Fond Memories That Could Have Been

This trope is an incredibly painful but nevertheless important Aesop that is appearing with increased frequency in Anime dramas that are centered around parent-child relationships.

The father or mother in question has stayed aloof from their kind and loving child, often Too Good for This Sinful Earth, a victim of a terminal illness or destined to give their lives for the good of humanity. This is usually due to their cowardly refusal to become emotionally attached to someone they don't believe they can hold onto.

Far too often, far too late, do they realize how much they love their child only as they are about to be lost forever.

In desperation to hold onto what could have been, the parent will plead for departing offspring to stay so that they may spend the quality time together that he was too proud and aloof to make, often accompanied by imagined images of happy memories that could have been. This will be made all the more painful by the child forgiving the parent for their mistakes as they Go Out with a Smile.

Anime and Manga

 * AIR plays this trait painfully straight, as.
 * Roy Revant, the aloof adoptive father of the title character of Solty Rei frantically pleaded for his little girl to not go through with the suicidal Heroic Sacrifice to save the planet, even going as far as telling her that he would take her to the amusement park like any father would his daughter. She simply smiles with tears in her eyes, and says that she's happy to have been his daughter, and bravely steps into the shuttle to her doom.
 * In Elfen Lied, Chief Kurama is unable to kill his monster of a daughter at the end, and instead carries her off as an explosive implanted in her body kills them both, his last thoughts being images of him, his deceased wife, and Mariko as a normal family.
 * Kaori with Shiori in Kanon. Kaori can't bear to be close to her terminally ill sister and pretends like her sister doesn't exist, so she can stay emotionally distant. This causes Shiori much anguish for years. Only when Shiori has very little time left does Kaori's composure crack and she tries to be the big sister she should have been all along..
 * In Angel Beats! it becomes clear that . This all sounds very nice, but shortly after.
 * Occured twice in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie:
 * When her daughter died, workaholic  deeeply regretted that they had never been able to spend quality time together. In despair, she used all her knowledge to create a perfect replacement, and thus  was born. Unfortunately, even with all her likeliness and memories,  turns up into a different individual, causing her mother to go crazy and sees her as a failure, keeping her only as a mere tool in her new plan.
 * In the end, as she falls down to her death, remembered that when she was still alive  once wanted a sister and realized too late that instead of a replacement, she could have accepted  as another daughter instead.
 * In End of Evangelion when last words are  as he realises how he has driven his child away and treated him horribly, invoking this trope. Of course being Eva, It Got Worse.
 * It's also implied that
 * A compressed version of this shows up in one of the chapter covers of One Piece. It shows Luffy with
 * Naruto features a variation on the cover of the chapter finishing the  What's particularly gut-wrenching is that it shows a typical family breakfast for Naruto's family--showing the huge contrast between his What Could Have Been childhood and his very Dark and Troubled Past one.
 * Naruto features a variation on the cover of the chapter finishing the  What's particularly gut-wrenching is that it shows a typical family breakfast for Naruto's family--showing the huge contrast between his What Could Have Been childhood and his very Dark and Troubled Past one.

Film

 * Subverted in Dead Poets Society -- all father has to say is "My son, my son," and
 * Not wanting to
 * In Scarface, Tony Montana
 * In the films Jean de Florette and its second part Manon of the Spring, a greedy, conniving farmer, César, engineers the downfall and death of his newly-arrived neighbor, Jean, in order to get hold of his property. Years later, César discovers, to his infinite horror, that the man he destroyed was

Literature

 * In The Lord of the Rings, Denethor only realizes he loves his son Faramir when Faramir is dying from wounds he received in a pointless battle that Denethor sent him into..
 * Classic example: East Lynne, which played the death of the tragic heroine's son for all it was worth.
 * Ralph Nickleby hangs himself after learning that because he wasted his life making money and believes that raising a child might have made him a better person.

Western Animation

 * Family Guy: In "Brian Wallows and Peter Swallows", Brian falls in love with an elderly woman . But,.