“Choices are the 
hinges of destiny.” 
Edwin Markham

In the early spring of 1979, my final quarter of classes at Santa Clara University, I wrote a letter to Mr. Lou Adderley, the principal at Saint Augustine’s College here in Nassau, letting him know that I would be graduating in June and would like to return to teach at SAC in the fall. He responded immediately, offering me a job for the 1979-80 academic year. It was like a dream come true. From the time I left Nassau in August 1975, I had a strong desire to return to The Bahamas to teach and live. 

In the next couple of months, things started falling into place in San José which led me to believe that, perhaps, returning to Nassau was not what God had planned for me after all. I was offered the opportunity to move into a cozy, 2-bedroom home in Santa Clara for a mere $200 per month. Then I received an unsolicited phone call from the principal at Saint Christopher School in San José offering me a teaching position. I owned a reliable 1972 Volkswagen bug which met my transportation needs. I started reflecting on what life would be like living on an island almost 3,000 miles from my family and friends, a place where I would have to find an apartment to live and a vehicle to get me to school and back each day. Despite my strong desire to return to Saint Augustine’s College, the practicality of doing so made it seem like an unwise decision. I wrote to Mr. Adderley, shared my concerns and feelings, and regretfully informed him that I would not be returning to SAC. It was one of the most difficult decisions in my life.

I’ve spent the last two weeks here in Nassau. On more than one occasion, I reflected on the question “What if…?” How might my life be different today if I had moved here in 1979 to begin a prolonged teaching career here on the island? What if I joined my colleagues at SAC in a lifelong teaching career in Nassau?

Of course, I’ll never know. That’s not the path I chose to follow. If I had returned to teach at Saint Augustine’s College, would I have made a lifelong commitment to living here? Would I have made the effort to earn a Master’s degree? With whom would I have spent my free time? Would I ever have met someone, married, and had children here on the island? I reflect on these questions every now and then, but even more so this week.

Being back in Nassau these past two weeks has given me the opportunity to look around and imagine what it might have been like if I had not made the decision to stay in my comfort zone in San José. My familiarity with the island has allowed me to feel very much at home here. I know my way around. Even after fifty years, I remember street names, how to get from one place to another, and how to navigate the roads driving on the left-hand side of the street. Saint Augustine’s College continues to thrive, and running into former students around the island has been an amazing experience. 

We all make decisions in our lives. Each one of us reaches that fork in the road of which Robert Frost speaks in his proverbial poem The Road Not Taken, and like Frost, many of us regret that we could not travel both.