UNTIL THE DEEP WATER STILLS

PRIDE

Audio

Dear Runaway Mother:

It was finally quiet. Nobody left except me and the forensic investigators processing the crime scene. They said I could go home. They had no more questions for me which I was grateful for because I had precious few answers to give.

That was when the full weight of it hit me. It was my crime scene. I masterminded every detail and nuance. My fingerprints and DNA were scattered all over the place.

I thought I had foreseen every eventuality. But I overlooked the biggest risk factor of all – the law of human nature. For every point of view there is an equal and opposite opinion. When the two meet, and neither one will give ground, this is the result.

Runaway mother, I put lives at risk and one man may have paid with his life. I don’t even know who he is except that he woke up this morning expecting this to be a normal day. Somebody’s son, husband or father. All of them praying for a miracle because of my self-righteous insistence that I was right and most everyone else was wrong.

I saw it happen but I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Until that moment I thought I had the power to change the world. What a grand illusion that was.

Peace, unity, respect and love. I believed in that and I kept preaching it – until pride elbowed its way in. I stopped focusing on the cause and got caught up in feeding my stubborn pride. It became all about winning the power struggle.

I should never have gotten involved with Bryan. That’s where things started to go wrong. Bad enough I compromised my principles. That I’ll make peace with. It was the power struggle with Grace that got my pride ramped up. I knew long before Bryan that Grace knew about us. In the back of my mind I knew and that was why I couldn’t let her win.

Runaway mother, I’ve been trying to decide if I wanted to meet you. But not anymore. I’d be ashamed for you to know me. You were right to leave. I would only have brought you grief.