Unforgiven - I

The light of the day, the dark of the night, even the somber radiance of twilight, mean nothing to me anymore. My life is enveloped by an impenetrable cloud that endears an unending gray all around me. Every fleeting moment was tantamount to the one before, brandished with guilt. But even amidst my immortal guilt, I think of her. I think of her every moment.

Many people had been knitted with her in her abridged yet consequential life. Even I had loved her beyond conception, but I had fathomed her real worth only in death. I was the one vested with the powers to salvage her, but I failed. My medical prowess, which I had always deemed as the ultimate ordnance to thwart the atrocities against humanity, has now turned into a dagger baptized in my own venomous guilt, stabbing through my heart.

As my second born, Isobel was never the subject of any special attention. Never as much even when she developed the initial signs of respiratory polio and I overlooked. And it wasn’t until one morning when I found her conked out in her bedroom that I realized what was on the verge of occurrence. But alas! It was too late.

Since that unfortunate event, I have been groveling in indignant guilt. Even so much that I have given up my practice and even to some extent leaving the house. My entire world has shrunk to a gray cloud enveloping me. I have rummaged within myself and in the world around me in the quest for redemption, for my failure as a father, failure as a doctor and moreover for my loss of faith in my profession. But my grievances shadowed me even there. Thus I sought solace in oblivion. I have decided to keep myself inebriated every moment of this condemned life. So what if it can’t keep the guilt away but it sure keeps the pain within limits. The incessant stabbing continues, but the alcohol numbs my senses.

In this maze of my indulgence, I have mislaid myself. And I know that I have wronged Laura, in depriving her of her father. She had done nothing to deserve a fate like this. But my remorse for loosing Isobel is predominant on my guilt over Laura. It is my redemption, to seek salvation in my guilt. Perhaps I shall remain unforgiven by both, my dead and living daughter, forever.
                                                                                                                        ~   Dr. Luis Castellano