The Ethicist’s answer doesn’t delve into any ethical dilemmas either. Well, he says, it would be kind for the kids to visit their father. You don’t need a professor to come up with that. And regret is bad, he acknowledges, so it’s good to make sure the kids know they might feel guilty if they feel they waited too long for a rapprochement and miss their chance. Come on. If they are adults, they must know that. The situation of husbands, wives, siblings, parents, children and old friends feeling pangs of regret when an estranged or remote loved one—or unloved one—dies is such a frequent plot element in movies and TV shows that I roll my eyes at it. Heck, Sean Connery as Indiana Jones’s father (in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) has a moment of self pity and regret when he thinks Indy just plunged to his death over a cliff in a tank. My wife died suddenly and our last day together was not a pleasant one. It is impossible to go through life, however, treating everyone as if they are going to die immediately.

Kindness indeed is an ethical virtue. My favorite expression of that in this context is from “Bang the Drum Slowly”: “Everybody knows everybody is dying; that’s why people are as good as they are.” But in that same story (and the excellent film adaptation of it) as I wrote years ago after spending hours with an old friend on what turned out to be his last day on earth, reminds us of the inherent limitations of human nature:

At the end of the story, the narrator, the best friend of the catcher (but not really that close a friend) recalls how quickly everyone on the baseball team went back to their selfish ways after their teammate went home to die Even the narrator, who was the leader of the effort to make the catcher feel loved and appreciated in his last days, ruefully recalls his own failing. The catcher had asked him a favor, just to send him a World Series program (the team won the pennant after he had become too ill to play), and he had forgotten to mail it until it was too late. How hard would it have been, the narrator rebukes himself, to just put it in an envelope and mail it? Why are we like that, he wonders, as he makes the audience wonder too.

It was purest luck that I happened to spend that final day with my neglected friend, giving me a privilege and a pardon that I did not really deserve. I was a good and caring friend yesterday, but where had I been all of the others? What was so important, so pressing, that it could not be put aside to be with a good friend and a wonderful man who had played such a large part in my life, and who was slowly dying? What is the matter with us? What is the matter with me?

There is certainly nothing unethical about a mother urging that her adult children reach out to their father before he’s dead on the theory that it will help them avoid such feelings, not that there are any guarantees that it would. Mothers give advice, often unsolicited advice, and so what? That’s what mothers do. Nor would there be anything unethical about letting adults make their own decisions regarding an unpleasant and abusive father.

Mom is “not sure they fully grasp that death can come suddenly”? Are these adult morons we’re talking about? Heck, if that’s the problem, Mom certainly can enlighten them with recent tales of people like Lindsey Graham or actor Sam Neil, who also died suddenly and unexpectedly this week at 78. Yes, it would be ethical for a mother to tell her adult children that they might want to start paying attention to the world around them.

For the record, here’s the ultimate “Dear Abby” advice The Ethicist issued:

“…why not have another go? Tell your children plainly why you would like them to consider visiting their ailing father. To your younger child in particular, you can say that you’re not asking anyone to feel ready, only to recognize that it’s impossible to know how much time this man has left. They may remain unmoved. Fair enough. You’ll still have done something a loving parent does: pointed out an option that you think your kids haven’t taken seriously enough.

Are ethics dilemmas ever answered with advice beginning, “Why not”? But that explains what Name Withheld’s letter was really about. It isn’t that she’s worried that her children will suffer from regret.

She’s worried that she will.