Choosing when you have been robbed of choice

Excerpt from The Worst Loss, How Families Heal from the Death of a Child by Barbara D. Rosof. 

This is a quote from When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, years after his son's death.

I am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic counselor because of Aaron's life and death than I would ever have been without it.  And I would give up all of these gains in a second if I could have my son back.  If I could choose, I would forgo all the spiritual growth and depth which has come my way because of our experiences, and be what I was fifteen years ago, an average rabbi, an indifferent counselor, helping some people and unable to help others, and the father of a bright happy boy.  But I cannot choose.