Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your most important job being a dad.

These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

This is what you'll wish.

We've told you about the story of Johnny Gunther before, a brilliant young boy, precocious, fun, and funny headed for Harvard.

Johnny was the pride and joy of two loving parents.

And then suddenly there was the trip to the doctor, then a diagnosis,

and finally a 15-month battle with a brain tumor and a life that ended too soon.

At the end of the book, Death Be Not

Proud, which every parent should read, Johnny's mother, Francis reflects on the loss of her son.

What is left, she asks. What does a person think and feel looking back on the all too brief time

they had with their kid? I wish we had loved Johnny Moore, she said. That was it.

That was what she kept coming back to. Not that they didn't love him. No one can read the book and not

be struck by what a wonderful family they were. It's that when everything is stripped away,

when there is nothing left, all she could think about were the opportunities she could have

seized to appreciate him more. She couldn't help but remember the things she took too seriously,

the moments that slipped by, where she could have been more expressive or laid next to him a little

longer or been kinder instead of doing the responsible thing. Let us hope that we never have to experience

such a painful loss. No parent should ever have to bury a child. But still, let us try to think

about the end of our own lives. What will we think then? When we are reflecting on our lives,

when we are running out of time, what will we wish for?

We will wish that we had loved them more.

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