<p>Have you ever left something unsaid - and wish you didn’t?</p>
<p>If so, could you post what you ‘should’ have said here?
x-posted in college life forum.</p>
<p>“Would you like to go out with me sometime?” :o</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re expecting! When is the baby due?” It got worse when my husband asked the same woman the same question about ten minutes later. She was NOT pregnant.</p>
<p>I did the baby thing to a bank teller once, too…I felt HORRIBLE.</p>
<p>My mother told me this story. It was the height of the depression and my mother was sitting at a lunch counter in New York. A poor woman came in and ordered a cup of coffee (into which she poured a lot of cream and sugar probably for the calories) and asked for a bowl of hot water. She dumped some ketchup into the water to make a quasi tomato soup. On the counter there were crackers that were free for customers. The woman stared longingly at the crackers wishing to have some, but afraid of the cost. My mother told me this story in the 1980s…that she didn’t tell the woman that the crackers were free. Her guilt plagued her for over 50 years.</p>
<p>My problem is I have said too many things that I shouldn’t have, CC included.:(</p>
<p>I would really like to meet Jimmy Carter and tell him that I greatly admire his post-presidency work. I’m probably running out of time.</p>
<p>The last time I was at a water park (many years ago!), there was a guy in the lazy river in front me who had a mole on his back that looked so much like those pictures of skin cancer. I’m not in a medical field and didn’t say anything, but I’ve wondered about him.</p>
<p>Ellebud, your story will haunt me for a few days.</p>
<p>I had a boy-friend whose mother (unmarried at the time) had given up her first little baby boy for adoption. She then married the baby’s father, and my boy-friend was born. She had always wondered what became of her first baby boy. </p>
<p>One day several years later I walked in from work and an insurance agent was sitting at my kitchen table talking to my husband. I froze. He was the spitting image of my former boy-friend, even sounded like him. I wish I had asked him if by any chance he had been adopted.</p>
<p>Missypie: My mother never forgave herself for staying silent. The fact that I remember this story (my mother has been dead for 13 years)to this day…The story has haunted me as well.</p>
<p>The question is,
</p>
<p>The question is NOT, Have you ever said something you wish you had not said!</p>
<p>Oh gee, I wish I hadn’t said that!</p>
<p>In my case, the answer is: “No, thank you.” (That’s what I wish I had said, but didn’t)</p>
<p>sure.</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p>Ellebud, maybe it’s like The Five People You Meet in Heaven and we can somehow make up for it in our lives.</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>My father called to tell me there was a huge snow storm. My mother got on the phone and they started arguing about who should go shovel the snow. I told them that I didn’t want to listen to them argue, and hung up.</p>
<p>It was the last time I ever talked to my father.</p>
<p>Twenty minutes later, he collapsed and died while helping my mother shovel the snow.</p>
<p>I wish I had told both of them to just stay inside and that I loved them, instead of telling them I was sick of listening to them argue, and hanging up.</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>I had a very similar experience to Carolyn. My father was clearly suffering from chest pain. I told him that I was going to call an ambulance. He ordered me not to call. He claimed that he was fine. I sat quietly and obeyed my father’s directives. He suffered a massive heart attack less than 2 weeks later and did not live much longer.</p>
<p>ellebud - I shed a tear over that story.</p>
<p>I have to keep that tomato soup recipe we are going to need it. looks like by next week!</p>
<p>I wish I had said: “I know you did the best you could in a very difficult situation, Mom. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I’m sorry I was so selfish and bratty. You did not deserve that kind of crap from me.”</p>
<p>We need to retitle this thread as the alternative to the “get it off your chest” thread. You can post what you wish you had had the chance or the guts to say in a positive way. I can’t figure out how to start a new thread on the new form, but if you can:</p>
<p>I’ll start:
Too many times to count I should have thanked my kids teachers.</p>
<p>I have two related to my kids’ elementary school. Mathson had a fifth grade teacher who gave a test where one of the questions was “What was the first colony?” He put down “Roanoke” and she marked it wrong because he should have known she meant the first successful colony. I didn’t complain because he already had an A on the test, but I wish I had, because it set the tone for the rest of the year. It got so bad I had to tell the principal not to assign her to my younger son. </p>
<p>The other case also involved a teacher - she was fine with my older son, but she got very strange with my younger son’s class. She really seemed to dislike them and said many demeaning things. I didn’t believe half of it, but I should have. I heard even more complaints from parents the next year. She should never have been in a gifted classroom. She was a good reading recovery teacher, but she didn’t like smart kids.</p>
<p>As for nice things. Yes, the good teachers never got thanked enough. I did thank my best college professor many, many years after the fact. (I wrote him a letter.)</p>
<p>for the longest I have been unable to say the words “i love you”. and when my mom says it to me, all I can say is, “likewise”.</p>