For The Rest of Your Life - Somethings You Never Forget

I just had a conversation with my Mother that stirred up some old memories for the both of us.

We had dinner at my Brother's house, and one of his young sons did something the both of us thought was disrespectful, and normally I would call him out on it, but I was just too tired and was not up to the battle. On the way home my Mother stated that she was surprised that I hadn't said anything, but she understood why I hadn't.

She went on to say that one of these days my nephew would think back on these days and he will regret them. She started telling me a story of how when she was nine years old, she had mouthed off to her mom, and how the look on her Mother's face stopped her dead in her tracks. She retold the story with a quivering voice and tears in her eyes.

I told her I knew exactly what she meant, because it brought up the memory of the time my teenage self decided I was going to stand up to my Father, just for the sake of teenage defiance, and having my heart ripped out of my chest when my Dad didn't fight with me. I remember his dropping to sit on the bed like all life had been drained from him, and the look of pain on his face, with the sparkle in his eyes from the tears that were starting to form. I can still feel the pain I felt in my chest, and tears still form in my eyes just talking about it.

It made me think about those things that we do in our lives that follow us to the end. Those things that you can relive in technicolor, as if it was happening in real time, and that you never forget.

There are a handful of things I regret that I either did or didn't do. I will never forget them and certainly won't forget how I felt when I realized what I had done. But I think everyone has that in their life, it just happens to be different for everyone.

a reply to: HalWesten

Indeed. I think the ability to feel all the emotions as pure and raw today as it was in the moment, may be not just regret, but maybe it is more spiritual, maybe even repentant.

For me it was seeing a child killed right in front of me.

I will never forget the callousness I was surrounded by.

Dark days and darker nights.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

I can't imagine seeing that.

I worked several years in a shock trauma unit that served an inner city area, and I saw some unbelievable stuff, but it was work, and it was about saving lives.

Seeing a child killed is indeed something that I would never be able to forget.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn



We enjoy our success's ....... but learn by our mistakes ?

a reply to: eletheia

I have two events in my life, that at the time, I thought was the worse thing in the world that could have ever happened to me.

I guess, at the time, they were the worse things that could have happened to me, but years later, looking back, both instances were events that pivoted my life into a much better position for happiness and success.

Mistakes that turned into blessings. Neither was a case of making lemonade from lemons. Both were cases of happenstance that pushed me off a train track headed off a cliff, onto a bumpy painful path to safety.

Yes, mistakes can sometimes be blessings.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn


My daughter took a lot of flack from both her children and her fellow

'parent friends' for the strict upbringing of her children.

Friends saying you can't do that and everybody else allows/does etc. etc.

They are grown up now, and her son said to her recently "You know how

strict you were with us? .... well I will be even stricter with mine!" and her

daughter has said something in a similar vein.


She had had very little problems in their teens with them, and now feels

vindicated for all the flack she took while they were growing up.


Edit to add: All those friends who told her she couldn't do this and that and

that she was too strict are still dealing with problems from their

children

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I don't know that there is any worse pain than realizing you hurt someone else. The selfish mind of a teenager can do some horrible things, Lord knows I did my share. I feel blessed to have been able to tell my father how much I appreciate him and how he raised me. He is loosing to dementia currently, but I was able to tell him before that horrible disease took hold.

a reply to: network dude

You were blessed.

My Dad died from a cerebral hemorrhage, while sleeping, when he was 40 years old.

I never got the opportunity to let him know how truly sorry I was. I found out years later that half the stupid stuff that came out of mouth, was wrong.

I thought I was grown, but I was not mature enough to know that sometimes things can be true, but not right. That sometimes you have to do something wrong to make something right, and that sometimes doing something right may turn out wrong.