When the Music Arrives
A few years ago, I missed seeing my mother by a matter of days.
It remains one of the biggest regrets of my life.
At the time, I was planning a trip to see her. She had been dealing with some health issues, and I knew I wanted to see her soon. What I didn't realize was how soon "soon" needed to be.
I had already decided when I would go. The trip was only a few days away.
I was also fairly new in my job and wanted to wrap up a few things before leaving, make sure work was in good order, and then spend a full week with her. It felt responsible. It felt prudent. Looking back, there was nothing remarkable about the decision at all. It was the sort of choice many of us make every day, trusting that what matters most will still be waiting for us once we've finished tending to what feels urgent.
My mother would still be there.
Or so I thought.
My mother was one of those people who seemed determined to squeeze joy out of ordinary moments. She laughed easily, joked often, and never needed much of an excuse to dance. If there was music, there was a decent chance she would find her way toward it.
One of my favorite stories about her comes from Christmas in Puerto Rico.
There is a tradition called a parranda, where a group of people show up unexpectedly at someone's house late at night singing Christmas songs, playing instruments, and creating enough noise to wake half the neighborhood. After a few songs, some food, and plenty of laughter, the group moves on to the next house and continues the celebration.
One year, a parranda arrived at my mother's home sometime around two in the morning.
Most people would have welcomed the group, enjoyed the music, thanked everyone for coming, and gone back to bed.
Not my mother.
When the songs ended and the group began preparing to leave, she stopped them.
"Wait for me."
She went inside, got dressed, and joined the parranda.
That story has always made me smile because it captures something essential about who she was. She wasn't content to stand in the doorway and watch life pass by. When she heard the music, she stepped into it.
Years later, I found myself planning a trip to see her.
And then, on April 2nd, while driving my children to school, my brother called.
My mother had passed away in her sleep.
I missed seeing her by a matter of days.
For months afterward, my mind kept returning to those final weeks. I would find myself wondering what might have happened if I had simply decided that work could wait.
None of those questions changed reality. Yet they returned anyway, as regrets often do.
For a long time, I thought regret was something to overcome. Something to move beyond. But over time I began to see it differently. Instead of asking, "How do I stop regretting this?" I found myself asking, "What is this regret trying to teach me?"
As I sat with it, I realized my regret wasn't really about a trip. It was about an assumption I had never questioned.
I thought I had more time.
When I look back at those final weeks, I don't see a version of myself who loved his mother too little. I don't see someone choosing work over family. I see someone making a perfectly reasonable decision based on a belief that many of us carry every day: there will be time later.
We rarely say those words out loud, but they shape more of our lives than we realize. We assume there will be another visit, another conversation, another opportunity to tell someone what they mean to us.
Often there is.
Until one day there isn't.
These days, when one of my children asks me to sit with them a little longer, show me something they built, or tell me a story that could easily wait until later, I find myself saying yes more often than I once would have. It is one of the many ways my mother continues to be present in my life.
The people we love do not arrive in our lives as permanent fixtures. They arrive as gifts. And gifts are easiest to appreciate when we stop assuming they will always be there tomorrow.
I often find myself returning to that story about the parranda. To my mother standing in her doorway at two o’clock in the morning. To a group of musicians preparing to leave. To her telling them to wait, then hurrying inside to get dressed so she could join them on their way to the next house.
Long before I lost her, my mother was teaching a lesson I would only come to understand years later.
When the music arrives, sometimes the wisest thing you can do is join the parranda.
An Unframed Question
What music is arriving in your life right now?
And what would it look like to join the parranda?
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Occasional reflections on coaching, leadership, growth, and the stories that shape us.
