My dad's regrets

Kirk and Sheldon discuss Kirk's latest article

"The Most Powerful Words My Dad Ever Spoke"
https://www.kirkdurston.com/blog/regrets

Kirk is a Scientist, philosopher, clergyman, outdoorsman, husband to the Queen of Hearts and father to six young adults.

Read and comment on his content at kirkdurston.com.

Creators and Guests

Host

Kirk Durston

Scientist, philosopher, clergyman, outdoorsman, husband to the Queen of Hearts and father to six young adults.

Host

Sheldon Kotyk 🇨🇦

Father and Husband. “Fantastic and terrible in equal measure.” Probably not being serious.

What is Quest with Kirk Durston?

Kirk is a philosopher, scientist, husband, and a legit Christian. His podcast is mostly about exploring assumptions and questions pertaining to God, philosophy, science and life that he ponders about, hence the name Quest with Kirk Durston.

Kirk wants you to join him on that Quest or perhaps you're on your own quest about such matters and you can explore together.

All right.

Let's just skip all that stuff.

I hit the wrong button.

Okay.

It's going to be one of those days.

I think, how are you doing?

I am doing fine.

And, uh, I'm assuming we're live now by,

I think so.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think so.

Yeah.

It looks like there's a clock ticking,

although we lost all of our

viewers during that intro.

I am, I am doing reasonably well.

And, um,

I haven't even bothered to

get outside and dig out

after last night's snow

dump because we're still getting more.

You got a fresh one?

Yeah, more of the same as we speak.

So no use.

My lane is one hundred and

forty yards long,

so no use clearing that.

I'm just going to fill in in

a couple of hours.

Oh, that's not that's not fun.

The sky dandruff is...

It's pretty to look at on a

mountain when you're trying

to ski or something,

but when it's affecting lives.

Well, you know, I actually like the snow,

but there reaches a point,

I think we've got more snow

this year than I can

remember in at least twenty years,

at least.

It just keeps coming.

We're not experiencing snow right now,

but we're experiencing the

temperatures where snow really thrives.

So we're not in any danger

of anything melting here.

Yeah.

We're going to have to start

measuring in like Kelvin.

Yeah.

Yeah, zero degrees Kelvin.

That's really cold.

It hardly ever gets that cold in Canada,

but close to it.

Yeah,

it was minus-thirty-eight with the

windchill this morning, which, like,

honestly, we've had worse, but we're in,

like, week two or three of this now,

and we've got another week, I think,

to go.

Yeah.

It's not enjoyable.

No,

but I just got back from giving some

seminars in Hawaii, and so I'm, you know,

I've had a break at least.

The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the,

Yeah, it's a, it's a time of year.

Uh, so how was,

how was the trip to Hawaii?

Did you, uh, you talked a lot.

Hmm.

Twelve seminars, one hour each.

Um, and I used,

I would give them three

hours at a stretch,

like three seminars in a row.

So it was quite a marathon.

I mean, by the end of the third hour,

I was ready for a coffee for sure.

You didn't have a pitcher up

on your desk there that was ready to go?

Just a water bottle.

Yeah, just a water bottle,

and it was too far to walk

to go get a coffee.

But I really enjoyed it,

and we had a couple days off,

one a day ahead of time and

then one the day after I

finished my last seminar

where my wife and I got to

just go off and do some

hiking along the coast.

We really enjoyed that, just hiking along.

And what island were you on?

Kauai.

Kauai.

Kauai is very undeveloped,

mostly agriculture, a lot of ranches,

cattle ranching there,

a gigantic coffee plantation,

which I've been to twice

because I am an appreciator of coffee,

which this is a double espresso here.

Um, yeah, I'm a, I'm a big fan of Hawaii.

Uh, every time I've been there,

I've been there three times, I think very,

very nice.

Not a fan of the five hour

time difference though,

or the eleven hours sitting

in an airplane seat to get

there or get back.

Yeah,

I'll be experiencing a little bit of

that.

I'm in Japan in a month.

Oh, no, that's even worse.

That's even a longer flight.

Hawaii is like, well,

I guess it's not halfway,

just the way everything works.

But, yeah, those are.

When you get a five-hour flight just,

or five hours of flying

just to get to Vancouver,

and then you have another

eleven and a half or whatever.

Oh, I'm so thankful I'm not doing that.

I have flown to China a few

times from Winnipeg.

but not recently, and that's torture,

actually.

I find it torture to sit in

a chair for that long, and you can't,

you know, you can get up a little bit,

but.

