"DARLING, DEAREST, DEAD."
I randomly came across this sentence on a Tumblr post. I don't know where it came from, whether it's from a book, a movie, or a song. I googled it and it's a series of dedications in a book. I don't know the context in which the writer used it, but I do know that the words darling, dearest, and dead in the same sentence are haunting. I haven't been able to get it out of my head since I read it. You love someone, you cherish someone, you care for them and then they die. You're heartbroken, and these can be the words your heart cries out, but this sounds like a linear story. Doesn't it?
Do we love people and then cry when they die? No. We take people for granted and then cry. We disrespect them and then cry. We make them feel unworthy and then regret it. Most of our tears are less grief and more regret.
"I wish I would have talked to them nicely."
"I wish I had resolved the misunderstandings already ."
"I wish I could go back in time and fix everything ."
"I wish I had been a better person to them."
"I wish I could take back those words."
"I wish, I wish, I wish."
But that doesn't change anything and you carry your regret and grief forward in your life, the regret being so heavy that it often makes your life miserable.
The reasons why things happen, whether small and petty or large and significant, don’t matter as much as the fact that death is larger than any of them. It's greater and heavier than any of the stones you have to turn to make things better.
I often think about people who go out of their way to harm me in various ways, to be rude to me, to demean me, to assassinate my character in any way they can. I wonder about what they will be thinking if I die today. Will their regret haunt them? Will their life be miserable? Will they live as happily as they do now? Will they be at peace with the harm they have done? Would they want to turn back time and wish for one more chance? I hope they do, but more than that, I hope they could be good to me while I am alive.
So, it turns out that people in your life might also be waiting for you to take the first step. Don't wait for them to do that. Maybe they are not courageous enough, maybe they are afraid of your reactions, maybe there are other reasons but what you do is in your control. Take the first step: be the bigger person, which I know can be very difficult, but it can save you and them from a lot of pain. Do it for yourself.
"David Mamet said, 'We regret the things we did not do more than the things we did.'” You would not want to drown yourself in that kind of regret.
They're still alive, you still have a chance.
Remember, Death is not the prerequisite to love. Do not wait for them to die to love them.
prguitarman
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