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TITLE: My Journey To Life - Revised By James McClellan 03/07/06 |
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CRASH, was the only sound I heard as the bullet shattered the living room window before entering my mother’s breast. My heart tried to convince my mind to believe that the sound had come from the television set, but it would not be swayed. I ran to my mom and she cupped my face, attempting to tell me she loved me as she struggled for breath. A single trickle of blood emitted from her lips as her light left her. As it left me helpless on the couch, covered in my mother’s life, and clutching her body tightly as I screamed. I was eight.
I screamed at God, “I hope you die!” and slammed my fist against my thigh, as I woke violently. Just as I had nearly every night for the ten years after entering the ranks of the lost boys, who never found Neverland. God is nothing more than a mean kid who tears the wings off of flies, or feeds alka seltzer to toads only to watch them explode. He shoved the alka seltzer in my mouth with a gun, and laughingly watched my life explode and implode with the bitter fury that was born that day. She didn’t even see me graduate!
Six years later I walked another stage and, according to our society entered into manhood. As I crossed the platform to shake hands with our president and receive my piece of paper, you know the one awarding me the right to be a productive member of society, my heart shuttered. I locked eyes with my love, whose excitement shown from every inch of her radiant face, adding to my torment. My mother’s ambition in life was to make sure I finished college and to make a better choice in wife than she did in my father. The first accomplished caused my heart to ache.
My heart ached when I entered a church for the first time since my mother died. I found myself all alone, my stomach in knots, feeling like that dream where you’ve gone to school only to realize you have arrived wearing nothing but your converse. She entered the room bathed in golden light looking the part of an angel, and my heart leaped into my chest forgetting all else. The congregation stood and the cannon played as my bride placed one foot in front of the other and walked toward me smiling. In our brief three years she had softened my heart and introduced me to her faith. You see, she placed her faith in God, and in her my faith was placed.
Two years later, I abruptly entered the ER and nearly knocked over a guy with a thick bandage round his waist on my way to the nurses’ station. I explained the situation and, almost calmly asked them what room my wife was in, they laughed. They laughed because apparently doctors don’t deliver babies in the ER or it could have been because I left the barber shop mid cut, so I probably looked like a chia pet. The doctor spotted me, as a father to be. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side where I pleaded with him to let me see my wife. As gently as he could he explained the baby is breeched, and there have been complications. Like a punch drunk boxer I hit my knees, and prayed to God for the first time in years. “Please, God help my wife. Please save my family!"
My son was eleven, and he saw her first, as he darted out onto our road and shoved the toddler as hard as his muscles would allow. He saw her first and before myself, or the driver of the U-haul could react he did the only thing he knew how. He put her life before himself and acted with a love that until then, I had only seen from my wife. My son died to save the life of one who would never know. Somewhere in the slow motion of this beautifully tragic scene, I have a vague recollection of seeing his Christ, and I finally understood. I prayed.
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