I remember a girl I knew at UT-Martin who was beautiful all the way through to her soul with a genuine kindness and compassion that is rare in this world. One November Friday I wanted her to come home with me to Memphis for the weekend but as the day wore on I got tired of trying to find her (everyone didn’t carry cell phones back then) because I loathed driving that two-lane highway from Martin to I-40 (small town speed traps). I went home alone. When I arrived in Martin on Sunday afternoon, my roommate told me that the girl had been killed by a drunk driver going to her own home late that Friday night. The accident was so violent that her mother couldn’t even identify her own daughter’s body. It was one of the worst funerals I’ve ever attended, with her mother collapsing and her large, very religious family questioning their very foundations. So, on rainy Friday nights, right before Thanksgiving, I think about her and wonder if things could have turned out differently if I had been a better person.
A person could go crazy trying to figure out how things might have been “if only.” I think God really just wants us to do our best from day to day. Leave the past mistakes in the past and focus only on what we can do in the present. From what I’ve read in your blog, I’d say you ARE a wonderful person. *hugs*
Hindsight is always 20/20 and you can’t do anything to change the past. You ARE a good person – you just can’t change fate.
It wasn’t you, you had nothing to do with it. She had accomplished what the Lord set her down here to do, including touching your life. Her mission here was done, the Lord knew it (he knows all) and he took her home. Just another reminder that it could be our time at any minute, and there ain’t no ‘community service’ when we arrive. Make sure you do your best everyday so if it IS your day, you will be greeted with a warm smile and a hearty “Good Job” – would an ArchAngel lie?
It’s hard not to wonder about these things, but I truly believe life (and death) happens as it should, even if we can’t see the reasons why.
I found your site through BE. Nice post.
Rough times.
🙁
She was on her way home… and that’s where she ended up, it sounds like… to her heavenly home. But if, by her death, she’s given others pause for thought about their life, and maybe even motivated someone to change for the better, then I’ll bet she would have been happy about that. It sounds to me like you are someone who was touched by her life, so it was not for nothing.
It’s only during those forks in the road, when we can choose to do the wrong thing, the thing we know is bad, or to do the other thing, the thing that we know is good that define us. Those are the important decisions, the ones that count.