The Good Left Undone

by Adriana Trigiani

“May God bless you and give you what you need because what you want will get you in trouble.”

“When I’m a mother, I will always talk to my children no matter what they do.” “You will do your best when the time comes, just like your mother.”

“Have a story ready, or people will make up one for you. You have to do it before they can. Promise?”

“Even when we’re broken, we’re beautiful.”

But the time had come too quickly. There were still memories to make.

“When you own something of value, people assume you are worth something too.

This was no ordinary hunger satiated by a good meal; the captain’s soul was being fed too. He wondered if the brown-eyed nurse from Italy had something to do with it.

With every turn of the wheels on the train, she was farther away from home. Italy was just a dream now.

You have a place that you long for—that’s not a selfish thing at all. It just means you know where you are best loved and the most useful.”

“He will not forsake you. He will not abandon you. But you must pray. God knows your heart. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was the wise doctor of the faith. He encouraged us to reflect on the past. Make peace with it. You cannot control the evil done to you. You cannot turn back and right the good left undone. You cannot make up for the time wasted. But you can earn your salvation. Open your heart to His love. All is forgiven. We find strength in our confession.

A man was only as lucky as the friends he had made.

He gripped the railing and waited for the Arandora Star to capsize. “You will not know the day, you will not know the hour,” the Scripture taught. Antica smiled, because in fact he knew the day and the hour, because he was living inside of it. That too was a gift at the end.

As the Arandora Star sank into the Atlantic, Arcangelo Antica did not hold his breath, nor did he call for help or panic; instead, he let the ocean take his life from him. The water was cold, but Antica did not feel it. He let go.

His friendship was the beginning of a lifelong love that would heal her.

“When you see an old lady who’s on the wrong side of a good mood, now you know why. She has a past that you can’t understand because you didn’t live it. As she ages, her feet hurt, her back aches, her knees click, she cooks, she cleans, she worries, she waits, and then she gets sick and dies. Be kind, Anina. Someday you’ll be the old lady.”

You cannot buy time when it has been stolen from you.”

Who waits around for a compliment? Ask for it. Then take it. And when you do, you realize you knew the truth all along and you didn’t need anybody else’s opinion in the first place. No one has to tell you that you did a good job.”

Well, that’s what happens as you get older. You lose your patience, and it’s replaced with sarcasm. I can’t help it. I look around and what I see is stupid.

“Listen to me. Love yourself. That’s the greatest adventure. When you love yourself, you want to find your purpose, something only you can do in the way only you can do it. Make things. Create. And if a man comes along—and believe me, he will—the relationship is already off to a good start because both of you love the same person. You. Lucky him.”

She had not wasted time. Women rarely did. They squeezed each moment out of the day serving others. But the good left undone? Had she been enough? Done enough? No answer came, but it wasn’t her problem anymore.