This article begins by suggesting you listen to a song by James Blunt called “Monsters.” It is easy to find on social media. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking piece of music about a son watching his father, Colonel Charles Blount, face the end of his life. His father was terminally ill, and James Blunt wrote this song as a final, loving acknowledgment—a reversal of roles, where the child tells the parent, “I’m not afraid to look the monsters in the eye, because you showed me how to live, and now I have to be the strong one for you.”
It speaks to a profound human truth we are all forced to confront: the certainty of loss and the regret over the opportunities we missed to truly connect with the people who matter most.
We live our lives in constant forward motion, assuming tomorrow will grant us the same gift of time we have today. We assume the people we love—our parents, our children, our spouses—will always be there. This talk is about putting that assumption to rest. It is about the opportunities we let slip away and how we can choose, today, to close that gap and speak the difficult, necessary words while the people we love are still with us.
Think about your relationship with the most important people in your life—your mother, your father, your children, or your partner. If you are like most of us, these relationships are defined by a comfortable routine, a shared history, and often, an alarming amount of unspoken words.
Why is that?
We assume our parents know we love them simply because they raised us. We assume our spouse understands our gratitude because we come home every day. We assume our children know we are proud because we support them in every way. We mistake presence for intimacy, and habit for depth.
We create walls, often not deliberately, but as strong and invulnerable as if we built them brick by brick. The first wall is “I’m too busy.” The urgent always crowds out the important.
The second wall is comfort. We avoid difficult subjects, hoping they will resolve themselves. A modern phrase for this is “kicking the can down the road.” Men and women often handle this differently. Men tend to address issues directly and resolve them quickly, while women may stretch conversations out, hoping tensions will diminish over time.
In many cases, it feels easier to maintain a superficial peace than to risk the discomfort of honesty.
The final wall is roles. We cling to family roles—the man who must be the pillar of strength, the woman who provides emotional support—forgetting that we are all human beings who sometimes need more help than we admit. Stress accumulates, and when we are finally ready to face it, it may be too late. We are left wondering what might have happened if we had spoken sooner.
And so, we go weeks, months, sometimes years, circling one another, communicating through surface-level conversation, never reaching the real discussions that matter most.
The deeper conversations—the ones that define mutual respect, admit fear, and solidify love—are postponed. This carries a terrible risk.
When James Blunt wrote “Monsters,” his father was close to passing. He was given the chance to say what needed to be said. For many of us, that opportunity is taken away abruptly.
The tragedy of the unspoken is not simply that the words were never said; it is that when irreversible loss arrives, the opportunity for connection disappears forever. No one knows when their time will come.
Passing is rarely convenient and often swift and unforgiving. A sudden phone call, an unexpected diagnosis, soldiers walking up your door to ring your bell with devastating news—then it is too late. Opportunity lost.
The pain of loss is profound. But the pain of regret can be just as devastating.
Regret is the “monster” that stays with us long after the person is gone. It appears as the question that never leaves: “What if I had just taken five more minutes?”
Reality can be difficult. There is a last time for everything, just as there was a first time. A hug. A laugh. A conversation. Since we never know when it will be the last, perhaps our habits need to change.
We cannot escape loss, but we can prevent regret. The solution is simple, yet it requires immense courage—to communicate our deepest truths. Why are we waiting?
Perhaps a shift in attitude will encourage you to talk about your own “monsters” with those you love. In turn, they may share theirs. Then the real conversation begins—one that often leads to a loving conclusion. Normalizing these discussions can make our lives fuller and happier than we ever imagined.