Yeah, we, like, the Thailand one,

I did the Vancouver to Singapore,

which was sixteen and a

half hours in the air,

That was not, not fun.

That's like,

it's the length of like two

nights because they,

they literally have the lights off.

Yeah.

Vancouver at like ten and

you land in the morning in Singapore.

And so they just leave the

lights off the whole time.

Yeah.

Sixteen and a half hours.

Thankfully it was a nice, nice plane.

Oh, I would, I would, I think,

I'm having a hard time

thinking whether I prefer

to be hung upside down by

my big toes for sixteen

hours or sit on an airplane seat,

and it's just a toss-up.

Well, with the airplane,

you at least get people

bringing you coffee.

That's true.

It's not good coffee, but it's coffee.

Yeah,

it's hard to drink coffee hanging

upside down by my big toes,

so I'll grant you that that

is an advantage.

All right.

Well, let's get into it a little bit.

You wrote an article this past week.

How long have you been sitting on this?

Because it's been a little

bit since your dad passed,

but I'm sure this is over a year.

Yeah, it's over a year.

And of all the things,

like I left home at the age

of nineteen and I worked as

a farmhand on my dad's farm starting

Don't know I guess around

age twelve or thirteen full

time like around age twelve

or thirteen you kind of

expected to Start doing a

man's work at least Maybe

not in lifting capabilities

for fewer pure muscle strength,

but as far as driving

tractors and stuff so Yeah,

and I've been of all of

those years I Could barely

remember anything dad said

to me except this one thing

And this one thing is the

thing that if I think of dad,

it is what I think of now.

It was one sentence long,

and he simply said, it went so fast,

and now it's too late.

And, uh,

he was referring to how fast his

life went and the too late

was referring to his three

main regrets that he

expressed in his final days

as he was in the care home, um, you know,

preparing to die at the age of.

So, yeah,

I've been sitting on it for about

a year thinking I got to write about this,

but how do I write about it in a way that,

uh, conveys the

importance and the impact of

what he said and so I

finally got it written

while I was in Hawaii

because I did have some

free time after the

seminars and wrote it and

then I sent it off to

another person to review it

ideas input you know that

sort of thing and I got it

back pushed it up last

night and there it is the

three major regrets of

dad's life it stated in the con like he

It's to appreciate how fast

his life seemed to have gone by, uh,

about a year or two before he was,

he died.

He was over at my place and

we were splitting wood together.

He was about nine at the time.

So he didn't actually split the wood.

He just picked it up and put it in the,

in the pile.

But he was telling me it was in the fall,

I guess.

And he says, you know,

this summer went so fast.

I couldn't believe the leaves,

the trees had time to get

their leaves out before it

was time to drop them.

Like, it just seemed like a few days,

a summer, a whole summer.

And at the end, his ninety-two years,

he was just astounded at how,

how brief they'd been,

how fast they'd gone.

And that's something to pay attention to.

So part of why I wrote this

article are the main,

I think a big reason, not the main reason,

but a major reason is that

we often look at people on

their deathbed and if

they're anything like me,

I've never really relished

the thought of going to see

someone who's in, they're dying,

they're in their deathbed,

their final days of life.

Never really relished that thought,

but I have,

Because of relatives and friends dying,

I have had to do that

recently over the last, say,

six years or so.

And I have found it's well worth the trip.

It is well worth sitting by

a person dying to listen to

what they say.

And the second thing that

comes up to mind is that I,

let's say when Christopher

Hitchens was dying,

And he was a world-famous atheist,

one of the so-called four

atheists of the apocalypse

or whatever they were called,

the four horsemen of atheism.

He said, you know, just in case,

because he was referring to

some other atheists who in

their final days decided

that maybe there is a God

and maybe there is an

afterlife and maybe I need

to start thinking about this.

So he wanted to preempt that.

And his approach was to,

for other people have done that to say,

oh, they were old.

They were kind of half out of their minds,

you know, don't pay attention.

They were just saying that, you know,

whatever.

So he says, if I start talking that way,

just know it,

know that it must be the

drugs or the medication,

or maybe I'm actually losing my mind.

So he warned people ahead of

time in case he started talking that way.

And so what he was promoting was,

is the idea that, oh man,

there was another famous atheist.

I don't want to say his name

because I think I know his name,

but it might be the wrong one,

and I don't want to accuse

some other atheist of

having become a theist in his last days.

He was a famous opponent of

intelligent design, famous,

but in the last days actually decided,

you know, I think this is true.

So he was referring to him specifically,

but there's this idea that

a person that as they are nearing death,

they're not thinking straight anymore.

