No one could catch him in time.
Regret is infectious. Regret can take over your entire life, every waking moment, every restless night. Regret can eat away at who you are and what you value. It is insidious. It is subtle. It waits, rests, and then comes back harder and faster than you thought you could ever imagine it to be.
It can never be satiated, because you almost. just. got. it. You just barely ruined it all.
I almost caught my son.
Not literally.
But when he fell off that bike and busted up his face, I remembered with exact visual and auditory clarity, the moment that I chose whether or not he could bring his bike with him to camp.
"Mommy, can I bring my bike?"
"No. Of course not. No. The answer is no. No way. No how. Can't happen. Don't need a bike in the mountains. You'll be too busy having fun to ride a bike down a steep hill. No. No. Don't feel like watching your face get ripped off by the brick asphalt. Nope. No sir-ey. Never. No. No."
This is what I COULD have said. I COULD HAVE. He asked ME. It was up to me. All I had to do was say no. I wanted to say no. I didn't feel like dealing with the bike anyway. Nope. No.
Yes.
I said yes. We let him bring the bike.
And there it was...regret had a place to live.
Those regretted moments burn into memory with adrenaline scars. You can't forget even if you wanted to. You remember the moment you destroyed everything. You remember the downhill spiral. You bathe yourself in everything you have lost because of that moment, that descent.
All you can see is how things USED. TO. BE.
Before.
And how YOU...
could have kept it all from happening.
Regret is why I would make a terrible god.
Because when it comes to MY kid, MY SON, I would never, NOT EVER, hesitate to catch him. He would never feel pain, never feel suffering, never feel regret. I wouldn't be able to help myself. My hands would go out. I would never leave the moment alone, allow for my child to choose, I would never give regret a foothold.
And what good would that do?
My son chose to go down that hill.
He chose.
And the choices bring consequences, they bring hurt, they bring tears.
AND yet,
the tears,
they teach.
They teach regret...or if you're so inclined, they teach knowledge.
For the future.
Will Captain ever ride on that bike that is too small for him again?
No.
He sure won't.
And you can ask him and you'll probably get the same answer.
Knowledge.
He knows now.
And so do I.
And so, we will never let that happen again.
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