Broken

I sat there twirling the perfect sunflower found on my seat. I swallowed hard against a hot, thick ball forming in my throat. I willed the tears not to burst through the dams of my eyelids. I wasn't sure I really wanted to be there, but I knew I really didn't want to talk, frustrated with circumstances, confused by previous words, blinded by prior mistakes,

He broke my shell of silence

"Can I hold you?"

He didn't just hold my body to his own, he reached out over the parking brake and held my shivering heart.

Billy Jim and the Absence of Hermeneutics of Given Names

My senior year of high school I was walking down the halls of the rival across town and came across a poster with a little quote on it. I laughed, pointed it out to a friend, they laughed, and we continued on.

Somehow that quote has always stuck with me. Maybe because of its strange failure to say what it tries to say, or maybe because I couldn't help but recognize the power in the haphazard words.

The quote?

Act as if what you do makes a difference.
~William James

Now, don't you see what I'm saying? It carries a connotation that what you do WON”T matter. Ever.

For quite some time I'd felt that way – that nothing matters in the end. That everything will work out the way it's supposed to, regardless of your role in it all.

This week, a good friend posted almost the same quote. Almost. She included a two-word tag line that I'd never seen before. Her inclusion? “It Does.”

Now it says, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

I'm not saying that anything I do has made a difference in other people's lives, maybe it has but sometimes I just don't want to know. But I know that whenever I try to make a difference in someone's life, the difference has been made in mine.

Earlier this week i was reminded of this by an unwitting friend. He'd alluded to a painful Monday, I offered some solace. Instead of turning his day around, he turned my entire week. All we did was share a cup of hot cocoa and some words of empathy and encouragement. But afterward I was reminded that there is hope in my life as I expressed hope in his. That things aren't as bad as they seem now. That I don't have to be caught up in myself.

This wasn't the first time either. I went to Romania to hold babies that needed love. I wanted to make their lives better if only in a small way. While doing so I held a one year old girl whose functionality was as advanced as a newborn's. She couldn't even control her eyes. As i sang to her, trying to soothe her fussing, she'd only respond to the primary songs of my own childhood. I sang one line: I am a child of God, his promises are sure. Celestial glory shall be mine, if I can but endure. As the phrase ended, her eyes flipped up, gazing into mine. Peacefulness spread through my chest and tears sprang to my own eyes. She knew.

Because of this one little girl and my two weeks of holding her close, I've taken classes I'd never have thought about before, I've chosen a major I'd never considered, and I have direction in my life.
I'd not have all of this if it weren't for my trying to make someone's life better. Someone's life was bettered. Mine.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Despondent

I watched your eyes fill with tears and you cave in on yourself, leaning forward, hunching yourself to your knees in a paroxysm of grief. I didn't know why, but I could see your pain streaming down your face, wracking your shoulders.

You lifted your face, your eyes reaching for mine, searching for relief. You asked me silently for something I couldn't give you. I couldn't stop the pain.

But I could offer some comfort against it.

I opened my arms and you leaned into me, your wet cheek on my chest, your hot forehead against my neck. My hand stroked your face as the other tried in vain to hold your heaving shoulders together. Your arms dangled loosely, forgotten. I didn't mind, I didn't need your comfort. You kept it for yourself. Take mine, you need it. I'm willing to give it all.

Please, take all you need.

I don't know how long you remained in my arms. Eventually the sobs slowed, then stopped. Your ragged breathing evened and quieted, but still we sat. I lost the time, and forever touched a moment around us.

Your sticky tears dried against my skin, stiff and salty. Your eyes closed, soothed by my quiet humming and gentle rocking. You fell asleep in my arms as if you were my baby, even though you are older than I.

I disregarded your dead weight and the tingle in my curled legs. Your breaths were slow, rhythmic, warm. You were blissfully unaware. I couldn't bring myself to wake you.

I left your head resting on a throw pillow, your body warmed by a blanket, your mind eased by your dreamless sleep, your heart heavy, your cheek momentarily warmed by a single quiet kiss.

Thanks to Give Late

Thanksgiving on Black Friday

Thanksgiving this year wasn't used for thanksgiving. It took me until the day after to see just what I am most grateful for.

The day after is Black Friday, the day when crazy people camp out in front of stores just to get that one item for a ridiculously good price. Stampedes, claws, thievery, all rampant.

I wasn't one of the many shoppers, I was one of the poor saps behind the counter dealing with these people all day.

I had gotten four hours of sleep the night before, I woke up at 5.30 AM to get to work by 7, and worked 8 and a half hours. All I did was stand, push numbers, and talk to irate people, sometimes unintentionally feeding their anger.

I got home, went straight to my shower and intended to go straight to bed.

All i wanted was someone to hold my exhausted body in their arms and to give me a foot massage before I even asked.

I do know someone that would do that for me. Unfortunately he couldn't, because I'll not see him again for 2 more years.

I realized while sitting in the shower what I'm really grateful for.

I'm grateful that I know what it's like to have someone that would.

Two years. Two years for what? For serving his Lord and Maker, his personal Savior. Two years in constant dedication to the Lord, my God, Jesus Christ.

