Over chips and guacamole one night, my 14-year-old daughter
asked, “Do you have any regrets, Mom?”
After subsequently choking on a chip, I began mentally flipping through
a Rolodex of regrets in my life. Number one was marrying her father, who didn’t
turn out to be the best of men. Of
course I couldn’t tell her that, so I dug deeper.
“I regret that I didn’t go to the rodeo with Fred.” A confession -- and an epiphany.
Fred was a childhood friend.
I liked him -- a lot. He had soft brown eyes, a big heart and a mentally
disabled brother he fiercely protected. But I was a shy and immature 7th
grader, so nothing ever came of my crush.
In high school, Fred worked up his nerve to ask me out. While on our way
home from a movie, he stopped to help a woman change a flat tire on the side of
the road. Fred was a hero, even then.
Fred later asked me to the rodeo. I made up some lame excuse not to go. He had
become a cowboy and moved to the foothills. A simple guy, living a simple life,
and simply too redneck for me.
I never saw him again.
When I was away at college, Fred was killed on his motorcycle
by a drunk driver. His family donated
his organs, including those beautiful brown eyes, to a handful of people who
are alive now because of him.
I’ve always wanted to find the man who was given Fred’s eyes.
I want to look into them one last time, and from the bottom of my soul, tell
him that I’m sorry I judged him so harshly, and that he was the kind of man I
should have married all along.
But I can’t go back. I can only hope my teenaged daughters
will learn from my mistake: To not judge someone so quickly; and to give every
person they meet a chance to show them what a hero he or she can become.
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