Illumination Writing Challenge

It’s Your Call

How are you going to use it?

Our lives are filled with so many moments. Many of those pass by unnoticed and seem to be insignificant in our personal life. Most of those probably are insignificant, for not every moment brings a sentinel turning point or memorable event.

However, there are a fair amount of moments that seem insignificant, at least to us, but they really aren’t so inconsequential. A missed chance to be polite or kind; or alternately, a word said in haste and anger.

Those moments sometimes end up defining our lives in more significant ways than we can ever imagine. In some cases, it is a series of related moments that add up to a significant turning point, or maybe a gradual shift in a certain direction.

If we are aware of these moments, we often wish we could change them when they lead to negative consequences. We have regret. We wonder what would have happened differently if we had only acted a different way or said a different thing? Would it have turned out better?

Joe Luca recently posed the question of, if given a single opportunity to rectify one of those moments (or unfortunate series of moments) with a conversation, would you do so? And if so, which one? What person would you call to attempt to change the outcome of one or several of those related pivotal moments?

Not really an easy question when you consider how many small moments have passed by in a lifetime. Joe chose to call his father, and that seems like a reasonable choice. We spend so much time with our families, and most family relationships are far from perfect or simple.

That is certainly true in my case. I was estranged from my sister and parents for about 15 years. That was a product of many related moments that evolved into not speaking for years. There wasn’t a huge blowout or a central dividing issue. Rather just some patterns that I thought were unhealthy and wanted to end.

Unfortunately, patterns being what they are, they don’t often change without a larger catalyst to create the change. In our life trajectory the catalyst apparently needed to be time apart. Unfortunately, it took the death of my father to change the new pattern of not talking back to one where we now routinely interact positively.

So, it is tempting to make my phone call to my dad. For one thing just to hear his voice because it has now been over 20 years. But if I did that, I think the conversation would go to me asking why he never reached out over those years of not speaking?

The original rift was really between me and my mom. I often wonder why my dad didn’t reach out on his own to try and negotiate a peace accord. But as I consider how that conversation might go, I am not sure it would be a productive one. Our paths diverged so long ago that I don’t know really what to say. I could apologize for letting things languish on my end; but I don’t really know what value that would carry.

My relationship with my parents was pretty unhealthy in 1998. Now, as my mom and I reconstruct our relationship it is profoundly better. I am not entirely certain that a different path taken many years ago would have led to this spot. It might be a much worse spot; so, I am reluctant to change that.

So, that isn’t the call I want to make.

Likewise, I am unsure that I want to go back and correct any of the bonehead mistakes, stupid things I said, or any of the other negatives in my life. I really like who I am today. Without all the pitfalls and screwups I may not have become who I am now. So, I am reluctant to go back and intercede in one of those moments either.

One person and one event does come to mind, however. There was a young man my age that committed suicide when we were seniors in high school. A “classic” story if there ever was one. A smart, talented kid with everything going for him; at least by appearances to all of us around him.

We weren’t close. Just acquaintances. He was much more central to the in-crowd than I was, but we were friendly. No reason not to chat in passing, but that was about it.

Now, I have seen probably more than my fair share of tragedy given my past profession. I have seen all manner of death and human suffering, much of it peripheral to the reason someone called 9–1–1 in the first place; just the “ordinary” setting for a lot of people is depressing and oppressive.

More than once I have called child or adult services to report abuse, neglect and awful conditions. You might rightly assume that I am accustomed to poor environments and bad outcomes; and in many ways I am.

But, especially given all that, the suicide of this one young person so many years ago sticks permanently in my brain.

Therefore, if a phone that could link me to my past showed up one day on my doorstep, I believe that the call I would make would be to this young man shortly before he ended his life.

I would want to find out why, of course. We are always all curious about that. But, more importantly, I would take this incredible opportunity to tell this person that I care about him. I would tell him that I think he is special, and that I appreciate the fact that he exists.

It might not be enough. I don’t know what was going on in his life and inside his head at the time. But I hate the fact that I missed that opportunity 34 years ago; to tell him that I cared about him.

That is the phone call I would make.

Thank you Joe Luca for this prompt. I am going to tag a few more to motivate this one forward. Please engage if this prompt speaks to you:

Diana C., Henery X (long), Matt Lillywhite, Eddie A Tejeda, Gena Vazquez 🖊, Geetika Sethi, Kristin Wilson, Adrian Drew, Amy Marley, Tim Maudlin, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Tara Blair Ball, Steve Campbell, Shelby Church, Rasheed Hooda, Mary Holden, Holly Jahangiri, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Paroma Sen, India Snow, and Dr John Rose

If you like this, you might like some of my other recent writing:

A recent poetic response to a prior challenge:

And another more spontaneous poem:

Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.