A better day

Oh, a much better day today! Thank goodness. I worked and the distraction was so welcome.

There's a nurse in my office. A nurse practitioner, to be exact. But that's irrelevant. This nurse and I were discussing the trial today, because... what else is there? Anyway, she makes the remark, "it would have been better if he had died."

And I think to myself, "maybe."

She continues, "it would have been better if he died, and then the kids would still have a mother. As it is, their mother is dead and their dad is gone away."

And I think to myself, "that's true." But... But that isn't the way it turned out, is it? So I said: "Nothing can bring her back now. The value of his life now is in the fact that he can seek forgiveness. And maybe, if he's really lucky, he can receive it. And the fact of his living makes it possible for those many, many people he has hurt to have the chance to confront, to question, to choose whether or not to forgive."

That's why I kept him on the phone that night, that night when he told me he had to die. I knew it was over for him, I knew this thing he did could never be fixed. But something in my heart told me that he needed to live, that we who have been damaged, we also needed him to live.

There are those that would like to see him die. Probably many people would like that. I'm sorry for that. Really, though, isn't that the easy way out for him? Seems like it to me.