Guilt and a Hit and Run

Maybe we need more guilt, not less

(A quick search of images to use here showed me that overwhelmingly, articles are written about how to avoid or shed guilt. Very few were about its importance and the guidance it gives.)

A young man in our county didn’t show up for work for a few days. Finally, his employer called his family. His family called the police.

And his body was found by the side of the rural road where he was apparently struck and left behind.

As a father this tears at my heart. I consider how many times my wife and I have gone a few days without hearing from our adult children. Sometimes we make nothing of it. (To be anxious every single time would be to court neurosis far worse than I already have.)

I can’t imagine the pain. The pain of the officer finding him. The pain of calling his parents. The pain of their realization that he was gone.

And the pain, perhaps worst of all, of knowing that he was left after he was hit.

I will offer the possibility that someone hit him and didn’t realize it; although that seems unlikely unless they were impaired by fatigue, alcohol or drugs.

But if he was hit, if the driver knew it, and then he was left behind? Then there is no excuse. And I must wonder, how can they live with the guilt?

I remember dreaming that I had robbed a bank. Once I did so in the dream, I was desperate to confess and return the money. In my dream it gnawed at me.

You may say that I suffer from a heightened sense of guilt. And indeed, guilt was not an uncommon tool/weapon in my upbringing.

But I would argue that perhaps we have, in some instances, too little guilt these days. Guilt, the fear of committing a moral wrong, or the sense that we have done a grave wrong and need to set it right, is a powerful concoction that keeps society healthy when taken in proper doses. (I don’t mean the oppressive, miserable type, mind you; although I have endured some of that too.)

It is beyond me that someone might be out there, going through daily life all the while knowing that they had killed someone (by now they should know), or even knowing that night that they had gravely injured someone and left them to suffer.

I think about this when I read of murders that are unsolved. I believe there are sociopaths who do not feel guilt. They are particularly frightening. But not all who kill are sociopaths. And the fact that they would carry the knowledge of their deed for life makes me shudder. The “mark of Cain” must surely burn.

Not far from where we live, some years ago, there was a murder in a small bank branch. I think four customers and staff were killed, in the daytime. It has never been solved. Somewhere out there is the killer. Of course, that person may have died, or been killed by now (I’m sure it’s an occupational hazard for that degree of criminal). But if not, then that act must haunt them day and night. I certainly hope it does.

Guilt has a place. It gets a bad name, as if we really need to be freed from it as a society. Of course, no serious person thinks that in a general way. They just want to be free of the guilt attached to the things they want to do.

But as we divide and argue, as we attack and demonize, as we wish ill on others and commit ill acts with increasing nonchalance, it would be nice if perhaps guilt would make a stunning resurgence and help keep us on track.

And remind us that the price for ill deeds goes far beyond fines, litigation or even incarceration.

The price is our very souls; and guilt may be the only thing that brings them back to justice and (hopefully) repentance.

Photo by Rimon Mori on Unsplash