First, I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments, posts, emails, fb messages and phone calls after my dad died, they are truly appreciated. If I haven’t gotten back to you yet, I will try in the next week or so.
When someone dies, especially when they are not very old, we often reexamine our own lives. Since there have been quite a few people who have died young in my life, I have done this many times.
This time I saw a link on facebook to a post written by a palliative care nurse. It’s about common regrets of the dying.
I read the list and got stuck on number 4 (I’m doing OK with the others, not perfect, but OK and working on it).
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
My dad had lost touch with most of his friends. Some are writing letters and emails now, or posting on the Remembering Doug blog I started. But many probably don’t even know he has died. Unless they read the deaths section regularly, they remain in the dark. I couldn’t find any numbers either.
I can’t do anything more about my dad’s friends, hopefully they will find out somehow and be able to attend his memorial this summer.
What I can do something about is my friends. I have lost touch with quite a few friends since I moved away from Toronto. Friends I love dearly. Some I have sporadic contact with. So, my promise to myself is to reach out to see if we can reconnect.
I know that some relationships just aren’t meant to last for a variety of reasons, but some fade away due to busyness and/or other silly factors and I plan to rectify that. I may not be able to get fully into track down mode until summer, but I’m going to do it.
I’m starting here.
If you read this and we used to be good friends, please contact me here or on facebook.
Do you regret losing touch with old friends? Have you tried to track them down? Will you?
Here are James Taylor singing Carole King’s song about the way friendship is meant to be. One of my all time favourite songs, guess who taught it to me.
Hello dear friend….since we met at age 13, oceans have not kept us apart from being friends, lifelong friends. Having moved around the world for the past 20 years I am grateful for the friendships I have. Sometimes we have to also remind ourselves of the people we do have in our lives and of the value they add. We are all looking forwards to spending quality friend time together with you this summer. Big warm hugs from all of us.
Diana, Peter, Hanna, Xander and Benjam
Erin
I am so sorry I did not know this about your dad. My heartfelt condolences, n
I need to work on #5. I think I often sabotage my happiness by expecting the worst to happen…I hate that. And my anxiety is always through the roof because of it.
As far as friends – I had only 2 friends that I remained close with from my high school years. One is in Jamaica and the other one died almost 2 years ago.
I do regret the fact that I have pretty much fallen out of contact with someone who was my best friend. It’s my doing.
We have each have 3 children. We each have boy, boy, girl.
Our first are 9 days apart. Second are 2 weeks apart and our 3rd are 1yr apart.
I struggle with seeing her boys together. I struggle with seeing her not struggle the way I have had to. And because of that I struggle with the guilt attached to those feelings. Makes me feel like a bad person. That I let the green eyed monster win.
One thing I like about facebook is that it enabled me to reconnect with people that I had lost touch with. Whose friendships may have ended on not-the-best terms and those issues have resolved themselves since we’ve pretty much all left the teenage angst back in the 90’s…
What a terrific, poignant list… some of these are on my list of “changes to make” too.
I think it is important to nurture friendships, but some are the one kind that are everlasting – circumstances, geography, etc. can dictate changes in relationships with others, but the best are the kinds where one can just pick up where one left off. Others need more work, certainly. In any case, it’s good to have friends to help fill you up when you’re feeling run down.
Hi, friend. xox
I love that list that the nurse put together. It’s a good one. I know that after my mom died, my dad really regretted how hard he worked his whole life and he adjusted things immediately to slow down. Change can be made.
As far as friends go, I find the ones who are true friends will always be there. I think of my friend Kelly in Halifax. WE only speak a few times a year – but it doesn’t matter – if she needed me I’d be there and vice versa. The power of friendship.