haunted

Sometimes I see her face on the driver of a car stopped across the intersection, or the woman pushing her cart through the grocery store parking lot, or someone waiting for a bus... in people's avatars... on models in magazines... as I'm flicking through the channels...

And then I do a double take... I look again... I flip back a channel... and it's not her... it couldn't possibly be her, of course, but someone who looks shockingly similar, or not at all... just a reminder of what a bad friend I was... of how I didn't try harder... how how I was afraid... of how I pushed her out of my mind... until it was too late.

Obviously my mind is trying to push my unresolved guilt issues to the surface and make me deal with my feelings about her death... or how I avoided her death... how I saw it coming... or that I was at least aware of the possibility of it happening, rather... and how I was too afraid to admit that I needed to try to contact her, and make peace... let her know that she was loved, at one time, and had been a big part of my life...

But I was selfish. I didn't try... I avoided it... I heard about her decline, and how she had given up fighting her horrible disease... and I didn't do anything. I froze... and I avoided... and I wallowed... and I thought about what would I say too late.

And now I am haunted.

By myself... by my guilt... by my grief... by my selfishness and cowardice.

So now I sit here with the ghosts of my non-decisions, and I wonder... I wonder if it will fade over time... I wonder if I deserve to have it fade at all.