![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
*This is the piece I read last night down on the Goat Farm and at Naked City*
I would like to begin now with some inspiring words on regret taught to me in the remote wilds of my youth:
"Father."
"Yes son."
"What does regret mean?"
"Well son, a funny thing about regret is, that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mother this weekend, would you be sure and tell her - SATAN-SATAN-SATAN!!!"
This of course would be from the Butthole Surfers' classic - 'Sweat Loaf' off their '87 'Locust Abortion Technician' LP. Traditionally it's followed by an air-guitar worthy crunch of pure Black Sabbath inspired awesomeness and much banging of the heads. But alas, this is not that kind of show. I open with these words however, not just to give a well deserved shout out to the Big Guy downstairs, but also because until recently they have served as my guiding philosophy on not just regret, but life itself.
Do I regret dropping out of high school to enlist in the navy in the hopes that it would be more than a job but an adventure?
Do I regret that I became a bilge rat instead and during the Gulf War saw all my 'action' from the inside of a scullery?
Do I regret smoking hashish on shore leave in Barcelona on my second tour?
Do I regret getting popped positive on a piss test a week later and subsequently getting kicked out at our next port?
Do I regret that the next year I dropped three hits of acid at the Crash Worship show during Mardi Gras and barely escaped the cops while tripping my balls off through New Orleans?
Do I regret getting arrested in Baton Rouge all of twelve hours later?
Do I regret that the bail to get me out and the lawyer to get me off emptied the savings I had accrued for college?
Do I regret quitting my steady day job of ten years to write not The, but at least my, great American novel?
Do I regret that it cost me my 401K, my apartment, my pride before I found an independent publisher and hit the small time?
Do I regret all those moments spent on the wrong end of an ass beating, of running my mouth to the wrong people at the wrong time? Do I regret the betrayals I've indulged in, the quick child's thrill of purloined cookies and the bittersweet shame that lingered after? Do I regret the close calls, dance floor pratfalls and wrong moves I delivered so earnestly to this world?
Honestly? Not as much as if I hadn't.
And believing so gave me if not courage, then at least a smirking game face for when I played the hand fate dealt me. I was a misadventurer. No matter how much I fucked up, I always strove to remember that through the perils of the moment a grander quest would reveal itself. A modern Narcissus trapped by his reflection cast in the gutter.
But then recently I was faced with a regret I couldn't just shrug off.
On my father's second to last night in this world I sat there alone before him as he slept. Over the last year or so, since his first diagnosis, my mother and I contended with him having only weeks to live. Then maybe months. Then, as the seasons grinded by, we were given a miracle. An experimental surgical procedure that might buy us a few more years with him. The operation was a success. But we soon learned that it was too little too late. Dad's seizures resumed, the tumor grew back and he was given weeks to live.
Sitting there looking at this pale, little man both too old to be my father and yet childlike in his vulnerability, I realized what regret truly meant. It meant that over those last few months I never said goodbye. When he was lucid in the early stages, we didn't dare talk about it because we were trying to stay positive that he'd pull through. By the time we realized that there wasn't going to be anymore second chances or last minute miracles, he wasn't himself anymore, he was what the meds and the tumor left of a proud man.
And I sat there wondering what kind of writer doesn't know what to say at a moment like this? Where were the words that would shepherd my father's final nights? Why couldn't I say something as simple as 'I love you.' and 'goodbye'?
I don't know but I've been trying real hard ever since to do just that.
So I'll end this on what I should have simply said when I had the chance:
"Father, there hasn't been a moment with you I ever regretted."
I would like to begin now with some inspiring words on regret taught to me in the remote wilds of my youth:
"Father."
"Yes son."
"What does regret mean?"
"Well son, a funny thing about regret is, that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mother this weekend, would you be sure and tell her - SATAN-SATAN-SATAN!!!"
This of course would be from the Butthole Surfers' classic - 'Sweat Loaf' off their '87 'Locust Abortion Technician' LP. Traditionally it's followed by an air-guitar worthy crunch of pure Black Sabbath inspired awesomeness and much banging of the heads. But alas, this is not that kind of show. I open with these words however, not just to give a well deserved shout out to the Big Guy downstairs, but also because until recently they have served as my guiding philosophy on not just regret, but life itself.
Do I regret dropping out of high school to enlist in the navy in the hopes that it would be more than a job but an adventure?
Do I regret that I became a bilge rat instead and during the Gulf War saw all my 'action' from the inside of a scullery?
Do I regret smoking hashish on shore leave in Barcelona on my second tour?
Do I regret getting popped positive on a piss test a week later and subsequently getting kicked out at our next port?
Do I regret that the next year I dropped three hits of acid at the Crash Worship show during Mardi Gras and barely escaped the cops while tripping my balls off through New Orleans?
Do I regret getting arrested in Baton Rouge all of twelve hours later?
Do I regret that the bail to get me out and the lawyer to get me off emptied the savings I had accrued for college?
Do I regret quitting my steady day job of ten years to write not The, but at least my, great American novel?
Do I regret that it cost me my 401K, my apartment, my pride before I found an independent publisher and hit the small time?
Do I regret all those moments spent on the wrong end of an ass beating, of running my mouth to the wrong people at the wrong time? Do I regret the betrayals I've indulged in, the quick child's thrill of purloined cookies and the bittersweet shame that lingered after? Do I regret the close calls, dance floor pratfalls and wrong moves I delivered so earnestly to this world?
Honestly? Not as much as if I hadn't.
And believing so gave me if not courage, then at least a smirking game face for when I played the hand fate dealt me. I was a misadventurer. No matter how much I fucked up, I always strove to remember that through the perils of the moment a grander quest would reveal itself. A modern Narcissus trapped by his reflection cast in the gutter.
But then recently I was faced with a regret I couldn't just shrug off.
On my father's second to last night in this world I sat there alone before him as he slept. Over the last year or so, since his first diagnosis, my mother and I contended with him having only weeks to live. Then maybe months. Then, as the seasons grinded by, we were given a miracle. An experimental surgical procedure that might buy us a few more years with him. The operation was a success. But we soon learned that it was too little too late. Dad's seizures resumed, the tumor grew back and he was given weeks to live.
Sitting there looking at this pale, little man both too old to be my father and yet childlike in his vulnerability, I realized what regret truly meant. It meant that over those last few months I never said goodbye. When he was lucid in the early stages, we didn't dare talk about it because we were trying to stay positive that he'd pull through. By the time we realized that there wasn't going to be anymore second chances or last minute miracles, he wasn't himself anymore, he was what the meds and the tumor left of a proud man.
And I sat there wondering what kind of writer doesn't know what to say at a moment like this? Where were the words that would shepherd my father's final nights? Why couldn't I say something as simple as 'I love you.' and 'goodbye'?
I don't know but I've been trying real hard ever since to do just that.
So I'll end this on what I should have simply said when I had the chance:
"Father, there hasn't been a moment with you I ever regretted."