So don't listen to them.

Don't listen to what they

say or don't take it seriously.

But I've sat by the death

beds of a few people now.

And sometimes you see

there's no more plans to

make no more ambitions to fulfill.

Um,

they got nothing on their schedule

except the next thing is die.

And they can now look back

at their life free of all

the daily distractions that

prevented them from

thinking about serious

stuff and maybe more

objectively evaluate their lives.

And that's why I think it's

well worth listening to

people who are approaching death.

To hear what they have to say.

And I don't want to be in

that same position as some

of them have been.

I actually don't want to

find myself in the position

of saying what my dad said.

It happened so fast and now it's too late.

So I greatly value what he said.

And then I think, well, okay,

what were his three main regrets?

And that's what I think we need to

Maybe explore a little bit,

see how that applies to our lives.

Yeah, I, uh,

I didn't have the chance to be

with my dad when he still had a lot of,

um,

brain power left by the time we got to

the hospital,

he's already in that space where he was,

he was, um, yeah, the,

the kidneys had been

shutting down and stuff.

And so he was pretty confused, but, um,

Yeah, so let's just go right through this.

So first regret.

I'll just read this.

In tears, Dad said,

I wish I had treated my wife better.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and that's something that I think,

even if you're not married yet,

even if you're relatively young,

Um,

you need to be thinking about what dad

said and, uh,

just to put some context or some, maybe a,

maybe a larger picture on this.

I read a book by a, um,

a couple who were marriage

counselors and they had counseled,

I think it was between.

Thirteen hundred and fifteen

hundred married couples.

And in that book,

there was a chapter that

was titled what women want.

And I know that there's lots

of jokes been told about

how men are clueless about

what women want.

And, and, you know,

actually there's probably a

lot of truth about how

clueless men are about what

their wives really want.

So my wife would vote affirmative to that.

I think I know, I know.

And this was a very valuable chapter.

So, uh,

I read that chapter intently and it

was very simple.

He said,

They expressed it maybe in a

variety of ways,

but it all boiled down to

just the one thing above

all others that women wanted.

He's talking women wanted of their man,

their husband.

And that was this,

that their husband would cherish them.

And that's the word he used,

cherish your wife.

And then the rest of the chapter,

he kind of expanded on what

it means to cherish your wife.

So dad, he was...

He couldn't believe how fast

the years had gone with his marriage.

Like she, my mom had died just,

I think about eight, ten months earlier,

eight or ten months earlier.

She passed away right on

their sixty ninth wedding

anniversary to that very day.

And it was kind of surreal

to look at the wedding

pictures that they had taken on that very,

very happy day back in

nineteen fifty three.

see mom getting ready with

her brides with her wedding

gown and the bridesmaids

and dad with his suit and

everything and it's such a

happy day and they were

those two were really in

love back then I after after

Let's see, after it was dad that died,

they came upon some old

love letters or old letters

they had written.

Basically, mom had written to dad,

and I guess dad had kept

them all these years,

for sixty-nine years, my sisters.

And, you know,

one or two of my sisters are

noted for their curiosity.

And, you know, we figured, well,

they're gone now, so...

Let's read them.

And so it was really

interesting to read mom's letters to dad.

And I think as we read those letters,

our respect and our

appreciation for dad and

mom greatly grew.

I guess it gave us a glimpse

that they were once young too.

And, you know, as kids growing up,

you think your parents are just, uh,

you know, and in the teen years,

like they're stone age and, you know,

there's all sorts of,

of adjectives you could

come up to describe your parents,

but the idea that they were

once young and in love.

Oh man,

never crosses your mind when you're young,

never crosses your mind.

But if you knew that,

I think you would have a

lot more respect for your

parents and a lot more

appreciation for what they

had to say to me.

And to my siblings, as we figured,

you know,

you see some pretty girl walk across.

I remember one time I went

to a wedding and I saw a

pretty girl walk across the

reception floor.

And I said to somebody, oh, I'm in love.

That's ridiculous.

You know, that's ridiculous.

It was so just...

momentary infatuation.

So within that context, uh,

I would say dad and mom,

I remember when I was young, they,

they had a romantic relationship for,

I would say roughly the

first ten years of marriage.

Like I,

I remember dad chasing mom around

the house and, and, uh,

protests coming from

another room where us kids weren't,

you know, you know, dad, I mean, Barry,

the kids are here, you know,

that kind of stuff.

So they were running around

just happy and I would say

that was about ten years,

but dad was Got more and more involved.

