No Regrets

Our home teachers stopped by yesterday. I was in the middle of making a huge batch of lemon chicken (yes, it was yummy) and Jacob was entertaining several of our friends, so the home teachers kept their visit short. They shared bits of the message from the August Ensign and then one of them read this line from that last paragraph of the message:
"May we live so that when the final summons is heard, we may have no serious regrets, no unfinished business..."

The concept of living with no regrets (or no serious regrets, to be more clear) always gives me food for thought. In my third year of college (so 5 years ago now), I met my friend Katie. She was a wild one. :-) She had lived through a tough life, by most standards, but she was doing pretty well. She was also three years into college, lived in my ward, and also could have cared less about dating at the time (my reason was Jacob, her's was emtional baggage). We spent a lot of time together and became fast friends.

There was one week on Sunday School when our bishop was teaching and he asked the class what long-term goals we had in life. Marriage, kids, job, etc. Then Katie raised her hand and said she wanted to live with no regrets. The bishop told her he thought that was an unrealistic goal and if we don't regret the things we do wrong, why would we ever repent of them? I don't remember what the rest of the discussion after that was - I stopped paying attention at that point and started thinking.

At this point in my life, I put a LOT of stock in what this bishop said, but in this case, I really wanted to side with Katie. When I get to the end of my life, I don't want to have any cause to complain about missed opportunities or to still be upset about something someone did years ago or to still be waiting for some big change in my life because then I'll be happy. I've come to realize since then that the difference of opinion between the bishop and Katie was probably more of a misunderstanding of definitions than an actual difference in intent. When Katie and I talked about it later, that certainly seemed to be the case to me.

Katie and I were very close while Jacob was on his mission, but the same time he got back, she moved to a different apartment complex in a different ward and we lost touch. We still emailed occasionally and called occasionally but we really didn't hang out much anymore. Incidentally, she was in the same ward as my sister, Nicole. Around the first Thanksgiving after Jacob and I got married, Nicole showed up at our door crying and shared the news that Katie had died in a car crash the night before on her way back to BYU from her parents' house in Washington. I went through the shock and the crying and the sadness but Jacob, being Jacob, soon had me laughing at all of the fun memories we had shared with Katie.

I still think about Katie a lot, especially around Thanksgiving time. I still miss her and the light and fun she brought into every conversation. I look forward to asking her someday if she reached her goal of living with no serious regrets. I think she did. Nicole and I talked about her that night and Nicole filled me in on some of the changes in Katie's life since I had spoke with her last. She had reconciled with her parents and was on very good terms with them for the first time in years. She had recently broken off her engagement, but even though it hurt, she was happy because she knew that marrying that guy wasn't the right thing. School was going well, she was healthy and happy in life. I don't think she had any serious regrets left at the end.

I just hope I can learn from Katie's example. We don't know how long we have on this earth - I think that was part of President Monson's message in the Ensign. We can't wait to live our lives. We need to do something good with the time and the talents that we have been given, and we need to start doing it now. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about my goals in life and what regrets would I have if my time here was soon over. I think I'm in a pretty good spot right now. The regrets I would have are pretty trivial and I've already started on getting those goals accomplished.

Honestly, the real reason I wrote this post is that when I was being all contemplative yesterday, Jacob thought I was upset with him. When I kept telling him that no, I wasn't, and no, I didn't want to talk about it, he got very curious. So the only way I was able to get him to give me time to think was to promise to blog about my thoughts today. Persistent little man, isn't he? :-) But I'm glad I wrote this all out. Things always seem to make more sense to me if I write them out. So I'm not trying to preach to anyone. If you want preaching, go read the Ensign article - it does a much better job than I do. I guess I really just wanted to share my joy at where my life is right now and my memories of my friend who I still miss and my re-iterated goal to live and be happy and do good now, and not wait for whatever I think the next big thing is before I start to enjoy the life I've been blessed with.