The Things That You Didn’t Do

Dad With His Sisters & His Mom

With a Crew Like This One (That’s My Dad on the Left with His Sisters, His Brother Isn’t Pictured), Plus With Me, My Sister, My Cousins, Grandma D Had Her Hands Full

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed

by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”   – Mark Twain

Twain, who happens to be buried in the cemetery where I run (where I’ve created some of my favorite poems and young adult fiction), was certainly astute when he suggested the things that you didn’t do could lead to disappointment.

Of course, I didn’t need to wait twenty years to experience for myself that sort of disappointment. I’d only been on the planet about twenty-years (not that I come from another planet, despite what some people might tell you) and I was smack dab in the middle of reminiscing with my grandmother about one specific summer a few years prior to that when I first had an epiphany related to Twain’s message.

My disappointment had nothing to do with unspoken love or with an abandoned dream, however, and everything to do with the squandered opportunity of a lifetime (well, you know, for a fourteen-year-old).

I’m not talking about an affair of the heart, but one of the taste buds. That’s right, I’m talking about food. Cream puffs to be exact. Light, airy, sweet perfection!

Okay, I’m really talking about a lot more than that. Her name was Stella.
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