He was a Working was his

primary virtue what he saw

as the ultimate virtue was

working hard So he was out

from dawn till dusk six

days a week chores on Sunday.

Then he got involved in

meetings and committees and his

They reached a point

sometime after those first

ten years where it was

mainly just a working

relationship between dad

and mom because dad's so busy,

he has hardly any time.

And then it was pretty

obvious that they reached a

point where he no longer

cherished his wife.

He no longer cherished her.

And then the last days of his life came.

First of all, she died a year,

ten months earlier, eight.

And in the last few months of his life,

I remember sitting with Dad

in his room at the care home,

and we were talking about his past.

And I asked him when they started dating,

and he told me different things.

He remembered it all just in detail.

But the thing that moved him to tears,

and he began to cry,

was she was gone now.

he realized how massively

short he had fallen of

loving and cherishing his

wife and It's often the

case you don't really

appreciate a person till

they're gone and that was

the case with dad that he

allowed work his vocation

and Committees and meetings

and organizations he was

part of to choke out Putting his wife

The joy of his life.

I think that's part of what

it means to cherish your

your wife is to make Center

your life around her to to

Do things together I find

in my own life doing things

together with my wife even

if we're I don't know

sometimes there's a there's

something we need to

there's some job outside and

Um, and Patty says,

could you help me with this?

And I find such joy in just

working with her.

I think this is, um, this is fun.

I'm doing something with my

wife and we're working

together out there or projects.

Yeah, it could be a project,

but you're doing,

you're literally in the

same room working on this together.

And now there is something

that I have learned a couple of things.

There are two major things.

About mid part of my life,

I began to realize that

when we were working on

projects together that,

or she would ask me, Kirk,

what do you think of,

and she'd give me three options.

And I would decide, okay,

this option over here,

I think that's the best one.

And it might not be the same option.

She thought was the best one.

And then I would get into an argument.

First of all,

I would say why her option

was subpar and why my

option was the best.

And then there would be, you know, Sheldon,

I feel terrible to this day

and I did it a lot.

I feel terrible, but it never worked out.

It never worked out.

And usually what I would say is, oh,

you just decide what you want best.

But it wasn't done with an

attitude of cherishing my wife.

And I realized eventually

that she wanted me to be

involved in her decisions

because it's the experience

of being involved together

in this decision.

But I learned, and it struck me one day,

I was away somewhere on a trip,

but she was back home.

And I was thinking, you know,

and I was thinking about

these arguments we would

have on where I always

tried to make her think the

same way as me.

And then a horrible thought

occurred to me.

I'm trying to make her to be

another Kirk Durston.

And that was a horrifying thought.

Their last thing.

And I am dead serious on this.

The last thing I would want

is to be married to another Kirk Durston.

I wanted to be married to

that Patty J that I married.

That's the girl I wanted to be married to.

And for quite a lengthy time now,

I've been trying to make her like me.

And when I realized that,

I decided that never again

would I try and do that.

And furthermore, I would encourage,

I don't know what you call it,

her... Her...

her Patty J-ness, her Patty J,

J is her middle name,

but I often call her Patty

J. I would encourage her Patty-ness,

her real person-ness.

I want that to blossom and grow.

I want that to be the person.

I want her,

the way she really is and the

way she wants to be and the

way she naturally is as she

lives this life,

I want that to be the

person I'm married to.

So that was huge lesson number one, but

Dad never realized that,

and he went way beyond what

I did with my wife.

And that is what just moved

him to tears in the end,

that the woman that he had married.

And one day we're sitting by his bed,

and we're talking about my mom.

Her name was Patricia.

He always called her Pat.

The way my mom was when they

were courting and when they

were first married,

so we talked a lot about that.

And then what he had,

how he behaved toward her,

especially in the latter years,

not in the latter days,

that was different, but in, let's say,

the last half of their

married years together.

And he was appalled.

He couldn't even talk.

He was weeping so bad over

how he treated his wife or

not treated her.

Because it's not just treating, it's

it's yeah he fell short way

short of cherishing his

wife well let's get into

the second one his second

great regret which he also

wept about was I wish I had

done more for you kids yeah

um and there again he

couldn't he couldn't even

finish the sentence without

me how many kids like how

many siblings do you have

Uh, I had four sisters.

Uh,

I was the oldest and then I had four

sisters.

One died.

Oh, I don't know.

It must be like, fifteen,

eighteen years ago.

And, uh, he, she died.

I think she died on dad's birthday,

which was another.

It's interesting how his first daughter,

his daughter died on his

birthday and his wife died

on their anniversary.

