People say, “Regret nothing.” But I beg to differ, for I have a guilt on my shoulders that I will bear for the rest of my life. That heavy guilt is the way I treated my sister.
May 18, 2012, is the day they pronounced my sister dead. I knew it was going to happen. I just didn’t know what was going to happen the Wednesday before May 18.
I arrived home from school to find my mother standing on the back porch; her face said it all. I knew something horrible had happened. I was right. Eyes fresh with tears, my mother proceeded to tell me how my sister had overdosed on prescription medication from her surgery the day before and was in the hospital at that moment.
The doctors had put her into an induced coma. She had zero brain activity, zero chance of recovery–zero everything.
The worst part was walking into the hospital an hour later. I could only see the closed eyes of my sister because there were so many blankets and tubes everywhere. A machine forced her chest up and down with every mechanical breath. I couldn’t stop shaking and I couldn’t believe that God himself could take away a mother, a wife, and my only sister.
I cried so much that day my teeth went numb, as if I had just been to dentist and gotten anesthetic shots to numb my mouth.
After they “pulled the plug,” our house oozed with casseroles, desserts, and visitors. I heard the question, “How are you doing?” so many times I stopped answering. I knew there was nothing anyone could have said to me to make me stop feeling like my world was ending.
I had, and still have, such regret. Would’ves, could’ves, and should’ves regarding helping my sister and her addiction to prescription pills run through my mind every night. I still have those memories of getting into physical fights over her medication with her. This is something I’ll regret for the rest of my life, and there isn’t one word anyone could say to me to change it.
Of course, there are those great moments do exist to help balance her memory. The Sunday before she passed was Mother’s Day. Our entire family ate dinner at Monte Ne Inn. My sister looked beautiful dressed all in white as if God was preparing her to become his next angel. This memory and many more is what I love to remember most. We didn’t fight one moment that day, the last day I saw her.
I know it sounds cheesy, but love the people you have in your life, and tell them you love them. I would not want anybody else to ever live with the regret I live with. If you see a person in need of help, help them; don’t stand back and think that someone else will.