I missed my mother’s last breath by two minutes …while I was trying to make a software sale.
This was over 30 years ago. My mom was 69. Her body had been through a rough grind most of her life — rheumatic fever as a child, years of smoking, heart valve surgery in her 50s. By her late 60s, she was dealing with recurring pneumonia, weakening a little more each time. It wasn’t dramatic. It was slow. Manageable. Until it wasn’t.
She landed in the hospital again, this time in Panorama City. We’d all been through it before — she’d bounce back, right? That’s what I assumed, for my own rationalizations anyway.
That day, I was doing a demo of a software system we’d developed. A client had flown in from Illinois. This was a big deal, a major construction company reviewing our new software and a chance to build my company.
That’s when Carrie called, interrupting my demo.
“Gary, your mom’s not doing well. You should come now.”
I said I’d wrap up quickly and head out.
Thirty minutes passed. She called again, with urgency in her voice. “Gary. Really. You need to go now.”
Still I hesitated. Still pitching. Still talking. Still trying to “close the deal.”
Then came the third call. A stern call: “Gary. Drop what you’re doing and leave. Now.”
There was no missing the implications in Carrie’s voice. I apologized to my client, jumped in my car, and tore out of Valencia toward Panorama City.
I jogged through the hospital parking lot, through the lobby doors, where I found my wife and sisters sobbing.
My mom had died. Two minutes earlier.
I missed my mother’s passing. I missed the chance to tell her I loved her. That I appreciated everything. That I was there.
Instead, I was pitching software.
This is what regret feels like. A huge mistake and no way ever to fix it.
But it gets worse.
It was Halloween. The hospital was decorated, and nurses were in costume. The one attending to my mother — pushing a tube down her throat in her final moments — was dressed as a devil.
With horns and black-and-red accessories. Yeah, a devil nurse.
That was the last face my mom saw. She was disoriented, frightened, pushing away the nurse as this devil nurse tried to put an air tube down her throat …
And I wasn’t there to stop the craziness of a devil-outfit nurse scaring the hell out of my mom during her last moments.
I could have brought calm. Love. Sanity. Dignity.
But I failed her. I chose the wrong thing. And I’ll never get the chance to undo it.
That’s regret. Not the kind you talk through. Not a lesson. Not a movie moment. It sits in your chest and makes you wince decades later. It’s shame that doesn’t go away — but it can teach you, if you let it.
So I did something with it.
Since that day, “Family First” has been more than a value. It’s a law in my life. It’s our company’s culture.
If someone says, “My dad’s in the hospital,” or “I need to go to my son’s game,” there’s only one answer:
Go. Go now.
Work will wait. Life won’t.
I never want anyone who works with me to feel what I felt that day. I don’t care if a deal is on the line. I don’t care if it’s inconvenient. I don’t even care if it’s not an emergency.
If your people need you — go. Be there.
That’s the only thing that matters. Because when the moment passes, you don’t get it back.
How I wish for a “redo” with my mom in those last minutes — to hold her hand, to remind her that she was loved and not alone …
But I can’t.
So instead, I tell this story. To my employees. To friends. And now, to you.
My regret has become my compass. Maybe it will help guide you, too.
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
