If Only

Morning light was spilling across the cemetery. It was unusually quiet as if the melody of birds and cicadas was being absorbed by the trees.

I had been wandering among the markers with the same interest that often leads me up a forest trail or along a riverbank. Reading names. Dates. Small clues left behind about lives once lived. 

Most of the tombstones followed a familiar pattern: Beloved husband. Cherished mother. A favorite verse. An emblem of belief. A life summarized in a handful of words. 

It was my sister Susan, who shared an inspiring poem called The Dash Between, by Linda Ellis (see below), which fueled my curiosity.

Then I saw an inscription that had no names, no verses, no emblems, and no dashes at all. Unlike the others, this tombstone contained only two words:

IF ONLY 

Nothing else. 

Just those two words etched deeply into the granite. I stood there, staring, lost in the moment. The stone felt less like a memorial and more like a warning - one I was meant to see. 

IF ONLY

Two words capable of carrying the weight of an entire life. 

If only I had taken the trip. 

If only I had said yes. 

If only I had said no. 

If only I had spent more time with people I loved. 

If only I had worried less. 

If only I had been kinder to myself and others. 

IF ONLY

As I walked away, I found myself thinking about the mountains surrounding Lake Tahoe. 

The ancient Junipers clinging to granite ridges don't spend their days wishing they lived somewhere else. The Creek doesn't regret the twists and turns down Shirley Canyon. The Truckee River doesn't waste a moment wishing it flowed south. Lake Tahoe doesn't care that it’s the second deepest Lake in the country. 

Nature has no use for "if only." 

It simply finds a way to live. 

The Juniper, the Creek, the River and the Lake each accept its path and continue forward. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne once suggested that people should be classified not by wealth or status but by their “sorrows, maladies, and sins.” The grieving would belong to one class. The sick to another. Those burdened by regret and poor choices to another still. And ultimately, he observed, death gathers everyone through the same doorway. 

It's a humbling thought. 

Every one of us knows sorrow. 

Every one of us carries skeletons. 

Every one of us has made mistakes. 

And every one of us has stood beneath the stars wondering whether we got it right. 

The longer I live, the less interested I become in what separates people, and the more fascinated I become by what we share and have in common. 

The “1%er” and the lift operator. 

The business owner and the drifter. 

The resident and the tourist.

The young and the old. 

Beneath our different stories, we all carry the same fragile baggage: hopes, regrets, fears, losses, dreams, and the desire to find meaning and to be loved. 

Deep down where the spirit meets the bone, we're far more alike than we imagine. 

We're all trying to make sense of this brief and astonishing experience called being alive.

That realization feels especially clear to me when I'm out on a hike in the mountains of Lake Tahoe. I’m reminded that I’m here. Now. Alive.

In the words of Mark Twain, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”  

We can be more forgiving to ourselves and others. 

We can be more kind to ourselves and others. 

Right now, we can notice or imagine more beautiful things.  

Right now, we can be grateful for the life we’ve been given, regardless of the cards we’ve been dealt.

The truth is that every life contains twists and turns. Every life has its joys and losses. Every life has unfinished chapters. And every one of us, from time to time, is visited by the same unwelcome thoughts. Not fear exactly. Not regret exactly. Just a quiet awareness of the life still unlived. In his book, Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig refers to this nagging guilt as "Nighthawk."

The phone call not made. The forgiveness not offered. The adventure postponed. The words left unsaid. It waits patiently at the edge of consciousness, gathering strength in the darkness, hoping we will finally listen before it becomes an epitaph that begins and ends with two words: If only.

All photographs by Michael Kennedy (unless otherwise noted) / BlueWolfGallery.com

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I’m Michael Kennedy, a resident of Olympic Valley, CA (in photo above). I’m a photojournalist and I love exploring nature and getting lost along the way. We live in a world that demands our attention and I just want to say thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed this post, please share with a friend. For more photos and stories visit BlueWolfGallery.com.