confession and an appeal for forgiveness

this is one of the hardest things i have done in my life. opening myself up like this is very painful. it is not the sympathy i am looking for. i am looking for someone.
things in life have a way of haunting you, especially when you do the wrong thing and hurt someone.
for years now, i have tried to find a girl from jackson, tennessee named mary teresa hayes. terri was a sweethart and she did not deserve how i ended up treating her.
i don't remember how we met, i think it was from another friend. her father was an accountant, and her mother was sick, very sick. cancer. and it was terminal. she went to northside high school in jackson, tennessee. i think i had graduated.
everyday, after school until bedtime, it was her job to care for her mother and fill in for her doing all the things a homemaker does plus doing homework and trying to be a teenager. her father was abusive to her. i don't know all of the story, i only know he was a very angry man. i will never forget the time he pulled a gun on me in the parking lot of a methodist church one sunday night. he was serious.
we continued to see each other despite the threats. his anger escalated until one night, she ran away and wandered the streets until dawn and she called me to pick her up. several hours later, her father found her at my house. he came in to talk to my parents and he was so polite and kind. he assured them it was just teenagers being teenagers and things were going to be better.
after he got her home, he beat her. then enrolled her at harrison-chilhowee baptist academy which was over 300 miles away and pretty much left her there. she continued to write me and i wrote her for awhile and i slowly stopped. her mother died and she called me. i would not call her back and left her with no one who really cared for her.
somewhere about this time, the oak ridge boys came out with the song, "i'll be true to you" and the lyrics were so true except except for the overdose. here are the lyrics:


They met upon a blue moon,
And they parted on a cloudy day
They were so in love and out of school,
But he was goin' so far, far away.


She said: "I'll be true to you,
"Even though you don't want me to.
"And I'll be blue for you,
"Even though you've asked me not to."

Well the year's drifted by them, as we all know they can.
He found other women, but she refused other men.
But as fate would have it, they met again,
She was on a down-hill slide, and he was just slidin' in.

As he looked into her eyes that night, he never realize.
The only real love in his life was passin' by.
When he turned and left her there, his words: "Goodbye".
He heard her calling out to him, and as he walked, she cried:

"I've been true to you.
"Seems like speakin' to me is the least that you could do.
"And I've been blue for you,
"Even though you've asked me not to."

She'd been drinkin way too hard one night,
She'd been drinkin way too long.
Alone and pale in a cheap hotel, she died there in the dawn.
Kneelin' by the grave, oh so late and oh so wrong,
He longed to hold her close again, cryin' on and on.

He cried: "I''ll be true to you.
"After all that I have put you through.
"And I'll be blue for you,
"Though you never even asked me to."

sometimes we don't have the opportunity to attempt to make things right despite how hard we try. i have tried and i will never give up. this one haunts me and as i have felt the pain of this one, it has taught me many lessons.
we don't always feel the hurt we cause others because of our self obsessing tendencies. me first. i'll get mine, you get yours when you can. help me, but i am too busy to help you. a friend lost. a family member (BEH) lost. we attempt a "sorry" but sometimes then is not the time to make up. sometimes it takes some time for healing to start before the sincerity of an "i am sorry" holds significance.
please, if you have hurt someone, take the time to contact them and make things right before time runs out. we are not guaranteed tomorrow for it is only a moment away and God knows the timeline. and, if i have ever hurt you, i am sorry. i truly am.
until next time...