discovery? Because the endless cycle can only be broken by you, Jake. It’s my destiny. It’s your destiny. You must make the decision. And so I’m choosing to let you know now, so that the next time around we might make things right. It’s too late for this life. What is done cannot be undone. We have to learn from our past and apply that to our future. And that decision rests with you.
Don’t mourn for me, Jake. I loved my work. I would gladly have given my life for it. I was granted a special gift for helping others and giving of myself. I wouldn’t be me if I was worried about the dangers of my work.
But a career isn’t everything, Jake. Careers fulfill a certain need, but it’s who we love and who we are loved by that really matters. That’s what makes us who we are.
It’s serendipity, Jake. We weren’t supposed to discover these things. Martha never did. Robert never did. But we have. We are the fortunate ones. We are the ones who can break the endless cycle.
Until then, I await you, my love.
Rebecca
I first read those words over twenty years ago. Twenty years of questioning, of wondering what might have been. Twenty years to contemplate what I lost when I chose my career over my heart.
As for the things I experienced inside Rebecca’s house, I can’t explain any of it. I can’t explain how it was that she appeared to me in the silence of the night, how she spoke to me and whispered in my ear. I can’t explain the apparition in the mirror or the face in the clock.
Maybe I imagined it all. A grand hallucination. Maybe my discoveries of the photographs and of the letter were just examples of everyday serendipity, of fortunate discoveries by accident.
One thing I do know is that her words rang true. I had even felt it myself for many years before her death; I just hadn’t understood it. It took her discovery in Sri Lanka, and her subsequent ghostly visits to me, to open my eyes to the truth of my feelings.
Tomorrow, I will celebrate my seventy-fourth birthday.
After that, it shouldn’t be long at all.
And next time around, with the grace of God and Rebecca’s radiant smile, I will forge the life I was meant to lead.
And I will love. Always love.
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