Never an Absolution

     I know that given the chance to speak to any one person, it would be her. I have known this for some time, and I doubt it will change any time soon. Perhaps when time has caught the ones I love, when I find my family begins to dwindle, perhaps then I would change my answer. I cannot say. But at this time, I know with complete certainty, I would choose her.

     And she is the one person I am most unlikely to ever speak to again.

     I do not know what causes me to continually revisit the times we spent together. I do not know how many times I have reexamined the harm I caused her or tried to make some sense of my actions on that dreadful night; tried to make sense of the night that would irrecoverably change my life and myself. How can one possibly make sense of a night without sense? a night without rhyme or reason? Still, it is the one night I seem destined to live over and over again.

     And if I could speak to her, what then? What could I possibly say to her? I cannot ask for forgiveness. I have already apologized, repeatedly. What is there to say? It may be that I look to see wounds have healed and scars have faded. It may be that I want time to be the great forgiver. Yet would her forgiveness mean anything if I cannot forgive myself?

     I would like to know that she has been able to find a happy life.

     But, even were it available, I could never ask for an absolution.

[<<] [<] [>] [>>] [Contents] [home]