Never too late
It’s never too late,” my dad liked reminding me. But he intended it not as a stretch of hope for such last-minute redemption as he himself would seek, but as the exact opposite: He had meant it for those who have walked the straight and narrow too long they are bound to slip, bound to take that single misstep, to make that one mistake that wipes out a lifetime’s investment in virtue. And woe unto them, indeed, if it came with no time or energy or wit left to maneuver for a recovery.