The Young Minds

“You simply cannot forget Regret!”

In our lives, we will all face Remorse and Regret for something we did or didn’t do, something we said or didn’t say and now, years later, this cancerous emotion creates a heartburn of guilt that no pill can remove from our souls.
 
Most people futilely attempt to try to forget their actions of the past and brush their regretful deeds under the carpet. Yet some the particles of guilt show from underneath and, like Martin Hicks, a successful published New York Times Best Selling Author, he finds himself suddenly thrust into a new world order of Regret beyond what he ever imagined when he awoke that November morning.
 
The emotional reality dictates what we really feel and what could have been avoided had we decided to act or speak differently, yet sadly, it usually is too little and too late.
 
The misty Manhattan cold November rain, in the back of a small postage stamp size cemetery directly behind the aging 170-year old Catholic church, is center stage for Martin Hick’s newly found guilt bubbling inside him. The teardrops of rain drip from the silver casket, as he stands at the grave of a past mentor, a teacher whose guidance changed his life. He would not be who he is without that influence. Yet, almost 20 years after graduating from her classroom, he never thanked her or told her how much her guidance altered his course in life.
 
Standing at her grave, what continues to run through his mind, is his mentor’s famous “Young Minds’ speech, given in daily-doses to encourage the future life path of her students. And, yet, he never once returned to his school and expressed his appreciation.
 
Martin’s increasing remorse gets the better of him as he thinks of his teacher. He realizes he must find a way to remove this stain of guilt now branded on his soul and so a journey begins that not even he could have imagined had he written it in one of his best-selling mystery fictions.
 
Martin’s intended journey of turning remorse into redemption, is anything but a smooth and easy pathway. In fact, it quickly becomes the defining journey of his 34-year old life.
 
He stands at the door of an empty home, the owner, nowhere to be found, having moved away to be with her father in heaven. All that remains is the house she once lived in.
 
And, with his knock never answered, the only thing greeting him at the front door is Remorse and Regret.