BOOK DISCUSSION QUESTION: Deathbed regrets, I have a few (with apologies to Frank Sinatra)
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BOOK DISCUSSION QUESTION: Deathbed regrets, I have a few (with apologies to Frank Sinatra)
What do you worry you won't have accomplished or done or said before you die?
“I wished I'd have known you
Wished I'd have shown you
All of the things I
Was on the inside
But I'd pretend to be sleeping
When you'd come in in the morning
To whisper goodbye
Go to work in the rain
I don't know why
Don't know why”
Patty Griffin
J.S Park, a hospital chaplain at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, says he’s seen, “…thousands of patients, hundreds of deaths, last words and squeezed hands, heart rates down to single digits, chronic pain and headline tragedies and final confessions.”
“I have heard thousands of stories, and in some way have lived thousands of lifetimes. A chaplain is a grief catcher.” Here Park captures some of the most common deathbed regrets he’s heard from the dying.
According to researchers, the top five deathbed regrets are:
"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
"I wish I hadn't worked so hard."
"I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."
"I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
"I wish that I had let myself be happier."
Part of the book I’m working on considers how we live a life — especially how women live a life — that will help us not have these regrets at the end.
What deathbed regrets do you worry you will have? And would they be different if you died tomorrow or in decades from now?
Tell me your stories…
BOOK DISCUSSION QUESTION: Deathbed regrets, I have a few (with apologies to Frank Sinatra)
For me, I greatly fear never having a child. I was in a two-way in-love relationship 25 years ago that should have led to a family of my own. In recent years, I have completed all eligibility to become an adoptive parent, but the candy store analogy is pervasive in all on-line environments, including that of open adoptions. Perhaps if I was more focused when I was younger (I am 55), or, yes, knew how to invite happiness into my life. For now, making a difference in the lives of children is a befitting legacy.
I was too afraid to connect with others. Being abused as a child (used as an ashtray when I misbehaved, spent hours kneeling on the floor because I was a sinner, having really thick glasses as a kid and being beat up at school. I am still very afraid of other people and super withdrawn. I wish I would have experienced love instead of ridicule. Now I'm left with a sense of what I could've been, but now in my 50s I feel that it's passed me by. No kids no parents nothing except a sadness.