Death Bed Regrets

Woulda coulda shoulda

Believing in the afterlife leaves too much room for error—in this life; forget the after.

Independently of what you may or not find at the Pearly Gates, there’s the problem of how to proceed with the here and now: unpressured by the “this is it” urgency of existence, you might feel inclined to mess around with plenty of immortality to spare. Not me. I’m on a tight deadline and my atheism likely has much to do with how much I do. I am nothing if not productive, especially in the face of inevitable death—whenever it befalls me.

Dare I say people might behave better on earth if they had less religion to bounce around in?

This came up at dinner last night, as aging relatives visited from across the country as part of their annual trek to the rare cancer specialist in Boston.

“You only have this one life,” said my dear aunt.

“And it could end tomorrow when you get hit by a truck,” I darkly chimed in.

I have this on my mind as the grandmother in Westchester, stepping out of her car for her overnight cleaning job in NYC, just dropped to her death (via extreme steaming) in an open manhole. And since my friend’s blind mom fell out of her ninth story window last year. On the grim one-year anniversary of my friend discovering this terrible scene with her mother in the apartment courtyard, she now adjusts to her own big, bar-owning, life with one less leg to stand on. She will get a prosthetic and persevere like the punk she is, but in the meantime, it’s electric wheelchairs and crutches and painkillers and sleepless nights and excruciating ghost pain after getting run over by a tractor-trailer on her bike this winter in Manhattan.

After the assassination of President Lincoln, John H. Littlefield conceived the idea of painting a death-bed scene. He completed and copyrighted the painting in 1865, it was then photographed by John Goldin.

These folks may have/had faith, but it doesn’t change the outcome—that you go when you go, or lose body parts, or your mom, or don’t get to see the end of the play. I’d rather be prepared for all unexpected outcomes by having lived my best precious one and only life, just in case, so—should I be so lucky—I don’t lay there on a death bed bemoaning my regrets and what I shoulda coulda woulda been or done.

I don’t think my dad performed well at his hospice since the cracks of his attempted religion seemed to be showing through. I think he wanted desperately to believe that he was off to some heaven, but he was too much of a pragmatic engineer for that. Instead he was mad to be laying here, going too soon. Why weren’t we exercising him more. Why can’t he eat. This couldn’t possibly be it when he was meant to live until 100, at least. He took his anger out on the audience, all the projects he wouldn’t finish, those broken machines and rusty tools piled in the basement. Screaming and kicking outside of death’s door instead of issuing wise parting words to the grandkids.

I came upon this old post I thought I’d share from the Mirror about the insights of someone with fascinating perspective: A palliative care nurse reveals the top five regrets she hears expressed from her patient’s death beds. Her blog posts over a decade ago became so popular she wrote about this in her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying which had worldwide popularity from 2013 on.

These aren’t lessons in how to die so much as how to live and they remain evergreen. Let’s review:

5) I wish that I had let myself be happier

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits.

The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives.

Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down.

Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years.

There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

3) I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others.

As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.

Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

2) I wish I hadn’t worked so hard

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.

Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

And the biggest, most popular sad utterance from the death-bound:

1) I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me

This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.

Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

Yes, many of these are obvious. We hold these these truths to be self-evident…but do we really…in our bones? Enough to act on them? So what’s your plan for today? For tomorrow? Not next year. I brag I’m so productive above (and always) but is that just the madness of a workaholic talking? Is it my introvert escape to stay here inside “producing” and not playing pickleball? Yes, I want to write dozens (or a handful) of impactful books and stories before I go, but I also want to forge a better relationship with my daughters, visit every continent, and get more sun on my face.

On that note, the highly anticipated and expertly Instagrammed Village Confectionary has a ribbon cutting today at 11 am and I can’t wait to meet my girls there and see how much “penny candy” costs these days. I’ve got a whole jar of Lincolns to spend.