A Soft Place To Rest

I called her in absolute desperation.

I try to consider calling on God, but in the moment, when the pain is so cellular, I call her.

I am laying prone on the floor, cell phone pressed painfully tight and surprisingly hot to my ear, alternating sobbing huge hiccupy gasping sobs with monosyllabic grunty acknowledgements of her words so she knows I am listening, knows I am breathing, knows I am "here".

These are things she says to me, words that illuminate my dark bitter dumping ground of emotional agony:

~ your kids? They are good people!

~ you don't have money for that tuition for him? But you give So. Much. More. than any amount of money...

~ you have ethic and morals, you give 110%!

~ I know who you ARE. I was there! I saw you...

~ you are understanding, compassionate, you have so much self-worth!

~ I will always remind you, of what a good person you are, what a good mom you are, I KNOW you, you listen to ME!

A friend like her? A friend for close to 15 years? She is worth, as a famous 'book' is known for saying, far more than rubies or Gold... This friend has sat with me in sorrow and grief, held me like a child in her arms and let me scream out my unfathomable pain.  She has seen me broken and destroyed, and seen me rising from the ashes, and seen me somewhat nearly whole, complete, crossed to the other side.  So when she tells me that I am good, that I am strong, right, validated, believed, accepted, NORMAL,  I have to believe her.  

I slide into sleep this night with acid tears sliding from my eyes, trailing the contours of my face from my eye to my temples and leaving silvered trails of anguish reaching into my hairline.

As I weep, I hear her voice: I will remind you...  And I want to say this: oh Holy Spirit thank you for this friend of mine, thank you for your very presence in her voice tonight.  I am saved because of her.

There is a story here...

He keeps trying to write in the sand but the waves slide relentlessly over his work and erase his efforts.   Randomly he gets one word done and snaps a picture.   I watch him in sidelong glances from where I am sitting in the sand several feet above the tentacles of the highest wave.

In between glances, I gaze out into the wide, wild, endless Hawaiian ocean spreading before me and I try to breathe away the last 7 years of stress.

I see him again, this time trying to pose and take a selfie in front of his word but the waves comes and wash it away and also gets his butt wet.   He writes "Marry Me" in the sand, over and over and over again but the tide keeps washing it away, and finally when he gets it done and poses, the water just comes right up and drenches him.   I wonder if this is an omen?

I choose this moment to leap up and run a few feet closer to the tide line.   I scrawl my own word with a fierce defiant pressure, using my index finger and hurrying before the next wave comes.   I write, "REGRET".

I am left waiting, wave after wave, for the ocean to come and claim my regret, to take it away from me, to erase it.   I wait far longer than I thought I would, much longer than Mr. Marry Me, but when a wave finally does break high enough and come rushing toward my word, it only erases a portion of it.

There is a story here I'm sure...