I’d like to copy a small quotation I just read in Shirley
Jackson’s Hangsaman. She’s describing
Natalie Waite’s father, a second rate, essentially failed writer, whose
relationship with Natalie’s mother might be described as ‘perfunctory.’
He left many things undone, but never a word unsaid.
Who does that remind me of?
And what of the two saddest things I ever heard which related to me on a personal level? When my 5-year-old daughter woke one cold April morning to be told that I had left the night before, her first question was ‘Won’t he be back for Christmas?’ And much more recently, someone I held very dear sent me an email in which she wrote ‘I kept anticipating your appearance, but somehow I knew you wouldn’t turn up.’
The wise ones tell us we should let bygones be bygones and never feel remorse. It isn’t easy.
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