as his farewell tour.  I write to share bits of him with the world so that he may live on in it and in us.  You can find my posts on my blog at FarrahSheehan.com or on fb at https://www.facebook.com/pg/redheartliving/posts/

This 30-piece experience is inspired by two friends – Virginia Bobro, whose dedication to committed, creative projects inspires me and Christine D’Esposito, whose beautiful animal friend and companion, Milagro, transitioned out of his physical body recently.  Her stories and sharing of him have touched me.