The Hardest Thing to Do:
I suspect the answer to the above differs from person to person. For me, letting someone inestimably valuable down when the circumstances eliminate or narrow the alternatives---that is a sorry painful plight. I think you die a little bit each time. When anyone starts to die varies individually, nevertheless dying is more a process, not a sudden or short term ending. I have observed many a young person dying before they have ever really lived. Their final death may be many decades away, but their spirit gets beaten down and their options limited, until they become a mere shell of their potential, living lives of quiet desperation---relegated to be among the living dead. How much any of us control our own destiny is certainly overrated, is absent any abundance of justice, is independent of religious affiliation, and is rarely self earned. The cards are dealt at birth, we sit at the table of life, few at the table are selected by ourselves, our abilities to play the game vary, and many more lose than win. Of course you and I achieved things on merit, smothered in fairness and equal opportunity, using our innate or self earned moral virtuousness to achieve success. Maybe, but frankly, sometimes I wonder about you.
Many of the best things in life are temporary, and will be taken away from us forever. It is easier to accept death as the mode of severance than forced separation. When someone close to you dies it is final, it just happens, you learn it is part of life, it was totally out of your power to prevent. You count your blessing for having known the person, you genuinely appreciate the contributions they made to your own well being and development. Part of them remains a permanent part of you, till your own death snuffs that out too. It is like the body goes first, then bits and pieces of your 'soul' hang around in others for a generation, but then all the traces of your existence are gone, while all the molecules which once were you are still around, still existing, still doing their thing, the only thing gone is you---the only you that will ever exist, the essence of the you undefinable. Maybe there is an afterlife for this 'you' or 'soul' independent of the molecules which created this 'you'. I hope so. If so, whatever the criteria, I doubt it is going to be any "I got to Heaven the old fashioned way---I earned it". I really doubt we will all be assembled in some huge stadium and God appear and ask all the "Southern Born Again Baptists" to follow him to Heaven. Or the Jews. Or the Catholics. Or the Muslims. I don't really profess to understand anything really brilliant about life let alone any afterlife.
The hardest things in life are the forced separations. For me, as a kid, it involved forced separations from two pets. The first was a horse, Virginia, sold at an auction; the second was Buff, a dog---influenced by me---to be a neighborhood pest. I taught him many really neat fun things, like wrestling, like flying by a person's head and removing their hat for them, like grabbing a kid's lunch bag and playing 'see if you can get it back', removing whole roasts from family picnic tables and bringing them to my own house, and you get the picture, he was just a 'riot'. When my parents gave him to some unknown (to me) upstate farmer the 'riot' was over and the bonds of friendship between myself and Buff were gone forever. The 'hurt' never really went away, the feelings of failure to protect a 'best friend' laid heavy on my conscience. I was supposed to protect him and told him I would many times.
Later in life it was certain people I failed, by my own decision, for reasons which at the time seemed unavoidable---which haunt me forever. This is not to say the same sort of thing doesn't happen in reverse and that others, by their own decision, for reasons they feel are valid at the time, let me down. The latter is far more easy to survive. After all, what goes around comes around. You cannot be all things to all people all the time. You can only try to be fair to all people all the time. Only the dumb or desperate try to force themselves on others. Respect the space others need, accept that your own personality doesn't have to be everyone else's cup of tea and can wear thin with time. Practice live and let live, but stand strong against those who insist you better think and live like them. They are a public nuisance, disturb the peace of families, of groups or teams, of neighborhoods, of nations, and the world. Watch out for 'faith' based warriors----waving bibles, or political dogmas, or ethnic visions of superiority---their faith is seeped in anger, intolerance of diversity, and wrapped in blind, usually inherited or indoctrinated faiths. Faith is great until it encroaches on the rights of others who have differing faiths. When all is said and done, faith based fanatics never seem to be very happy campers, always on edge, ready to pounce or denounce, ready to persecute others for differing beliefs. Often one can spot them at any gathering or meeting. They have that fixed look of resolute strong-minded moral 'fiberness' which projects the likelihood their face would fracture if they smiled, and their kindness reflected only back on themselves and others of like ilk.
Whatever our varied constitutional makeup, the golden rule always applies: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I doubt anyone ever bats a 1000 in this category. Most try, to varied extents, but in the end it is a some-time thing. Lot of should of, would of, what ifs in life. There will be times when, to protect yourself, you let others down, you let them go, you justify it with vague "this is really the best for all". Few people escape these dilemmas, and only the best of us get the priorities right. Most of the time the people you let down you don't even know. They are not part of your life and may even be in some far distant land. In this modern world of global communication the awareness of them is in our face one way or another---so much so that we become numbed by it all and, in our collective resignation, we shrug our shoulders, or mumble a little prayer, or find a target for who should be helping them or failed to help them. We deny we are included. But the let downs you really feel pained about are those you let down who are close to you, who you do know, and you know them very well---sometimes for a long time, sometimes for just a shorter time. If it is not a case of 'this is for the best for all concerned" it is a case of 'they deserved it', or 'enough is enough' and maybe a few other variants.
The people I remember the most, and which weigh on me forever, are those who paid a terrible price for my own failure to defend, protect, or support them---abandoned by me at their time of need, as a sacrifice to my own needs, or inability to find a solution for their problem. Of course there were always 'good' reasons at the time for the abandonment, some reasons better than others---but in the last analysis the reasons were always self-centered or a self weakness to do the right thing. It is the old "there is nothing more I can do" , "enough is enough", "they need to be taught a lesson", "I need to leave this part of my life behind", or "someone else can deal with this, not me". Later when the dust settles, and the deed has been done, remorse sets in. Even if most others, in the same situation, would have done the same thing---you know in your heart that you tossed a friend under the train or left them wounded and helpless in the path of an oncoming train. If I could rewrite the script of my life I would rewrite everyone of these cases and have found the strength to do the right thing for the right reasons at the right time and the consequences to me personally be damned. There are times when most of us need to borrow a little bit of the Terrell Owens persona and stand on principle against all the odds---ourselves standing immovable, as defiant, brave, and focused as Terrell can be.
In the end I have no idea how anyone, even God, can sort all of this out---or pass any sane judgment on others with so many variables in the mix. Let's face it, the more you live, the more and more you know for certain about less and less. Life is too much a bitch---and then you die. Sunday Morning Coming Down.
