As God Willed It

I am visiting my sister and her husband. Walking into the front room from outside I notice my brother-in-law deep in troubled thought and I see he is fighting turmoil inside of him and I gently say, “Ed, are you alright, what’s wrong?” And without looking at me as his eyelids lowered he starts talking as if I am not there, and through me his words are of intent and are contrary to his easy and gentle nature of his soul. I listen to his words and a chord of disbelief and horror and a severe warning as the bells go off inside of me the danger breaking inside as he talks without emotion of sound. I continue to stand there as he emits words as they formulate phrases of crude joking against opposite races. I hide my horror well and understand without thinking he needs to say these things to me and at me. I gently and quietly laugh here and there as his unaccustomed vulgarity emits from his breath. A gentle bantering starts between us as usual whenever we talk about things and I glance over at my sister here and there and I see her face of concern as she sits there quietly hearing what her husband is saying and as I keep my side of our conversation easy and light. A cop’s wife knows the breaking point of her husband, and me, just knew out of instinct to keep quiet and maintain my levity and see and feel his real pain of sorrows. I am in my late teens and the crossroads of life and death have no meaning for me and when he is done telling these jokes and statements that are so against his nature I quietly walk up to my sister who by now has her head bowed in prayer and ask her if Ed means any of this and she compassionately looks over at her husband and oh so very whispers to me, “No, he doesn’t.”

I am still at a young age and when Ed gets up from the couch I notice in his hand a firearm that I had never seen before. He goes into the bedroom and I hear him go into their bedroom closet and close the closet door and then I hear him put something in a dresser drawer that sounded of metal pieces hitting a wood bottom. As the shower starts I am deep in thought and go up to my sister again ask her if Ed had meant all those terrible things he had said and she again gently and quietly says something different, “Yes he did.” And then she became emotional and in her thoughts and became uneasy and stated, “I don’t know, go ask him.” But I chose not to as I noted the troubled sound in her pleading not to pursue this.

As I reflect now I see the groaning upon his heart and I hear his words again. These awful words against the opposite words that is contrary to the painful expression on his face and the almost tears fighting to slip downward which are kept within an expert shoring of a crushed soul.

The ease of a knowing and a not knowing. The pain of expressions within the eyes. The luster of tears upon the heart of a man enduring the suffering of a marriage going bad and unable to control a world inside and outside a realm of a silent mental pain breaching a physical pain of suffering from the heart.

How yearning to be free of words and the actions that control a man who would sacrifice his own life instantly without thinking of himself or the consequences of leaving his family behind.

Knowing the boundaries, the borders of his own immortal soul, how God gently and easily lifts the veil of cursing and blaspheming contrary to the suffering of a cursed and crushed heart of hearts.

Live on oh my soul, hurt not of Thy Confession to Thy God for He understands your pain and your suffering of your profession of your guardianship of your being of an angel of light during the day and of darkness for the night. Live On.

Oh, live on within God’s meaning to stand and protect and to serve without ceasing no matter how humiliating the intent, for humbly Our God Reigns and He alone is in control.