That is interesting.

It hits hard,

extra hard when that happens.

But yeah, he, he, and so, um,

in the moment, you know,

we tried to reassure that, oh, dad,

you know, like, don't worry about it.

We all turned out fine and stuff,

but we knew, we knew.

In fact,

I looked at my dad when I was

raising my own children.

even before I had kids and I

decided there's lessons

that can be learned from your dad.

They're not lessons of

here's good stuff you should do,

but they're lessons of

here's what you should not do.

And some, and, and, you know, I,

I cringe on my own, you know,

what my kids have learned, what not to do,

you know, when they think me,

but I tried to be a better dad to my kids,

but I had,

I don't ever remember dad spending time

with his daughters,

except for the youngest one.

Cause we all grew up and

left home and she was the

last one at home.

And I think then dad and her had a,

maybe a more special

relationship because she

was the last one.

She was the youngest one and she would,

you know,

go out and be with dad sometimes

out in the barnyard or whatever.

But, and with me, dad was a serial,

he really loved stamp collecting.

He'd collected stamps when he was a kid.

And so I had a little

scribbler and a little

notebook and I started the

little stamp collection with dad,

you know, on a Sunday afternoon.

And I would say maybe,

maybe a couple of times a year,

maybe a total of half a

dozen times over the,

my whole growing up years,

we would work on this

little stamp collection together.

And then about three more

times we went on a hike together,

but you know,

that about sums it up for my

years of home.

Now you would think working

on the farm with dad that I

would have spent a lot of

time with him and we did, but, um,

it was all work.

There was never dad regarded

conversation as slacking off.

Like, so you don't,

you don't talk about

anything other than what

needs to be talked about

for this particular job here.

And the other interesting

thing about dad is he was.

He had the philosophy that

you don't ever compliment

anyone for a job well done

because they'll slack off.

Instead,

you should find something that

they could have done better at.

They could have improved.

So let's say I was working

somewhere for the day doing

a job that Dad had given me,

and he came at the end of

the day and he looked at what I'd done.

I don't ever remember Dad

complimenting me for anything.

in the entire course of my

growing up years,

but the criticism was

endless just on and on.

And it was the major reason

that I decided at the age of I,

I need a life.

I need to get outta here.

Like I, this is old.

Um, I left on good terms.

I never really reacted to dad's criticism,

except once or twice when

we were working with cattle and the,

If you ever worked with cattle,

they don't always behave

and do what they're supposed to.

And tempers can get very short.

And I remember once, once I, um,

dad yelled at me for

something was totally not my fault.

It's some cow that's lost its mind,

but there's,

you gotta yell at another human.

Doesn't do any good to yell at a cow.

So I got yelled at and I

just yelled at him right back.

Cause I'd had enough of that,

but that was about the only time I ever,

you know, just yelled right back at him.

And I think he knew, like,

he knew this was just a

pointless exercise.

So he never spent any time.

And one of the things I

started doing with my own

kids that I realized I have to do,

there was two things.

And part of the idea of

discussion here is what can

we learn from this?

Two things.

Number one is that I decided

when I came home at the end

of the day of work that I will spend

from that point till bedtime with all,

with my children.

So, uh,

my wife had had them all day cause

Patty was a stay at home mom.

And she really believed that

was important.

And, you know, by the end of the day,

she's ready for me to come

home and take over.

So I played with them.

I played thing.

Like I'm on the floor playing with my kids,

building blocks and I don't know,

driving trucks into.

Lego towers and whatever it

was I had four boys and two

girls and so I played with

them at the end of the day

and I will I I am so glad

that I did that I am so

glad it's just being With

your kids they see how an

adult behaves and they just

kind of rubs off on them

the other thing that I

decided to do and this is

where I have a major regret

my number one regret is

in raising my children is

that I'd wish I'd spent

more one-on-one time with

them one-on-one time but we

did start on a saturday I'd

start slotting them in okay

this hour I'm spending with

uh the you and then the

next hour we're spending

and think of something

you'd like to do with me

I'd say to the kids you

know what would you like to

do and so you'd get a

eventually a list of

possible fun things to do

with your kids one-on-one time and uh

Now I don't want to portray

myself as if I was amazing

at that because I was not.

And that's why I have regrets.

Um,

a lot of Saturdays got crowded out

because we have to go

somewhere or something

happens or some kids away or whatever.

And, um,

that's my number one regret is I'd

wished I'd spent more

one-on-one time with my children.

And, uh, so.

Big take home lesson there

in the teen years.

Um, it was a little different.

