He's Dead And I'm OK With It

I've never hid that I detested them and I feel like I'd be a hypocrite if I expressed any remorse now they've died.

They wronged a friend and never said sorry.

They slighted me, and I walked away.

My anger with them kept me from maintaining a couple of friendships.

I know this is a bit inside baseball...

I guess I should explain.

Once upon a time there was a car club, The Gulf Coast SS Club.

The president of that club, effectively, declared himself President for Life and we disposed him.  It was over a matter of kicking two members out without even discussing it with us, the members.  It was HIS club, not our club.

The entire point of the revolution was to eschew the rules common with car clubs and just be "The Club Without Rules".

Two of our members were friends with the people who're a big, national, Impala SS and Caprice club.  INC, for Impalas-N-Caprices.  But they weren't big or national at the time.

So we became INC - FLA and everyone was all happy.  INC the big car club didn't care because we're all friends here.

But The Departed had other ideas.  He wanted the club to become an official affiliate of INC the big car club.

One day we were INC-TPA, there were bylaws and rules and he was President for Life.

I was meh until he harangued a longtime member who'd also had long running health problems and threatened to boot him from the club if he didn't attend the minimum number of meetings.  When I objected to this, I was also "put in my place".

So I quit.

Disappointingly, the club continued without me and didn't mind the President for Life situation and I became more disgusted that they accepted it.  They just accepted that he could tell someone they weren't a member anymore and didn't even fight him over it.

He never apologized to the longtime member.  Or his widow.

He never apologized to me.

Now he never will.

Call me old fashioned, but I feel that the first step in forgiveness is that apology.

I can forget it, I can ignore it, but I can't forgive it until remorse is expressed.

I was ignoring it.

Now he's dead and I don't mourn.