Bernard Childs, Month of Unreasonable Hope (1960)

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The experience changed me fundamentally.

It defined my sense of spirituality, the way I think about the universe. It convinced me of the existence of the soul: that humans are bifurcated beings, part flesh, part spirit, and that the psychical practices we call "magic" are probably real.

It propelled my mature ethics: that reconciliation is more important than justice; that forgiveness is the way we heal; that manipulators are to be understood but avoided.

It led me to face the fragility of friendships, the delicacy of our individual existences, the fact that people come and go, and that they go for all kinds of reasons you can't predict. That you have to be open to that, not take it so personally.

It left me far less willing to inflict pain on others. Less judgmental, more forgiving of people's imperfections and mistakes, including my own.

It left me determined to learn to communicate.

It was the threshold event which initiated my adulthood. Everything important which I am today follows from that origin.

As I write this I find myself still hurting, but every day more hopeful. It's as if with each new breath I become more free of this legacy, less burdened with the weight of that dead and forlorn past, more eager to continue forward in search of my own little path through this wide and beautiful life. The path I staggered away from, blinded by loss.

So that one day soon, I feel certain, any minute now, I'll meet myself again, that portion of myself which stood so long waiting in that park, that last night together. When I do I'll tell him it's time to go home.

And what it all comes down to, my friend,
is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine...

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