Missing Out

"Missing Out"

         My little girl. I can't believe it. About to be a mom.

         I wish I could share this with you. I look back now and think that about a lot of things, really. So much I missed out on. Your first crush, all those awards you won in eighth grade, your being ranked number one all throughout high school. The hundreds of pictures I would've taken for your senior prom, how I'd wave to you when you rode away.

         I would've seen your first day in college, felt the pangs in my heart as you gave me a proud, nervous smile, determined to let me know that you could and would make it on your own. I would've seen how you did make it on your own, earning Dean's List almost every semester, being voted Student Government Vice President, sitting at the very same table with the Board of Trustees! My girl, the daughter of a simple bank clerk. How did that happen?

         For all these years, I've been admiring you from afar. Admired every quality you've possessed and displayed which I somehow managed to live without. Your grit, your guts, your determination. How you overcame every obstacle life threw at you, including the ones I threw at you. You didn't give in, didn't succumb to the same pressures and sorrows that take down so many others. No, you were strong, you persevered, you survived. If anyone had an excuse to fail, it was you, but you didn't. Instead, you CHOSE to succeed. And I love you for it.

         Yes, I love you. But I've missed you, missed it, missed it all. Your graduation from college, your wedding, your trips to all those wonderful and exciting places that I've never been, and now this. Your children. An amazing thought. I could've been a grandmother. I would've been a grandmother. But now...

         I'm not.

         No, I'm not. I'm not, because of that decision I made so many years ago, when you were still a little girl. A decision I made where I did give in to all those little obstacles life throws at us, a decision where I did choose the easy road, the easy out. A decision where I chose to quit.

         That's right. I quit. True, I'd lost perspective, true, I was sick, true, I probably needed therapy and counseling, but the fact remains: I quit. I quit on you, your father, my siblings, and everyone around me. I quit, simply because life had become too hard for me. I quit, because I couldn't take it anymore.

         So that's what I did: I quit, in that moment of weakness. The opportunity to flee was there, and I took it. Then I was gone. Gone from your life forever.

         I know it hurt you. I know it hurt everyone around you. It placed a tremendous burden on you that you'll have to carry around the rest of your life, a burden you'll expect to carry for everyone else around you for the rest of your life, no matter how hard you try to rationalize it all away. After all, if I could leave you, couldn't anyone then? Wouldn't anyone?

         I don't know what I can say to you now. I could tell you I'm sorry, would apologize to you for all eternity if it would somehow make up for what I did that day. But I know it would never be enough. Nothing will ever be enough.

         My girl, my daughter, I love you now more than ever. It's true what they say: absence does make the heart grow fonder. I miss you so much: all that you were, all that you are, all that you ever will be. My little girl, about to be a mother now, and a great one at that. Something I feared I could never be. Something I proved, in a moment of weakness, that I would never be.

         And yet somehow, despite everything I've done to you, despite all the damage you've suffered at my hands, it's been you who's been worrying about me all these years. About what would become of me all this time later. Yes, it's been you who's prayed for me, who's beseeched God to forgive me what I did, to spare me from the punishment I deserve, from the Hell that's been promised.

         But I'll be honest, my daughter. I am in Hell. All people who've done what I did are. There's no fire, no flames, no brimstone or cloven hooves. It's much simpler than that, much more diabolical. My Hell is simply that I have to watch. I have to watch everything that was, is, and could ever be. I have to watch the people I've most loved move on with their lives without me. I have to watch them deal with the pain I've caused them, the hindrances I've laid before them, the insecurities I've created in them.

         But I also have to watch the joy they experience, and suffer the anguish of not sharing in it. I have to observe the most precious moments, like this, the very birth of our future descendants, and know that I could've been right there alongside you all, with you and them in their upbringing.

         But I'm not. No, instead I'm in the ground now, nothing more than crushed bones, decayed fingernails, and old rotting teeth. All that's left of me is a memory. I gave into a moment of weakness all those years ago, and now I'm paying for it -- and for the remainder of my existence.

         I know it's not enough to say it now, but I love you, my child. I miss you. I wish the very best for you, and for your children, and hope that none of you will ever experience again anything close to the pain I've caused all these years because of my suicide. But, please, if you can somehow find it in the goodness of your bottomless heart, I have a final request for you, despite all that I've already asked of you. My wish is this: live your life to the very fullest, my child, treasure every moment for what it is, never give in to depression or despair. Because the price you pay in the end will never be worth what you get from that one brief moment of respite.

         So live long, live happy, love freely, my daughter. Do it with your whole heart and soul. And the next time you think to pray for me and my soul, I'd kindly ask you to add someone else to your list of people that you beseech God to help.

         Yourself.