Last Words

A/N: If any of you guys haven’t checked out the most common regrets in life, you might want to do so now. It’s quite thought-provoking. Anyway, here’s my little story centring around it. 

It was hard to believe that the frail man lying in bed had once been one of the most feared and respected men in business. By now his skin appeared like parchment, stretched out over feeble bones, and his once booming voice was reduced to the softest whisper.

Around the bed his family was gathered, looking at the man with tears in their eyes. For them he wasn’t a feared business man. For them he was their brother, father, grandfather. Family.

“Alice,” the man whispered, and his daughter hurriedly sat down besides him so that she wouldn’t have to worry about missing what she expected might very well be his last words.

“Yes, father,” she said to the man whom she’d adored despite his regular absence throughout her life. She wondered what he would say. Would he apologize for the times work had come first? Would he tell her that he loved her one last time? Would this be his goodbye?

“Alice,” the man repeated, before sighing ever so softly, looking around at the tearful faces surrounding him.

“I wish I’d spent more time in the office,” he said, and with these last words his eyes fell shut, never to open again.