Old Lady Regret... It Was So Unnecessary...

It's the year 2068. Jenny sat at the kitchen table. At seventy-two, Jenny’s hands trembled as she clutched a yellowed photograph of mom, her stern eyes softened by time. The house was silent, except for the ticking clock, each second a reminder of the decades lost to pride and silence. Jenny’s heart ached with regret, a weight she’d carried since she was about thirty, when she last saw her mother.

It was a spring evening in 2025... Jenny, fiery and headstrong, texted her parents, blaming both for her own mistakes in life... accusing them of being something she never actually witnessed. She rewrote much of her childhood. She cancelled her mom and dad that day fueled by what she would later realize was a ridiculous movement... a narrative that really was not her own. She never spoke to either ever again.

For years, Jenny built a life - career, grad school, community involvement for causes she valued. She made a good living and was respected by her peers, but never married. She’d hear snippets about her mother through cousins: Mom's arthritis worsening, her quiet days in the old house after losing her husband... Jenny told herself she was right to stay away, that mom & dad were too controlling, too cold. But deep down, she knew she’d exaggerated her mother’s faults... her dad's too... turning them into a wall she couldn’t climb... and everyone in her circle cheered her on... praising her for "creating boundaries"... she never let any opposing voices speak so all she heard were praises. Praises!

She looked back on all that fueled her self-righteous stances. The people... those so called "friends", were all gone... Those who seemed to support her... they just sort of disappeared.... or they evolved into "something else"... And the "causes" that once seemed so important... Jenny scratches her head in confusion as to why she was on one side or the other...

Now, in her quiet living room, Jenny traced her mother's face in the photograph. She remembered her mother’s hands, strong from playing the piano, but gentle for caressing her back. She remembered mom's rare laugh, how it lit up her face. She remembered how mom would drop anything to attend to her needs and always did it with a happy heart. She remembered lying in bed with mom who never dismissed the concerns of a grade schooler navigating life. These memories, once buried under resentment, now flooded Jenny with unbearable clarity. She saw herself as the one who’d been cold, who’d let a single fight erase a lifetime of love. Mom hadn’t been perfect, but she tried... writing letters Jenny never opened, texts & emails not returned... leaving voicemails she deleted unheard.

She pictured mom waiting by the phone, hoping for a call that never came, her heart breaking as Jenny’s now did. Tears fell onto the photograph, blurring mom’s face. Jenny whispered, “I’m sorry,” but the words felt hollow, lost to a woman long gone. She imagined mom's final days, alone... wondering why her child had abandoned her. The guilt was a stone in Jenny’s chest, heavier with each passing year. She’d give anything to take back that Spring night, to hug her mom and dad instead of shouting, to listen instead of leaving. The clock ticked on, indifferent. Jenny set the photograph down, her hands shaking. She’d live with this regret until her own final days, a seeming punishment for a choice she couldn’t undo. Outside, the world moved on, but Jenny sat frozen, tethered to a past she’d broken, haunted by the mother she’d never see again.

NOTE: Writing this kind of broke me. -Scott