The saying “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” is an understatement.

Like most teenagers I went through a rebellious stage, where the words “I hate you” and “Leave me alone!” were quick to my lips when my mother decided to place a few restrictions on me.
Lets face it, teens just don’t give their parents the respect they deserve, at least not while they are still around to be disrespected.

I was fourteen and slowly but surely climbing my way back out of a terrible struggle with depression, when I was forced to be the one to dial 911 at 1:30 in the morning when my mom told me she couldn’t breathe.
The scariest moment a little kid will ever have to face is watching their beloved Mommy or Daddy slowly fading away, while laying in an unresponsive comatose state in the Intensive Care Unit.

I say “Little Kid” because that is exactly what I was at fourteen years of age acting like such an “adult” by yelling at my mother the night before, just because she asked me to leave my precious computer and run up the steps to get her pajamas for her.
I was never one to turn to religious beliefs when something in my life went wrong but I figured if there were ever a time to throw away the pentagram around my neck and pray now was that time.

After a week the doctor called us back and I learned the hard way that God is not one to be bribed by cheap promises like “I’ll go to church every day.”
My mother had been officially pronounced dead. Suddenly my world shattered all over again and I never wanted to yell at someone as much as I wanted to scream at that doctor at that point in time.

I never had a father. It was just my eighteen year old sister and I living with our mother, so when she died we were at a complete loss as to what to do. Thankfully our family stepped in to help us.

It has been two years since then and the pain of losing someone so close has not gone away or gotten any easier to live with.
Not very encouraging, I know.

Regrets have always lingered. If I had only dialed faster and if I had treated her better. Then of course there are the unanswered questions: Why her, who loved life so much instead of me, who two years prior was ready to die??

Unfortunately I’m never going to get the answer to that question. All I can do is pass on the information.

Regrets are there. Loss hits hard. Grief affects people of all ages. No matter how tough a person thinks they are its not going to stop the inevitable from happening.
As for what you can do to at least numb the pain, you can live. You can remember. You at least owe your loved one that much.

If you haven’t lost some one yet then work hard to make sure you treat them as they deserve to be treated. So when something tragic does happen, you can at least save yourself one regret.