Twenty years ago I ran into my friend Amelia on the ferry. Amelia was an aspiring singer who’d been bouncing back and forth between Martha’s Vineyard and Los Angeles for several years. During our brief conversation she said something that’s stuck with me: “I don’t believe in regrets.”

Amelia had lived a footloose life that verged on recklessness, yet she believed that even so-called errors contained valuable lessons. I’ve returned to this conversation many times over the years. While I’m not overly burdened with regrets, I have a few. One comes to mind every June at graduation season.

In the spring of 1989, coasting through my senior year at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School after a reasonably successful academic run, I shut off my mental engines. I stopped studying for tests and didn’t bother to turn in assignments. I’d already been accepted into college and didn’t see the point in lame duck academics. I was headed for better things.

Of course, this was an immature and disrespectful decision. There’s an adage that the job of a teacher is to get the most out of the student and the job of the student is to get the most out of the teacher. I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.

Mathematics got the brunt of my indifference. Pre-calculus was taught by Maureen McCloud, an excellent teacher prone to outbursts of temper that had students ducking under desks to avoid flying chalk. Sometimes she would storm out of the classroom and we’d wait uneasily until she stomped back in. More than once I saw her sitting on the floor in the hallway holding her head in her hands. Teaching can do that to you.

During my junior year of college in Missouri I began practicing mindfulness meditation. When my roommates went away for a weekend I spent an entire 24 hours in silent retreat. At the 14th hour an intuitive realization came to me — I owed Ms. McCloud an apology. Regardless of how I felt about mathematics, there was no excuse for making a teacher feel their efforts were wasted.

Soon after I spied a triangle-shaped candle in a craft store. I bought it and put it in my luggage for my upcoming trip back to Martha’s Vineyard. A week later I walked into the regional high school building and made my way to Ms. McCloud’s room. I peeked in and saw her at her desk correcting papers. I knocked and she looked up with a puzzled look— it took her a moment to recognize me. I fumbled my way through a rehearsed apology and handed her the candle. She gave me a hug, laughed, and told me all was forgiven.

I noticed a change in her demeanor, a lightness that had been absent during my senior year. She spoke of meeting a brilliant geologist from South Carolina; she was waiting to finish the school year before moving there to get married. She described her fiance with the giddiness of a teenage girl getting ready for prom. I wished her well, walked out the door, and never saw her again. I assume she’s in her 70s now, retired from teaching.

I’m grateful I had the chance to see Ms. McCloud one last time. It would have been unfortunate if her last impression of me had been that of a sullen, indifferent teenager racing out the door. Instead, we left with feelings of warmth and mutual respect. It was the right ending to the story.

Julian Wise lives in West Tisbury.