Uh,

I remember one time I took my youngest

daughter out to a play in Stratford.

We went out for dinner and then a play and,

uh, things were a little strange.

She was, uh,

she was our strongest willed

kid and she was now in high

school and there had been

some head budding quite a

bit of it actually.

And.

The trick was for my wife and I,

as parents,

how do we kind of like

navigate her through the

high school years here?

And it is hair pulling out

stuff sometimes.

So I, a major,

I would say a major turning

point in our relations,

my relationship with her

came that evening.

I took her out for dinner

and then to a play.

And I don't know what she was thinking.

She was probably thinking, okay,

dad's taken me out for

dinner and he's gonna, he's gonna.

He's going to, you know,

at me for two hours

straight and whatever.

No, it was none of that.

The whole point was just to

take her out for dinner and

give her a good time.

We went to play.

It was some Shakespearean play,

and I can't remember what

the name was now or which

one it was because we've

seen a lot at Stratford.

But it was funny.

There were some hilarious parts in it.

And we were both laughing

together in that play.

and so in their later years

I wanted to do something

with the kids that and

maybe not as frequent but

something special with each

one and again those were

the best times with my kids

but I deeply regret not

doing more of them I'd say

the same thing like as my

kids are now starting to leave the home

it becomes more and more

important that every,

every time they come back.

Okay.

There's,

there's a chance chance to connect

because my oldest will come in.

It's like a whirlwind.

She's got a boyfriend.

So she comes to town and she

wants to spend it with a boyfriend.

She doesn't want to spend it with me,

but it's,

it's just making sure there's

those few minutes at least where I'm,

I'm there for her.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the in and out.

And the older I've gotten now,

the more important I see

relationships are,

the more I value relationships.

And now for family times,

we'll get in the truck and

drive for five hours to my

youngest daughter's place.

She doesn't live the furthest away,

but we have two other kids

that live in Golden, BC,

which is a plane flight away.

But we make a point at least

once a year to book a

flight and go out there and

spend a number of days or a week

And never regret that.

I will never regret that.

And I will never regret all

the flights I made to see

dad and mom in their final

months or final two years of life.

I knew this is not gonna,

they're going to be gone soon.

And so I started making

several flights a year out

there to Edmonton, which would be about,

I don't know,

probably a four hour flight

or four and a half from here.

I forget.

Yeah, probably for, well, five,

five from there.

Let's get into the third regret.

Yeah.

That was number one for dad.

Now, that was,

what happened is that all

the stuff dad had ever been

involved in his life, his vocation,

all the committees and stuff,

they reached a point,

he didn't even mention that anymore.

That was completely,

utterly of no relevance to him anymore.

He was not interested in

those things anymore.

Not even his farm.

Um,

he would talk about that in his elder

years,

but there reached a point where

he's coming in the home

stretch here where, uh, yeah, it's not,

not interested in that anymore.

It was just those three regrets.

But the biggest regret of

all was the third one,

and that began to grow

larger and larger as his

life now went from months

to maybe a few weeks and then days.

That was the number one regret,

and it was this.

He, it just consumed him.

It became the thing,

and that was he wished,

it's hard to put it into words,

so I'll have to give you

some background here,

but he wished that he

He deeply regretted that he

hadn't lived his life more

for God in eternity.

Now,

I don't want to convey the idea here

that Dad was the right party animal,

you know, all that kind of stuff.

No.

One of my fondest memories

of Dad when it comes to

spiritual things is that he

taught a boys' Sunday

school class for years.

And I can't remember the age exactly.

It would be roughly maybe.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

Somewhere in there.

For years.

Most of my growing up life

it seemed at least.

But okay.

It's one thing for somebody

to teach a Sunday school class.

It's another thing for a

member of his family.

Who lives with him.

And sees him prepare.

To see how seriously he takes that.

And he took it very seriously.

So every Saturday night.

would quit work early he

would go into his office

and he would be diligently

preparing to teach that

boy's sunday school class

now keep in mind they're

they're like they're you

know eleven or ten or

twelve years old he could

have won it just sort of

his back pocket probably

but he never did he

diligently and faithfully prepared

for teaching that class.

And I thought, wow,

that's in the years that

followed from that.

And I reminded them that of

that last day's dad, you know,

remember there that you did

do one or two things.

And then he was,

his responsibilities in the church,

we had a country church.

So everybody would take

turns lighting the furnace

on Sunday morning.

And there'd be little

mornings where it's below

and there's been no heat in

that building all week and it's cold.

And so we would have to get up early,

do the chores.

