Naturally, I'm replaying a mental video of memories. I'm also recalling a moment from a couple of months ago, sitting in a waiting room with my wife. A 20-year-old pop ballad drifted down from the ceiling.
At the time, and again today, I wondered -- is that really what I wish for? Does the telling matter that much?Every generation
Blames the one before,
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door.I know that I'm a prisoner
To all my father held so dear.
I know that I'm a hostage
To all his hopes and fears.
I just wish I could have told him in the living years.
I got to thinking about the letter I struggled with late last year, the one I didn't send, the reconciliation that didn't happen.
Crumpled bits of paper,And that, it would seem, is all we've got. Even if death hadn't intervened, it'd be all we've got -- or would it? Absent the telling, maybe it's enough to know. Maybe it has to be.
Filled with imperfect thought;
Stilted conversations --
I’m afraid that’s all we've got.
The song's final verse always has pawed at my heart. The first lines proved eerily prophetic.
When a relationship ends, however it ends, inevitably we're left with the done and the undone, the spoken and the unspoken. Wishing that more had been said or left unsaid changes nothing. For those who choose to go on living, the paralysis of regret isn't an option.I wasn't there that morning,
When my father passed away.
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say.I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year.
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new-born tears.
I just wish I could have told him in the living years.
So all we've got is all we've got -- a life lived well, a spirit that remains and a son who walks amid the echoes.
The knowing will have to do.
Lyrics excerpted from "The Living Years" by Mike Rutherford and B.A. Robertson.
