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# Guilt and Grace
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/guilt-grace/
- Published: 2017-01-05T20:06:25.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-15T03:51:00.000Z
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Notebook

**On January 5** I walked along the sea in Crete and remembered my father who died on this day last year. The things I should have done, the desire to rewrite the past. But why punish myself with guilt? A line from Bergman’s *[The Seventh Seal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FSeventh%5FSeal?ref=jamesreeves.co)* nattered at my thoughts: “I often wonder why people torment themselves as soon as they can.” I ran my hands along the stone wall of an ancient fortress while tormenting myself for everything left unsaid and undone. Perhaps this self-punishment was an echo of the blood sacrifices of the past, a modern variation on the ritual of [sati](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati%5F%28practice%29?ref=jamesreeves.co) or the tribes who chopped off their fingers to illustrate their grief for the ones they’ve lost, to relieve their guilt for continuing to live.

As I walked along the sea of a strange country, I recalled the day-to-day details of my [last year with my father](http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/dev/essays/the-last-year-of-my-father/?ref=jamesreeves.co). Our morning drives to physical therapy, his constant tidying of our tiny pantry shelf. The comfortable rhythm of our conversations and silences, our routines and quiet complaints. We built a little life together, two men living in small clinical rooms, waiting for a lung. Looking up at the clear winter sky, I realized my parents would kick my ass if they saw me brooding like this—and I was surprised to find that I was still having a conversation with them. I walked on, feeling less alone, and I found a small moment of grace at the end of a pier in the Aegean sea.