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A quote: “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.” ~~ Barbara Bush
I’ll start with a story …
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I’m drifting on sleep like the waves I hear. Warm sun on my face, ocean breeze a cool caress.
A second touch, the warm fingertips of my new husband, his murmur low in my ear thrilling me. Our honeymoon is one word of many meanings … delicious.
I wake up now and see the face of our daughter, lined with age and worry. She holds my hand that only a second ago was smooth and browned by the tropical sun.
I smile, touch her face, “Don’t worry, love” and turn my head to my husband’s whisper “Come, dear. It’s time.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Lewis says: I watch my mom as she rests in the recliner we moved to the porch just this morning. 17 year old Thad, down by the gate to the woods, turns to look back at us. He lifts his hand to his Nana, so much like Grandad that it amazes even me.
Thad opens the gate, hesitates, his head snaps back, he turns to the woods, I look at Mom. She’s raised her hand the slightest bit off the arm of the chair, she’s smiling. I still hear her voice, “We never had much stuff, but we always had each other!”
Cameron says: I asked him what his secret was. He said just save everything you can, find a finance guy who only cares about you making a profit and don’t get caught up in owning things.
He finished his drink and he and his wife walked off into the sunset. I thought about what he said when I got home and two days after, I got to work.
I’ve shed all unwanted obligations, I’ve sold everything I can and found someone who is good at investing. In another five years, my wife and I will be the ones walking on the beach.
The most painful sacrifice I made for the restoration of the Republic wasn’t actually my academic career, even if it was the one that hurt most when I first arrived at Sparta Point. But as the weeks turned into months and then years, what really cut deep was the separation from my family.
I only learned about Grandma Fox’s death about two months after the fact, and that by complete accident. We were doing some undercover work, trying to stop a plot to discredit one of our people in the Nevada state government. I was at a library, trying to look like a regular patron while I was monitoring activity at a particular storefront.
I was leafing through a bound volume of back issues of a local weekly newspaper when an article caught my eye. I don’t remember the exact title, something along the lines of “Local Figure Remembered,” but more elegantly phrased. My first thought was it can’t be the same person, that “Esther Fox” isn’t that uncommon a name.
But as soon as I started reading, I knew it was her, even before I got to the part about children and grandchildren. At least they didn’t name all of us grandchildren, just listed numbers of sons and daughters to each of Grandma’s children. That’s how I discovered that Aunt Jessie had had two more children since I’d last been in touch.
Which was when I realized our son would never know his great-grandmother — and she’d died never even knowing that she was one.
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