Worst feelings...

[WV Cowboy]

Holding the hand of the person you love as they pass away.

I stood behind my wife and her father, as her mother and his wife passed.

Humbling, .. I will never forget it.

 

[tyke1doe]

i could have easily lost my youngest son in a balcony accident...its rare a day goes by i dont think about that..icould let myself get physically ill if i think too much about it.

I know what you mean. There's a psychological illness (my words) illness that comes about over things that could have been or tragedies that could have happened but didn't. This has happened to me twice in my life.

1.) I was traveling to a karate tournament with some guys in my karate school. We took separate cars. They were ahead of us. In the distance I see them on the median part between the highway and the exit waving me to get off this exit. I make a sharp/quick turn off the exit because I was going so fast. And it just flash in my mind that I could have plowed through them and killed them. Even though that didn't happen, it haunts me even when I think about it.

2.) My wife had female surgery to remove some blockage so we could have children. I was in the waiting room, and then stepped away to get something to eat. The doctor comes in and asks ANOTHER black young man he thought was me about the procedure and asks permission to remove one of her ovaries, leaving the one that could produce children. The man makes the right decision because it was the right choice. When I return and discover later in the day he asked the wrong man, I was LIVID and UPSET. The thought crossed my mind, "What if the question/decision was more complicated, and I had to make a decision which would have resulted in the possible loss of both ovaries (meaning neither one of my two sons would have been born) and they asked the wrong guy, and he gave an answer I did not approve?" Of course, I would have sued, but still that would have been a loss of devastating proportions because I've always wanted to have biological kids.
The thought of that whole episode haunts me when I think about it.

So I can understand what you're talking about with respect to that ill feeling you get about what "might have been." I wonder if there's a psychological, medical definition for what we're talking about?