The Good Samaritan

by John Marrs

‘Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.’ —Muhammad Ali ‘While seeking revenge, dig two graves – one for yourself.’ —Douglas Horton

I once read that if you tell yourself the same thing over and over again, eventually you’ll forget where the truth ends and the fantasy begins.

Only now, by following in Charlotte’s footsteps, could I understand that she wasn’t being selfish in taking her own life. No suicidal person is. Like I was now, she truly believed in her heart of hearts that sometimes it is all there is left to do.

If she could see me now, she’d be turning in the grave I’d sent her to.

‘You have to remember, Effie, you and I are cut from the same cloth,’ she told me once. ‘You are your mother’s daughter. There is so much you can learn from me.’ She was right. I had learned from her. And now it was time to start putting all those lessons into practice.