If there is one rule you should always follow it is that you are going to do what you say you are going to do. This is something that no matter what you believe it is a unified truth. Always do what you say you are going to do. Always. Take it from me, you don’t want to learn what happens when you don’t do what you say you are going to do, because the pain associated is indescribable.
Two days ago, my aunt told me to tell my father a message. The request was mixed in among other Facebook chatter that she and I shared, but it is an imperative message to be delivered nonetheless. What happened is that I forgot to deliver the message. I let the ball drop. I didn’t do what I said I was going to do, and in turn, my father did not get the opportunity to say goodbye to my great Uncle Jack before he died yesterday. The pain stung even deeper when my dad told me that he had already set his car GPS to visit Jack tomorrow; had he gotten the message, he probably would have gotten in that visit.
I can’t do anything to change what happened, and I can’t ever give my dad the last few minutes with his uncle that he so wanted, but what I can do is to vow always to do what I say I am going to do, and to do it that day. There is something powerful about pain: it teaches us lessons about life that we will never, and I repeat, never, forget.