The BOW topic is:
If I could go back and change one thing in my life what would it be? The answer to that question is quite simple!
I would have had massive breast implants!
Relax I'm just kidding!
I'm going to be completely honest here. If I could change as many things as possible I would have a life that no longer resembles the one I have had so far. I'm just not able to honestly say, that I wouldn't change a thing.
The answer to the one thing that I could change if only one thing, is a no brainer for me.
I would have been there more for the closest people in my life. My father, my daughter, my uncle Eddy and my best friend. I was selfish.
My father was the best man alive when I look back. I never complimented him, I never hugged him and I never told him that I loved him. He was a very loving dad and made financial sacrifices to get me things that I wanted. I wanted clothes, records, concert tickets, riding lessons, a piano, and as I got older and divorced with a daughter, I wanted plane tickets.
My father was not rich and worked hard as a welder. He raised me pretty much alone after my mother got sick when I was four.
When I was still married he got colon cancer and ended up with a colostomy. He lived that way alone for the rest of his life. He never asked for any help or sympathy. He only asked, like any member of the family, to get together once in a while. Well when I did see him, apart from special occasion dinners, I was handing my daughter over to him to babysit. He couldn't work anymore so he was eager and ecstatic to take care of his one and only grandchild. She was like a gift to him. He just loved her.
This is the year I left my husband. My father picked her up from kindergarten. I had to work. A young high school student took photos of my daughter and father. It was for her class project.
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I feel quite a bit of heart ache when I look at these photos. I never picked up my daughter from this school before we moved out of my best friends house.
My father belonged to a non denominational church where he had his social life once a week. He often asked me to join him. I always turned him down. My daughter went with him sometimes and played with the other kids.
My dad's younger brother lived with us. He rented a room in our house when I was five. He became like a second dad to me. He never married or even had a partner. After being hurt by a girl he decided not to bother anymore. Uncle Eddy was everyone's uncle. There were no friends of mine that did not call him uncle Eddy. Eventually he moved upstairs to a small apartment in our house after our tenants moved out. When I left home he remained for a short time then moved out when my dad decided to sell the house.
I never told him how much I appreciated everything he did for me and gave to me. When I was younger, he took me horseback riding, he took me out in nature and told me about birds. He drove me where I wanted to go. He gave me presents on every occasion right up until he died two years ago.
When my daughter was born, Uncle Eddy was like a second grandfather to her. He could show love to someone new.
As my daughter and I got older, Uncle Eddy continued to be there whenever we needed. He never asked for anything. He only gave and gave.
Uncle Eddy was there even more after my father died. He was so generous. He always brought me things from the market each week and things he got on sale from the grocery store. He never asked for my time. I did have him over for special occasions. I thanked him but not enough. When my daughter moved to Vancouver on the other side of the country, he seemed to have a chunk missing but never whined or complained. He was always supportive.
Then there was my daughter. I took less care of her than other family members did. I used my father, my uncle, the grandparents on her father's side, to take care of her. Two weeks after she was born I left her with her father's parents. I was in a wedding band as a singer and her father just joined the band as a drummer. We had bookings. My new born daughter was shipped out of town for the whole weekend. Mind you she was in good hands. My mother in law at the time was thrilled with having my daughter as a new gift to her life.
When she was six I went to Cuba and took her with me. When I got there I ended up enjoying the sun and sea. We had fun but I left her to be with the other families that had children. The most heartbreaking memory that I have is when she asked me to make a sand castle with her. I told her that I wanted to lay in the sun because I was tired. She didn't bother me again. She entertained herself. There were too many times that she asked me to play with her and I told her I was too tired. I never understood why children wanted to hang out with their parents.
Then there was my best friend.
I met her in grade nine. She was in a very strict Christian church. She had never been to a movie theatre. She had never had a sleep over with other children. She admired me for some reason. It wasn't long that she left the church and her mother left as well. When we were seventeen, we found ourselves drinking and chasing boys for weed and for their attention. We had a lot of fun for a long time until she married a man that turned out to be a jerk. She eventually divorced him and remarried.
She married a man thirty years older than her. He was a wonderful person. He was a retired police chief of Toronto. He was a good man, and the example of a man who wanted to serve and protect. I was always worried that she would have to face the loss of her older husband.
I hadn't seen her for many years. She reached out to me and asked me and my current partner to come to a dinner party at her house. I knew it was due time. The theme of her dinner party was a murder mystery dinner. We would guess who was the killer. It was a lot of fun. Marc and I spent that night in their lovely home near Niagara falls.
After that she asked if we would come out there once again for some more fun. I agreed. At the last minute I decided it was too inconvenient. I left a message a couple of days before saying that I would have to take a raincheck. I made up an excuse. I was just too lazy to drive to her place an hour away. Yeah that's right, just an hour. I never saw her again.
I received a phone call shortly after that, from a mutual friend telling me that our dear friend had gone to the hospital for a minor day surgery. It went wrong. They were not able to save her. She was forty six. Her husband in his early seventies never dreamed that he would survive her.
I went to her devastatingly sad funeral where someone put together a slideshow of her life and I noticed many many photos of her and I. I had such regrets of not going to her house one last time.
After a life of not being there for the closest people to me, I have to face what I didn't do before. I now have Marc's parents who have constant health problems and are in their late seventies. We go to their home across town now on a regular basis and are there for them as much as possible. I still feel a huge karmic debt that I will have to face somehow.
I didn't get away with it this time!
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