I wish i had taken the train

This day was a typical Sunday. Time slowed down, the light became somewhat intense, and as befits a July afternoon, families spent time together in their gardens. I sat in a wheelchair, covered with a blanket despite the hot rays, and my beautiful but lately limping wife brought in a cake she made herself, and my family started singing.

´´Happy 90th birthday, Dad.´´

´´Thank you, son. Every year, I hear how much you look forward to inheriting from your old father.´´

´´Oh, Dad, how can you say such awful things on your birthday? Every year, you become more and more cantankerous, that’s for sure. Tell me instead, how do you feel at 90 years old? It’s such a beautiful age...´´

´´How do I feel? Weakness in my legs and a constant headache...´´

´´Dad...´´ - sighed my only son and pushed my wheelchair towards the lake, I assume so we could be alone.

´´Is there something you regret, Dad? Something you’d change if you could go back in time?´´

´´I wouldn’t change anything; look at how well everything turned out for me. Maybe I could have drunk and smoked more, then I wouldn’t have to answer such senseless questions now.´´

´´Oh, Dad, I’m serious...´´

Silence.

´´Well, there’s something I need to tell you.´´ - He turned towards his wife and their two very happy but also very loud children. - ´´Karolina and I haven’t been doing well lately. Ever since we had kids, everything changed. I feel like such a loser because I still can’t handle many things with the children, and I keep asking Karolina about simple things, and I can see the disappointment in her eyes, seeing who she married... I feel like a burden in my own house.´´

´´Ah, what are you telling me? Don’t be a softie and pull yourself together. Your mother and I didn’t raise you to have your wife do everything for you.´´- my voice became stronger.

´´I know, but there’s something else.´´

´´You’re not cheating on her, are you?´´

´´Oh, no, Dad, what are you talking about?´´

´´You’re telling the truth?´´

´´I am.´´

´´I don’t believe you.´´

´´You know me too well, don’t you?´´

´´Actually, maybe I don’t even know my own child if that’s true.´´

´´With her, I feel like a man again.´´

´´I didn’t raise you like this.´´

´´I know, and I feel bad about it. You and Mom were always the perfect couple, and I wanted that too, but I screwed it up completely.´´

´´You don’t know your own father either, I don’t blame you for that.´´

´´What do you mean?´´

´´I mean I think I know why you’re so weak.´´

´´Thanks.´´

´´Because of me.´´

´´What?´´

´´You know, I was young once too, and I fell in love with the woman of my life.´´

´´Mom?´´

´´Well, I met Mom after her.´´

´´What happened to that woman?´´

´´She left this stupid country, chasing her dreams.´´

´´Okay, why didn’t you go with her?´´

´´I don’t know, son. The only thing I know is that I’ll never find out what would have happened if I had gone.´´

´´Is she still alive?´´

´´I don’t know, but judging by the number of cigarettes she smoked, probably not.´´

´´Haha, you’re terrible, Dad.´´

´´I am.´´ - I smiled.

´´You know, on one hand, I’m upset with you for not calling Mom the love of your life but some woman you met when you were a teenager.´´

´´I was 30.´´

´´You said you met her before you met mom.´´

´´I lied.´´

´´Oh, Dad, you had an affair with her.´´

´´Yes, I did, and I had a little child at home who was looking up to me and the best wife I swore to be with until death.´´

´´What was she like?´´

´´That woman?´´

´´Yes.´´

´´Incredible, free-spirited, spontaneous. So alive, like the wind by the sea. Everyone looks at the water, touches the sand. But it’s that wind that they feel the most, and it’s that wind that beautifies everything. It carries waves, it scatters the sand…´´

´´You got carried away a bit now...´´

´´You know, son, I love my life as it is, and I have no regrets.´´

´´I love you, Dad.´´

And he looked over his big garden and the house he built with his wife in the town he never left, and he sighed.

It’s a beautiful life, and I am very grateful for it, but I wish I had taken the train, son…- he didnt say that outloud. He only thought about the places he could have seen but didn’t, the waves he could have caught but didn’t, and the women he could have touched every day but didn’t.