The Pain I Have Inflicted

When Kay was sixteen years old she ran away from home. Not the I'm going to a friend's house for one night cause I'm mad at my parents kind of running away. The fuck you I'm moving to another town and not coming back kind of running away. At some point during that time she called her father, Don, who lived in Ohio and asked him if she could move in. Her Dad had remarried and his new wife had been a single mother of three. She did not want to raise another child. So Kay's father said no. Kay has made her peace with this. I have not.

This crossed my mind the other day and I wondered if Don, who recently passed away, had gone to his grave regretting that decision? Since he never brought it up I would have to say no. To him it was most likely just another decision he was forced to make due to circumstance beyond his control. What was he to do? Force his new wife to take in a child she did not want? Never having faced that monumental of a moment in my life I would say yes and he's a evil man for not doing it. Anybody got some stones?

At a truly honest level I don't know that I would be strong enough to do the right thing. Admitting that I have to think if I've ever caused that kind of pain. Has there ever been a choice in my life that I felt forced in to that was the wrong decision and someone else felt the consequences even more so than me?