text: Regret is something people always seem to carry with them. Whether it was because of some decision they never took or one that only led them down the wrong path. It always seems to be constant in a person’s life, a state of existence that requires no change. So why is it, when it comes to the end of your days, when that same existence begins to slowly die down, do people finally begin to unload all their regret for anyone to hear? The story always seems to be the same, really. Without emotion or belief, they all begin to cry out to the same tune ‘*if* I had just done this’ or ‘*if* I just had more time’. Always if. Always without promise or resolve. Always just a tape, placed on repeat. The need to change what’s within or even press pause for a few moments having been lost, never to be found. Or at least, that’s how it usually went. I would be making my usual rounds. The hallways heavy with the sound of sorrow. Regret, dripping from the doors they came from like tears that left the grieving families eyes. Yet, within that mess of cries, like each day I came across it, one person’s tales stood out more than anything else. Much like a diamond in the rough. A man who I had come so used to passing, collecting what he had laid out for me in the form of drifting words and lazy tales that in one striking moment I found myself so unprepared. “you don’t have to stay by the door...” It came as a bit of a shock really. Having become so used to listening from afar, to wander by his door, collecting the shiny gems that spilled from within his mouth. To be called in, even if it was my job to care for patients, seemed strangely different. As if this very room had become one that I wished not to enter, to only observe from its doorway without any need for further contact. Standing there though, I began to think. Think what may happen *if* I didn’t take this chance, *if* I were to ignore his statement and just keep going on with my day. Frankly the thought began to sicken me. To think I might join those I despised so much, to find regret within my own actions, provided a push that sent me forward and through the door. I used to hear him talk while I did my rounds. Usually to himself, speaking of days long gone. Most of the tales, if you even want to call them that, were of his parents. Sometimes, I would catch bits and pieces, nothing important really. Though on occasions, the stories would seem to keep at a pattern, growing stronger with each retelling, forming a tale of the past that, as I walked by, would be quick to listen to. Through these tales I would begin to hear of his life. Hearing of the stories on how his father was a drinker, a man of Irish blood, falling upon his own needs and soon finding his feelings down the long neck of whatever bottle he held within his grasp. Other times it was of his mother and how she used to sing to him, something he spoke about in longing now more than ever, after having ignored it for so long as a child. After a while I would find myself waiting, expecting really, for the tales to drift from his room. To pick them up as I passed by, revealing to me something new and interesting about him, something that I knew would brighten my day. Slowly beginning to want more as time went on, my pickups taking longer and longer. My interest willing me to remain, to listen and observe of the tales he left behind. The tales had begun to change for me after a while. What once was a pastime, something I collected like the endless tools and towels during my rounds, had begun to shine through everything else. A tiny treasure really, one that I held onto without regret, without second thought to what may happen without their presence. The room was brighter than I expected, the curtains hanging open and the windows swung free to allow in a natural breeze. His sheets freshly replaced; the air filled with lavender. The refresher mixing with the smell of the world outside, as if trying its best to combine and hide away the sickness that clung just outside of the doorway. And yet, with all these distractions, they did little to hide the man that lay before me. A complete opposite of the rooms sparkling image. The man was dying. Sickness having claimed its right to take his body, leaving him bedridden and closer to death with each passing day. This was of a story so common, heard so many times that most would find themselves yawning at the retelling of it. And yet, as I stared at the man before me, thinking over to the thousands of others I had found in a similar situation, I couldn’t help but feel...empty. Its as if this man’s presence before me, one I saw drifting away so quickly, had already begun to create a void. A void I knew would never be filled; a void placed there because I found myself wondering what I would do without his tales. Finding myself so lost within my sorrow, the cheery room before me slowly beginning to corrode. Every calming scent reminding me of the death it hid. Every pleasant image, the calm sheets and fluffed up pillows used only to hide the dying body that lay before it. "...I know I'm dying; you don't have to feel bad about it" The man's words, once more pulling me away from where I was. His calmness, especially towards death - something I had grown so quickly to detest in this moment, made me feel almost ridiculous for finding such pain from the death he drew ever so close to. So instead, as I stood there watching him hold on for as long as his body allowed, I decided to do it with him. To stand by his side, to sit and talk and to listen most especially. To watch his body as it faded away, the strength he had held onto slowly crumbling before me. Watching so quietly at the end, a smile so pleasantly placed upon his lips as if none of this truly mattered. It was only then, once the silence truly began to set in, did I begin to cry. The tears streaming down my face, breaking whatever silent oath I had made for myself to never feel for a patient, to never truly care for what they did. But it was also in that moment, as the tears continued to fall that I began to notice the little red book that hid so well within his hands. A notebook that as I slowly slid away from his hands, I noticed my name written across. Careful to open such a thing now, my eyes beginning to dry while the first few words showed through. Tales old and new, ones that I remembered so fondly and ones I was excited to explore. Flipping through the pages, glancing across the words written down so fondly, until I came across the final words, one that drew me to pause for only a moment before I began to crumble once more, finally letting everything go, my tears and stammers filling the halls ‘...to the nurse who listened’ &#x200B; if you made it to the end of this story then i congratulate you.