Dear Diary,
I am tired. I have been a good samaritan, a helpful son, a loving husband and a grieving widower.
I noticed that my hands aren't as steady as they used to be. They are wrinkled and thin and weak. They are not the hands that built a house from the ground up and made it a home, they are not the ones that slipped a ring on my lovers finger and made her my wife
I miss her
My bright blue eyes have become dull with age, my skin has lines and cracks that tells tales of a life of hardship and loss that destroy the perfect picture it once was, and my lips, dry and chapped, have not curled into a real smile for years.
Dear Diary,
My days are monotonous, unending and unchanging. I wake up, work, eat, sleep and go to church every Sunday, but yesterday I was summoned by the court to be part of a jury. I don't know if my judgement is clear, but I will listen and make a choice. I pray to god that it will be the right one.
Dear Diary,
My final verdict was not guilty. At first I was resigned to sentencing the lad to death, but one man had the courage to stand against all the others. He asked for support and I was the one to provide it.
I wanted to hear more; what was his reasoning? What did we miss? What did he see that we didn't? Were we too hasty in making our decision?
Yes, we were too hasty and this became exceedingly apparent when we noted all the discrepancies in the eye witness accounts. There was enough doubt to wave the charges and the young man was free.
Dear Diary,
When I arrived home, I wanted to do something, anything! Call an old friend for a drink, go to the theater, eat out, you name it. I was ready to take on the world I had let pass me by for 30 years and start living again. I now realize I was tired of doing nothing when I could do anything and I was so tired of fake smiles when all I wanted was a real one. I will not let another 30 years pass me by because of laziness. I am finished grieving my wife, my future and what could have been because I can only focus on the now, and how much I want company for that drink right about now.
Hope is such a powerful motivator and the courage of one young man gave me the motivation to find myself, the person I had buried deep inside, and move forward. I'll probably never meet the man again (we decided to remain anonymous after all) but if I do I will not thank him (he probably wouldn't understand why), I will simply smile, say hello and buy him dinner.
Dear Diary,
It's a beautiful Sunday morning and I'm going to church to give thanks and pray for another wonderful day.
Dear Diary,
I am happy. I am no longer an old man resigned to his fate, but an old man living every day as if it was my last
THE END