We have no way of knowing what our life would have been like…
it’s impossible to do the math…
If we had made different decisions…if we had chosen different paths:
They loved each other when they were younger…
They often think about how and who they were…
She never told him how she felt…
He never mentioned it to her.
Because they never told each other….about their love and their affections….
as so often happens..fate stepped in…and their lives went in different directions.
Until a day when they were old an gray…
Each life separately having been filled with their share of happiness…and loss
when in a park they once had frequented…their paths again would cross.
They talked as old friends do…about the memories they’ve amassed…
and for a moment there together it’s like a lifetime never passed.
They visited for a while…talking about all those years they spent asunder…
then said goodbye…and as they walked away…they both were left to wonder:
If we had married…they both pondered separately…
the thought made both a little sad…
We would have been blessed…they both imagined
what a wonderful life we would have had.
In 1856 John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem …
if only this couple had read
about another couple just like them…
and the words they never said.
It’s a poem about what life could have been like…as opposed to what it is…
I’ll let Mr. Whittier finish this poem….the same way he finished his.
For all the sad words of tongue and pen
the saddest are these…
it might have been.
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