These two questions, What will you wish you had done? and Who will you wish you had been?  have had a lot of my attention in the last year and a half, in approaching what were to be, unbeknownst to me, the last months of my parents’ lives, and in reflecting on that time. They are powerful questions that help us to step out of whatever journey we’re in and transport us to the end of it, and to consider from that place what and how we might want to do and be while we’re still traveling, before the journey is over and it’s too late. This is one example of a Subject-Object move…one in which we transform an experience of being subject to something by stepping out of a challenging situation into the future, viewing it from a distance and with more objectivity, or as object, we are able to step back Into it in a different way – maybe with more tenderness and compassion or more patience. Stepping out informs the stepping in.

Having just visited my parents’ empty house, I am reminded of these questions, because I didn’t contemplate them as well or as often as I would have liked. At times I am filled with regret and sorrow, not so much for things I didn’t do, but for not being more present with them. And, at other times I am overwhelmed with gratitude at all that did and didn’t transpire as my parents were nearing the end of their life journeys. And there are no do-overs at this point…I can’t go back and change what I did or how I was with them, and I can learn from the experience and do and be differently moving forward. I can leave more space in my schedule for being really present with the ones I love, instead of being so focused on doing and taking care of things.