PRAY ~ LOVE ~ WRITE II

The most profound life altering gift that was given to me upon my brothers death was a love so strong.  I couldn't understand how one simple act of defiance that brought such pain and hatred could transform into love.  After about a week of being immobilized by trauma and pain, I finally started to leave the house.  I would find menial errands that would justified leaving the house.  Leaving the house meant I would have to interact with others and I was still not sure that I was ready.  I was constantly on the verge of tears.  I feared not having enough control to hold back my very raw and hovering at the surface emotions.  I didn't want to let just anyone share in those emotions.  I wanted to reserve them for whom I specifically chose.  But at the same time I wanted to scream out to the entire world; anyone that would listen.  I wanted everyone to know how I felt.  I wanted to share how much pain I was in.

As I started to allow myself the freedom to be who I was, be it in control or not, I would venture out.  As I started to venture out and physically had to face people and speak to people, I realized that I was supernaturally given this unexplainable gift of unconditional love.  I started to smile at everyone I came in contact with.  I felt an overwhelming sense of love and compassion for the human race that I had not experience before.  Most of my life was riddled with cynicism and criticism.  Those characteristic embodied my daily existence.  I never saw the wrong in my behavior until after my brothers death.  I would sit on park benches and make fun of people.  I would quickly judge and criticize others.  As I started to realize that I had taken on a different out look to life, it was apparent that I had become more like my brother.  I started to recall the true nature of my brother.  Attributes that were not important to me growing up but were life changing for me now.  My brother was a sensitive, compassionate, empathic and loving soul to all who crossed his path.

I felt a sense of freedom in this new found way of life.  My spirit started to lift high into the clouds.  I started to long for my, still small, trips out of the house.  I longed for the opportunity to share a smile or a gentle touch with perfect strangers. It was the most extraordinary natural high that I have ever experienced at that time.  Life was changing.  It was a grand wonderment as to what the future might hold.  As I started to share my smiles and my heart with others, an amazing joy would come back to me in three fold.  It was apparent to me that this was a more advantageous way of life.  I am amazed that I never developed dimples from all the years of sharing my smile.  It's my secret weapon of love that I share with the world.  The gifts that I get in return for my smiles and love outweighed what I feel I give.

Looking back in hind sight, I was left with the better parts of my brothers soul.  I felt honored but also responsible to uphold these gifts of character.  I was ready for the challenge because I had to for my brother.  It took over 15 years or more to truly heal from the loss of my brother.  There are still deep moments of pain that surface.  From 1984 to 1988, I became defiant in my own right.  I had jobs but went from one to another if I wasn't satisfied.  I get bored easy if the job is not stimulating.  But I was still on my own and had to pay my overhead bills so I always held a job.  Some short and some shorter.  I liked working for employment agencies because I would be given a job assignment with different companies and different lengths of time so that kept the work force interesting for me.  Every job employer I worked for wanted to hiring me permanently but I had the freedom of refusing in order to keep my working environment interesting.

Over the course of the four years after the loss of my brother, I gravitated to a world of partying and fun. I was not in the mind set of settling down.  I wanted to party away the constant remembrance of my brother.  It was challenging but I seemed to manage all kind of detrimental behaviors.  I put as many substances in my body that I could.  Drugs and alcohol where my devices to self medicate.  I remained alone for many years as I liked being single and free.

Circumstances in my life forced me to lose everything I owned.  I decided after losing my final possession, my condo, that it was time for a radical change.  My friend Karen and I hopped in my car one day and drove to the Bay Area.  Some childhood friends of mine offered up a place to crash.  It was a time of getting reacquainted with old friends and making new ones.  I found a good steady job and fell in love with a boy for the first time in my young adult life.  I was 22 years old and working at a realty company.  After working there for a few months, one day this handsome young man walked through the door.  I thought I was gonna hyperventilate.  The attraction was so strong.  This is an emotion that I had not felt before since my high school sweetheart. Upon his first visit, he was introduced as the bosses/owners son.  My heart immediately sunk because I knew that any involvement with this young man could jeopardize my job.  I was a blushing school girl every time this young man would come in the office.  But I laid low.  To my surprise, this young man asked me out one day.  I was young and in amoured with him and I said yes.  Well needless to say but I will anyway...our whirlwind romance cost me my job and almost my life.  We started using drugs together and my tapestry started to unravel.

In my mind, this was a perfect relationship that was heading to matrimony.  But as time went on and drugs were more prevailing, my life started to take a desperate turn.  I couldn't hold down a job.  I lost my apartment.  Every responsible fiber in my body became frayed.  I was shorting out emotionally and physically.  I actually went to the hospital one night thinking I had glass in my face and the orderlies wanted to commit me to the psych ward for a few days because of my condition but some how my boyfriend was able to help me escape this room where I was detained.  The moment of escape was exciting but an eye opener of my serious condition.

As time progressed, I got deeper into drugs and suffered from its consequences.  I would be up for days at a time.  I suffered with sever sleep deprivation. Hallucinations.  Lack of nutrition and body starvation.  I had finally come to the end of my rope one day in my friends apartment.  It was mid day and I was hearing voices and seeing images out the living room window.  I asked my boyfriend to please stay with me and he just couldn't.  I couldn't be left alone.  I was brought to the edge of fearing for my life.  I have never experience this urgency before while using drugs but this time was different.  After he left the apartment that day, I was standing in the living room alone.  I finally broke down emotionally.  I yelled out in the loudest voice possible, "If there is a God, I need You right now!  I need You to help me, please".  I dropped to my knees and instantaneously I felt a warmth come over me.  Almost as if someone had wrapped me in a blanket.  This presence rocked my frail body on the floor weeping as I cried out to this God.  The presence in the room was strong. I left like arms were embracing me and rocking me in this warm blanket.  After approximately 15 minutes of crying and rocking and feeling the warmth of this presence surrounding and engulfing my entire body I heard a very audible voice speak to me.  It was not the same voices that I was hallucinating about minutes earlier.  This was a gentle, soothing voice.  I immediately stopped crying so that I could catch every word that was being said.  The voice told me to call my dad.  After I stayed calm for a few minutes, I did not hesitate to find a phone and I immediately called my dad.  What transpired from that phone call was miracle after miracle.