What is Your Biggest Regret?

‘Regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do, and saw it through without exemption.…more, much more than this, I did it my way’ —My way by Frank Sinatra

This is a song I came to know when I was 18 years old. It was played loud during an English lesson by a Malay lecturer, with the class sitting in the computer room, and the lecturer reckoned it is her favourite song. I instantly fell in love with the song.

Only few knows I like the song. A vast majority living in this contemporary, most prefer modern piece, such revelation may invite some teases. An old soul they would say.

A late night chatting with a friend, out of the blue, we talked about regrets. Prior to that, I was a little bit offended by him commenting on my dad’s hospitalisation and the choices I made to keep him in the private hospital, enduring hefty hospital bill. My friend is a clear thinker, I always turn to him when I am lost for his good advice. When he told me not to have conflict with the doctor, the hyper-vigilant instantly jumped to protect myself and I retorted in frantic text messages that he did not understand my situation. 

I am certainly upset because I thought he would take my side but he didn’t. And so him being an introspective and introverted friend, took a step back and said he should give no more comments because he obviously did not understand the condition well enough. 

I instantly regretted, but words cannot be taken back. It was quite a tense text exchanges. But I decided to clear things up by telling him I really appreciate his advice, and I noted his good intention of willing to speak of the truth. 

And there goes our own regrets.

He revealed that he has had a lot of regrets. I thought for a second, I had only one (till date), and i wish no more. 

I was 15 years old, preparing to sit for an important exam. I was raised by my grandparents up until 7 years old. There was a period of time that we drifted apart when I returned home to my mum. At the age of 14 or so, the family started to have this arrangement that my grandpa would come over to fetch us for school. I was previously sent by my friend’s mum who stayed nearby, but my sister is now a big girl and she needs a ride too. 

And there on, he appeared every morning, punctual and early, drove from his home to us and become our regular chauffeur, then he would off to work in my uncle’s pet shop. He was always on time. He drove us back from school to home as well. Wait for us. Then sent us off to tuition and everything else. For him, I was almost never being picked up late as opposed to previous. 

In contrary, my dad was always the late-comer. Always disappointing late, not exaggerating, me and my siblings were almost always the last one to go home, be it the school or tuition. There were times we had to walk ourselves home because we had been forgotten. And almost always, half way through it, someone we know would pick us up or he would look for us along the route to home and gave us a honk. That was a time where kids have no cellphone.

On the side note, there was a top-achiever girl who always dressed nicely who came to same tuition center as me. Her dad was always on time and she would gracefully made her way into the backseat of the car, leaving the front passenger seat empty. Seeing that, the ignorant-me have learned the same way. Sitting at the back, I could gaze my grandpa’s occasional silver hair in the midst of his dyed-black hair. We seldom talked. After all, with a huge age gap, the quiet air seemed to be just reasonable. Until one day, he commented that me sitting at the backseat have made him felt like a driver. 

There came a day that he fell sick. As usual, he picked us up on time and announced that he’s not feeling well. The usual him would read newspaper while waiting for us, but that particular day, he lied down on the couch, looking really ill. I can still vividly pictured this. 

Oblivious-teenage-me paid no good attention to it. That night itself, he got admitted and my parents asked if i wanted to come with them to pay him a visit. There’s an important exam around the corner, I was holding a book sitting on the couch reading it. I turned them down and continue burying myself in the academic books, as if there’s no other things more pressing than this.

I was wrong.

In the classroom, I was called out and sent home early by my form teacher for the first time. When I got into the car, my sister was already in it. What struck us the next, my dad revealed the passing of my grandfather and he’s here to send us to hospital to bid our last goodbye. I could no longer remember the following conversation, all i remembered were endless tears rolling down my cheeks, we cried all the way to the hospital, mourning over the departure of one of the man I loved the most in this world to the what the adult said ‘the better place’.

We were not allowed to see him in the hospital. My grandmother came to to the lobby where we waited, I could still remember she said ‘You were late, he was still mumbling about picking y’all from school at his last hour..’

Yes. I was late. And now I have no way to reverse the remorse.

And that pained me a lot until today.

Flashing back the day, when he drove me up the slope of his old house, ‘I will teach you to drive one day.’ He could no longer grow old enough to see me grown into the 17-years-old young lady whom he can give her a driving lesson legally as he promised. A promise that he can no longer deliver.

The last ever thing I can hold onto is the neat handwritten timetable with our school and tuition schedule crafted carefully in dark black ink by him. 

Back to my friend. I told him sometimes holding back things are good to avoid conflict, but I tend to let my thoughts said and conveyed because those words not said may be things we regretted the most. 

Do not let important words unsaid. 

He said well, that made you who you are. It seems to him that that explained everything about my hypervigilance, the part of me that wanting to keep things in order and control and over-worried that things might go wrong if I hadn’t make necessary intervention at the right time.

My grandfather holds the greatest regret of mine. 

I have regretted for not sitting in the front passenger seat, for not able to learn driving from him as he had promised, not making the time to visit him in the hospital, for not being able to do much for him, and for not expressing my love for him while he’s around. I missed the chance of saying a proper goodbye even.

He left without notice. 

You often thought there will be next time but came to realise there is no next time.

What formed us today is largely the experiences, hurdles and regrets we all once had. We are the by-product of our past.

If there’s something important you haven’t say, say it.

If there’s someone you love, tell them.