Do any of our lives unfold without moments of regret? Dashed dreams. Intimate relationships that detoured unexpectedly. All manner of missed opportunities. For many, the aftermath is filled with deep remorse and, maybe, feelings of guilt. For some, these moments lead to a deep yearning for absolution, as we hear from Kevin Blanchard.
Kevin Blanchard comes to us from Barrington, Rhode Island, where he teaches English at Barrington High School. His father Wilfred Blanchard taught high school biology in Massachusetts for 35 years. He loved the Boston Red Sox and as a kid saw Ted Williams play left field at Fenway Park.
I’m not sure I ever truly mourned you, Dad, although you could say I’m doing it now, more than three years after the fact.
What I do know is that when the call came at 2:30 in the morning on July 4th and Evelyn’s voice told us you did not have long to live, I remained in bed for at least twenty minutes, eyes open, studying the ceiling and steeling myself for the long drive in the rain to western Massachusetts towards what must come.
I look back at my reluctance that morning, imagining you in a hospital bed in the middle of your living room where ten days before we had watched the Red Sox together and acknowledged David Price’s inconsistency on the mound. Turns out he was hurt and would miss the month of August, even though the team would go on to make the playoffs in September and lose to the Astros in four games. You missed Mookie’s homer in Game 3; it was really the only highlight. He plays for the Dodgers now. Price too.
We enjoyed some ice cream that afternoon, vanilla I think, but you could not keep yours down. I held the bowl beneath your mouth when you spit up.
That’s when your death from pancreatic cancer felt inevitable. Holding that bowl, I mourned you, Dad. I understand that now.
When we pulled in the driveway the rain had slackened and the hospice nurse met us at the door. She said you had passed about an hour before. I thanked her and in some strange way I felt relieved that my delay had prevented me from seeing you alive again. She said you died peacefully.
I hugged Evelyn, went into the living room, saw your mouth frozen open in one last gasp, and kissed your cold forehead.
I believe in absolution, whether it comes immediately in the form of a blessing or a sacrament or takes time, percolating through us as regret only to resolve itself alongside sorrow.
