Regrets

I give people the impression that I am a rather vigilant mother. It is a bit like the fact that I give people the impression that I have strong feelings about a lot of things, when in fact I am perhaps just more expressive than others who truly have strong feelings.

The other day, Winston was at home and he had a cold. Somehow I was thinking, "he's two years old now, so perhaps I can try giving him a cashew." So I did. He ate most of it but towards the end decided to spit out the rest. Then his cold symptoms seemed to have worsened with much more coughing and congestion. Then he started scratching his eyes so much and his lips started getting swollen. I finally realized that he had an allergy attack. By the time we rushed him to urgent care, his face was so swollen that it was almost unrecognizable. That image is seared into my memory.

Apparently had I simply googled a little bit, I would have realized that Winston belonged to the high-risk group as his father has seasonal allergy and once had childhood asthma. I should have waited longer or perhaps taken him to see a specialist to get him tested first before trying to feed him a complete cashew. But I did not even spend the minute to google before giving him a cashew. Now that he's got this massive allergy attack, surely his body will remember cashew as a deadly toxin.

I asked a friend of mine whether he thinks it's possible to live a life without regrets, since I do have regrets, the latest of which being that I have "given" my son a life-threatening allergy. He said that it was impossible anyways. Perhaps we often learn from our mistakes or regrets, although we prefer to learn the easy way.

As Confucius said,"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." How I wish that I had simply learned about food allergy by "imitation" (i.e. web search and consultation with some experts)!