Well, no, we first way to go to the church,

get it all ship shaped for church,

get that furnace going and

then go home and feed two

hundred head of cattle and

then get ready for church.

And dad faithfully took his

responsibilities seriously.

I don't,

I never recounted or recollected

dad just winging it or

doing a sloppy job of it.

He always did his best in

regards to helping out in

his local church.

teaching that boy Sunday school class.

And then one time I took him

on a project to another

country where we just set

up with a team of people.

We would just go to some village,

set up a projector in the

middle of a street, dirt street,

and you get hundreds of

people showing up.

But dad, during that time,

learned how to share his

faith with other people.

well he was sharing with

everybody that he could on

the way home to the taxi

driver to the people on the

greyhound bus beside him

everybody and I could see

that dad had a genuine

desire to really serve god

but it only opened up in

those two main windows his

service to his sunny school

class in his church and

these boys now okay if you

were to look at dad and say

well you know what's he

regretting he he did as

much or more than a lot of

christian men that I know

That's not the issue here.

The issue is not what you

did in the course of your life.

The issue is what did God

want you to do that you did not do?

And we did have some conversations,

my mom and sisters and I, that we,

in the latter years,

we felt that dad had maybe

gone into farming when really he had,

he shouldn't have.

There was,

he was probably felt an

obligation to his father to farm.

Um, and I don't know,

I don't know what dad's thoughts were,

but in the end,

his greatest regret of all

was that he felt that he'd

fallen far short of putting

God at the center of his life,

serving God in the course of his life.

Um, and just living his life for God,

despite the fact that other

people would say, oh, you know, he's,

he's religious and he talks

about God and stuff.

And, um, that is my.

number one concern as well

in my own life um I I

already know I already know

in fact I used to think

when I was say twenty and

young and naive just to

think that I had maybe one

or two issues one or two

things that I need to

really strengthen you know

there's and then if I get

those two issues really up to snuff then

that I'll be a solid mature Christian.

And then maybe ten years pass by or less.

And I think, oh, well,

actually there's more than

just one or two.

There may be five or six

areas in my life that I

don't think are actually optimal yet.

So,

and then more years went by and I

realized,

I fall short in every area of my life.

It's not just staying away

from doing bad stuff.

That's not the Christian.

Well, that's a good thing to not do.

Don't do the bad stuff.

But what dismayed me was how

far short I fell in everything.

And I need divine intervention.

It's like somebody who maybe

has a disability and can't

walk and they need help all

the time to walk.

I reached the point where I

realized I need help all

the time from God to live

as he desires me to live, all the time.

So when dad was reaching his

final days of life,

and now we're talking days,

not weeks or months, but days,

this really, he, I guess he saw,

and this is why it's

important to spend time

with people who are dying because

They're going to see from a

perspective that you and I don't have.

We should have all the

distractions we're involved in,

all our schedules and all

this kind of stuff.

They don't have any of that.

And they can now see things

as they really are.

And that's a phrase taken out from C.S.

Lewis, Pilgrim's Regress,

as they really are.

And that became, he was, in fact,

the last time I went to visit him,

I walked into the ward in

the hospital because he had

fallen and broken three ribs,

one arm and a collarbone.

And this time he wasn't going to make it.

That wasn't going to heal.

And the charge nurse or the head nurse,

as I walked into the ward, she said,

there's something really

bothering your dad here.

He just won't let go of life.

There's something he needs to deal with.

And I knew,

I knew his regrets told it all.

So I walked into that room and, uh,

I had said this before,

but now it really carried weight.

I said, dad,

there's only one thing left to do now,

and that is prepare to meet God.

And so why don't,

why don't we just have a prayer?

Uh, you know,

all the things that you've regretted,

all the areas you've fallen

short in over the course of your life.

the things that you've done

that you wish you hadn't

done or whatever you didn't

cherish your wife whatever

that may be let's have a

prayer time now and let's

confess would you like to

like I didn't I didn't say

let's do this I didn't want

to lead him I asked him

would you like to do this

to confess everything like

anything that might be

between you and god and how

you used your life because

it was all spent now

And he realized, well,

I didn't spend it the way I should have.

It's too late now to do anything.

So he nodded his head.

He could barely speak by that point.

There's something wrong with his throat.

He nodded his head.

He really wanted to do that.

And so Dad and I prayed.

I would have to say,

and this is sad in one way,

but it's nice in another.

The best time I ever had

with my dad was in those final days.

Best time.

Because there was no facade anymore.

There was no, oh,

let's get to work or no

criticism for a job.

You could have done even

better than the way you did it.

