Have Regrets?

I have a few moments of sadness over things that I will never have the chance to do.

Not really regrets as much as a wistful feeling over lost opportunities or what might have been.

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Aunt Bea said:
I have a few moments of sadness over things that I will never have the chance to do.

Not really regrets as much as a wistful feeling over lost opportunities or what might have been.

TMM-100.jpeg
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I looked up the definition of regret:

English Language Learners Definition of regret (Entry 1 of 2) : to feel sad or sorry about (something that you did or did not do) : to have regrets about (something) —used formally and in writing to express sad feelings about something that is disappointing or unpleasant. regret. noun.

Just wanted to add that.
 

squatting dog said:
Only Two.
First, I failed to see the hurt my daughter was suffering with before she took her life. 😭 💔
Second is even more personal, so impossible to share here, but something I will carry with me all my life. :(
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WOW, Dog. I am sorry to learn about your daughter. Kids are a hard read sometimes. We don’t know what they are thinking. They also tend to keep their lives private and it’s been my experience that they don’t like talking to adults. My sincere condolences.
 
After I became an Investigator for the Pennsylvania State Police, I was assigned to the Pittsburgh Barracks. There is a small town in Southwest PA, which was 99% white, meaning only 1 family in this small town was black. This family had 3 kids, 2 boys and 1 girl. The girl was 15. On a Friday afternoon in August, we received a call from this family that their daughter had gone missing. We went to their home and asked them all the usual questions; any arguments, did you check with all her friends, did you look on your own, etc. Nothing!

After the interview with the family, we started the investigation. The Barracks Commander put 2 of us on the case with me being the lead. My first time as a lead Investigator. This is important because when you are the lead, you are permitted certain latitudes that others may not have. I requested from the father if I could search her room and he agreed that I could. I found her journal (diary) and read the last 5 pages. I read that she had a boyfriend. I asked her dad if he knew an Alan Smith (not real name). He said that he never heard of him. I informed him that it appeared to me that he is your daughter’s boyfriend, which surprised him. The one brother of the missing girl knew of the boyfriend.

During the investigation, we learned that the father was being looked at by the community. He was shunned by the residents, received hang-up phone calls and someone had slashed 1 of his tires and wrote killer on his


Together, my partner and I worked this case for almost 155 hours. Luckily, things fell into place pretty quickly. Once we learned that she had a girlish crush on her music teacher, we asked him to come in for an interview. He wouldn’t give us direct answers to our questions, so this made him a suspect. We then finally received a list of her cell phone calls from her cell phone provider and the music teacher’s number was the last person she had spoken with. The call only lasted 20 seconds.

We brought the music teacher back in for another interview and after a grueling 6 1/2 hour interview, he finally gave it up. He killed and buried her in a really remote area that it was doubtful if she would have been found. After the autopsy, we found that she was also pregnant.

My point to this story is to illustrate how children can hide things from parents. I was once asked at a community meeting after another child went missing, “Is it OK to snoop in your child’s room and read their journal.” That’s a hard question to be asked, but one that we had discussed during training classes. Psychologists say ‘yes‘ parents should occasionally check to see what their child is up to. Our job as parents is to keep our children safe and this is one way that we can do that. The other part of that answer is not to tell your child that you were snooping and if the journal is locked, then leave it alone.

BTW, the community apologized to the father and also got together and paid for the funeral. That young girl’s death brought the community together. My partner and I went to the funeral. The family was very appreciative of the job we did and thanked us. The mom prepared an album with pictures of the girl from birth to just before her death. She also included in the album some of her drawings, school papers and notes from her boyfriend. It was a really neat idea.
 
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Ruthanne said:
As do I and the ones that bother me most are the ones that it's too late to do anything about.
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You hit the nail on the head when you said, " it's too late to do anything about".
The vast majority of regrets are because I didn't treat my wife better during or 28 years together.
And though its too late to do anything its not too late to have sleepless nights worrying over them.
 

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