I miss him terribly and could ask him to come back any time. I won't, because I know how important his mission is. Even if I did ask, he wouldn't come, because he knows how important it is too.

As grateful I am for Scott and our wonderful, wonderful relationship, that gratitude shrivels next to the gratitude I have to my Lord and Maker, my personal Savior, my Lord, my God, Jesus Christ.

I can't express that here. I never will be able to, even if that's all I were to talk about every minute of my life.

why now?

"Hello?"

"Nathan? It's Maya." My mind flew back to the last time I'd spoken to her. We were sitting in the subway, her eyes full of tears, her cracking voice unnaturally high, "I just can't see you anymore. Goodbye." She stumbled onto the train just as the doors were closing. It whisked her out of sight as my own sigh blurred over with tears.

I realized in that moment in the subway that that was the only time I'd seen her cry. And the voice on the phone sounded the same as her voice on the platform.

My reaction time was too slow. As usual.
"I'm so sorry. Forget I called. Forget everything."

"No. Wait. Come over, we'll talk."

"Right now?"

"Yes, please." The line went dead just as the doorbell rang. She'd hung up. I walked toward the door mentally grumbling that she didn't even have the decency to tell me when to expect her.

It wasn't the chinese takeout delivery boy I was expecting.

It was her.

Tall and lanky as ever, her clothes wet and clinging to her body - she'd gotten caught in the rain. Her hair was disheveled and hanging over half her face, only one eye visible.
That eye caught me in the act of pulling out my checkbook. It wasn't its running eyeliner or the bloodshot, tear-stained condition, it was haunted, terrified, begging.

She stood there awkwardly, balanced on the balls of her feet, poised to run if need be. Her clothes dripped, her hair dripped, her eyes dripped. And she was shaking -whether it was from the cold, the fright, or the stress I couldn't tell.

I opened the door wider, grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. I wrapped my arms around her, for once not asking her anything.
She still fit, even after all this time.

She shrunk into my chest, releasing sob after sob. She clutched at my shirt and I felt her ribs expanding and deflating wildly as her collarbone heaved against my sternum.

As I held her in the doorway question after question ran through my mind. Too soon to be asked, the questions lingered, burned into my mind. Mostly WHAT!? Why here? Why me? What happened? Who? I the warm tears and the cold rain from her body soak into mine.

Eventually I picked her up and carried her to the couch as she kept sobbing and I rocked her on my lap. Her sobs were growing fainter now, occasionally punctuated by a loud gasping breath. Her tears had stopped long ago, her tear ducts wrung dry.

I stroked her hair and whispered into her ear "It's going to be okay. You're safe. It's all right.

Her sobs were gone - only dry heaves of her chest and her hand still grasped my shirt - but it loosened its grip as the dry gasps subsided.
She was asleep. She'd cried herself to sleep on me.

I hadn't seen her for nearly four years. After three years of dating, six years of knowing her. She'd never done this. Never slept on me, never cried.

I carried the grown woman like a baby to my bed, draped a blanket around her, and lay down next to her, stroking her hair until I was sure she was really asleep.

I slept on the couch that night. With my cat, Fred.
In the morning I walked back into the bedroom. Fred was curled up next to her head, her left hand rested lightly on his body, her slender fingers stroking the boy. I could make out a low rumbling. He was purring.

She was curled in fetal position facing the wall. I slid onto the bed and wrapped my arm around her waist. She didn't react, she just kept stroking.
I pulled in closer, my nose in her hair, her back against my chest, I kissed the top of her head and just laid there.

"I heard you got married" I murmured, not asking questions, but not expecting her to reply either. She didn't.

"But I don't see a ring."
I pulled my arm away from her waist and moved it to her head, stroking her hair away from her face.

"I also hear you were pregnant." She stopped stroking the cat altogether. Her eye stared into the distance.

"So I'm rather wondering, since you've got a husband and a baby on the way, why you'd come here. It seems like this would be the last place you'd be."
Her eyes still stared.

"Exactly." she croaked, her voice raw from the sobbing.

"What happened, Maya?"
Her eye grew even more distant, staring through the wall to the other end of Manhattan. She resumed stroking Fred. She didn't answer. She didn't want to. Yet. She'd taught me how to take a hint. And I remembered.

I steered the topic away with "I didn't ever catch the guy's name, though."
She blinked. I felt her lashes brush against my cheek.

"Justin."
I knew a Justin... I knew she knew the same Justin I did... At one point we'd all been best friends. That Justin?
"Osborn?"
"mmm."

We lay in silence until Fred jumped off the bed and scratched at the bathroom door, looking for his kibble.

"You hungry? I'll make us breakfast." She'd taught me how.
I'd started getting off the bed when she finally spoke.

"I lost the baby." I froze, halfway off, halfway still cocooned.
She rolled toward me, facing me. Her hair had fallen back and I could see her whole face. Her beautiful, pale face, marred by an ugly purple bruise swollen around her other eye. Her eye was swollen half shut, with crusty tears dried to its lashes. She saw my shock frozen in my face - my eyes darted around hers, searching for a reason, understanding.
"and Justin hit me."
She turned back to her former position and pulled tighter.
I curled back around her, trying to infuse her broken body with hope, healing, help.

As if I was trying to protect her from what had already happened.