None of that.

It was just real.

Dad was real now.

He was real about his

desperate desire to prepare to meet God.

And we had a great prayer of confession.

But you know the funny thing?

It's not funny.

It was amazing.

When I prayed with Dad,

he was in constant pain all the time.

You could see his face was,

there was this tension and

strain from the,

they were giving him drugs to dull it.

But there was this pain.

When I prayed with Dad,

that just completely melted away.

I never saw Dad so peaceful

and so utterly content.

And I read him the twenty-third psalm.

I prayed with him,

and there was a nurse

happened to see this

because they wanted to do, I don't know,

a bad change in position

for dad or whatever, and I says, okay,

just let me pray with dad now.

Just let me finish here.

So she stayed in the room,

and she saw this,

and she said this is amazing.

She was just amazed at how

this prayer affected dad

and how he just utterly –

was almost in blissful peace

even despite all his broken

bones so I um I left him

the last time I spent a few

days there and I left him

at the end but I I had a

deep deep peace that I'll

be seeing that again he's

ready now he's ready uh for

when he passes into the

valley of the shadow of

death jesus will meet him

and I said dad five seconds

after you died you will you

will see something

more amazing and more better

than anything you've ever

seen in your entire life

and I don't know how time

works in eternity but I

don't think it's going to

be soon be sitting around

for years waiting for us

kids to show up I said dad

you'll hardly have time to

get there and we'll be

right behind you and your

grandkids and it's just you

know so uh he was ready he

was ready finally to let go

of life he was right with

the god and I came home and

I began to think about what he'd said

and how this should apply to my life.

And I really wanted to write

this article so that more

people would maybe be affected.

It'd be my dad's last message to everybody,

uh, everybody who read the article.

Well, I, I really enjoyed the article.

Um,

your dad and my dad passed around the

same time and, uh,

I wish I could have had

these conversations with him,

but the last few years of his life,

he was in and out of the hospital and his

yeah he just didn't have the

ability to really have good

conversations those last

probably five years and so

it was tough but um yeah as

as I read the article I I

just saw okay there's

there's some really amazing

um stuff here and uh yes my

wife and I just attended a

funeral last week and

As we get older,

the funerals come more often.

Lots of them.

And it makes you evaluate

your own life a lot.

And so it's, yeah,

thanks for writing that article.

Those of you watching,

go check out KirkDurston.com.

Take a look at the article, comment.

And share it, too.

And share it.

Share it with others.

And let us know if you have

any questions and what your

relationships with your

parents were like and that kind of thing.

So thanks, Kirk.

Is there anything else you

wanted to close on?

Well, if you read that article,

I know that most of the

people listen to this

discussion after the live

stream because I see the analytics.

So if you're amongst those...

who read the article and you

feel that you really want

to talk to somebody about

this there's a link at the

bottom of my article where

you can talk to someone

it's not me but you will

talk to a real live person

anonymously and

confidentially and you too

can you know if you feel

you're not ready to meet

god yet that's click that

link yeah yeah if you're

watching this going okay

why are why are people on

their deathbed thinking

about this kind of stuff well

There's a reason.

And so, yeah,

we'd love to talk to you about that.

And feel free to leave a comment, too,

if you're wanting to do that.

Yeah, I have to run.

I've got another three hours for you.

But, yeah, good conversation.

I did have a question that

came up when you talked

when your dad saw it.

his time on the earth is

this man that happened so fast.

Yeah.

Like a couple of minutes.

How does the science behind that work?

And you don't have to answer this today,

but is there anything to

the fact that as you get older,

an hour in your life is

actually shrinking based on

how you see life.

Like as I get older, it's like,

what happened to you?

Yeah.

I've thought a lot about that.

I'll be writing an article

on that and maybe we can

have a live stream discussion on that.

But I've thought a lot about

that and there's two major

theories and I'm going to

address both of them in there.

And I don't think one theory works,

but the other one does.

Sounds good.

Looking forward to that.

All right.

We'll see all of you.

I think we're around next week, right?

Yep.

Yep.

Who knows what we're talking

about next week?

I mean, stuff's so many things.

If you've got content you'd

like for us to talk about,

if you want us to react to something,

you want us to engage on a certain topic,

let us know.

Just leave a comment

underneath here and maybe

we'll be able to talk about that.

I do know that there's more

asteroids in the air around us,

so maybe we'll have a

conversation about that.

That is one that might hit

Earth in December of twenty thirty two.

Something to look forward to.

All right.

Sounds good.

Talk to you later.

OK, bye for now.