And the moral of the story is....

There was only one thing she regretted. She stood thinking about it as rested her iron back on its rest, and turned the shirt.

She didn’t regret marrying so young, nor did she regret the pain and hurt of her first love’s betrayal, for his lies and absence had only made her protect her children more and become the woman she was today.

She had never regretted that she had chosen to be a full-time mum, although at times she did wonder what the thrill of the big smoke and the buzz of the rat race felt like.

She never regretted that she had spent so much time in those early years on her own. Nor did she regret the whirlwind lust, romance and relationship with the man across the road.

She had never once regretted having a second family with sixteen years between her first and her last. Four children is a nice number she thought as pressed a strong crease down the arm of shirt. Those early years of the second family had been hard and a wedge was driven through the two sides, but she never regretted it. Her relationships with her children were nothing less than unconditional love. Special.

She never regretted that her second husband, who she loved dearly and so much more than the first, drank too much. He knew when he was wrong. She told him so. She was a stronger woman because of the first.


She never regretted that she gave so much all the time to others and very rarely got anything in return. She knew that she was loved and she knew that others didn’t always mean it.

As she hung the ironed shirt on a wire hanger, she thought about the thing she regretted the most.

Gazing out of the window, palms resting on the ironing board, she thought how she regretted that she had never, ever, learnt to water-ski.

*******

........Regret the things you've done and not the things you haven't.