No Regrets

It's been a little over a year since I last posted, so I'm not real sure what to say or where to start. I'm sure most of the visitors I had have long since given up coming by here, and I don't blame them- There hasn't been a whole lot to see.  If no one reads this now, that's ok too. This one's for Dad.

Not long after my last post, on April 30, 2007, my father passed away. The neck and back surgeries that were supposed to repair the damage he suffered in a fall one afternoon in his backyard, actually caused additional damage from which he was never able to recover. When he died, a big part of me died as well.

He used to love reading Palmetto Pundit.  Maybe it's because I was his son and that's what he was supposed to do, or maybe there were other reasons. I'm not sure exactly why, but he really liked it and seemed to get a real kick out of it. To me, it was just a way to express my opinion without getting my teeth kicked in--keyboard therapy, if you will. To him, reading what I had written was something he loved to do. 

I could look at my site meter each day and see that he'd been traipsing around. I could always count on having at least one visitor each day and his was always the one that meant the most. Sometimes he was afraid I 'd gone a bit too far, and upon reflection, I suspect he may have been right. He never failed to tell me he had read my latest post and really enjoyed it and that meant more to me than he would ever know.

In the months before he died, he was highly medicated in an attempt to alleviate pain and much of what he said was hard to understand, but one thing I specifically remember is him asking me to print out my blog posts and bring them to him to read. I never did because I thought he was in too much pain to read them. I now realize that I entirely missed the point. He didn't want to read them, he wanted me to read them to him. I never told him that I had stopped blogging when he went into the hospital, but looking back I really wish I would have printed a bunch of old posts and taken them to him.

He died and I quit. It's as simple as that. My dad's motto was "Never, Never, Never Give Up!", but I did just that- I gave up. I never changed my political views or my opinions, I just stopped caring and stopped blogging. That's the last thing my father would have wanted or expected from me.

As my father lay dying, I held his hand, leaned over and whispered in his ear three words--No Regrets, Dad. And just then he was gone, and I've not been the same since. I'm working through it, but it's still very much a work in progress.

I started thinking about what I said to him a few days ago, and asked myself honestly if I had any regrets, and I did. Chief among those regrets was my decision to stop writing and stop blogging. It's not because I feel I have anything earth shattering to say or any particular talent in this area, but because my father would have wanted me to continue. I think as much as he enjoyed reading my posts,  he also realized that no matter who else read them it was good therapy for his son. He knew that writing made me happy and in turn that made him happy. Once again, I suspect he was right.

Although I don't know exactly how much I'll be writing, I will continue writing and posting here. It may not always be political or relevant to the news of the day, (as is probably obvious from this post on Super Tuesday II) but I'll write nonetheless. Even if no one else reads it, I know I'll always have at least one visitor. No regrets.

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