17A:Regrets/Canon Muses

A: . If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?

When I was in the Congo I lived this. Watching Patrique murdered in front of me as he pleaded for my life to be spared, I knew it was only a matter of time and I would be joining him. My body weakened by the untreated malaria, deprived of nourishment and sleep, I watched them drag each man away until I alone remained kneeling in the dirt of that compound. I think I had made my peace with dying without even realizing it because I remember pulling my hands off of my head and sitting on the ground even though I knew they might kill me for it. I think it was in that moment I knew I needed to make my peace, I needed to prepare myself for my death.

I used to be very religious, I'm slowly finding my way back after too many years away, it seemed only right to ask God to hear my final words and deliver my messages of good-bye. I managed to get to my knees again and the words came much easier then I expected them to. I don't know why I never told my father how much he meant to me before that day. I think of all the years he was there for me, burying his own pain so that he could support me as I endured the worst kind of pain any husband and father should ever have to face.

I made my peace with God on that day. I asked him to pass on my final words to my father. Mostly though, I asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness for all of those years I wasted grieving. Forgiveness for all those years I wasted blaming myself for things over which I had no control when I should have been living.

I learned from that day. I've told my father what I held back for so long, and not a day goes by that I don't tell Abby how much I love her and what it means to have her in my life again.

This time, I'll have no regrets.