A Broken Heart and A Desperado

A single tear falls down a friend's cheek. That tear is followed by two more. Those are followed by an additional five. Finally, the floodgates open to an uncontrollable salty watery cascade of deeply wounded emotions. At another time and in a different place, another friend’s brow is furrowed, and her eyes are washed in a wet shade of somber that quickly turns into dark confusion and sadness. She drops her chin into her chest and plants her elbows on the table in front of her as she throws her forehead into the palms of her hands. Either, both really, of these people need just the right word that might be capable of mollifying their grief. That’s story number one. 

Story number two is about a place way out in a sparse suburban part of the country, and the single person living there. About this lonely location, the thought of this singular person is that this place is fine with him because, in this vast, gray, and cold land, there are plenty of fence posts that need tending to. It’s his kind of place because here, there are no other people to encumber him - save the cold and hardhearted queen of diamonds who sometimes comes by to visit and beat him down. Of course, something obvious never occurs to him - slowly, breath by breath, step by step, he’s growing old here. Sometimes, as he approaches the gate that often needs mending, he has vague reflections of being on its other side where warm and thoughtful gifts, full of light, color, and beauty had been put on some past, well-placed lovely table he sat at with wonderful people who laughed joyously with him. Somewhere, in a dreary, gray, very tiny corner of his mind, a thought quickly popped up, “Could one of those people laughing and being happy with him have possibly been the Queen of Hearts?” As fast as a quantum particle, this thought quickly popped out of existence. Immediately then, he shifted his thoughts to think about how, half a mile down the fence lined with barbed wire, stands another post that needs tending to. “My feet are cold and sore, but it's better to tend to that useless task than reflect on meaningless beauty and happiness”, he thought. Oh, there has been an occasion or two when he wondered why his world is always cold, always gray, and why white snow never chose to add a cleaner contrast to this life and this place in which he lived. But as always, he made himself busy, he took another breath, another step, and walked alone to the next place the fence needed his calloused hands to fix it up. In this story, we need to know and understand that, located above his every step, a rainbow was always present, but his persistent choice was to always keep his head down and focus solely on his fences. 

What’s story number three? Well, when someone’s hurting, like in the first story, what's the right word for someone who isn't asking, but needs to hear the right word? Now, in this third story, how can that needed word possibly come from the man in story number two? Could he possibly know to say, “I understand “and “I’m sorry”? I mean, if we were not to judge him harshly, if we were to truly and honestly examine his life, we’d find it had always been filled with words of resentment, anger, and disrespect. Furthermore, we’d find him completely cast into this life from birth which poorly influenced his life. Growing up and even in his later life, against his better judgment, his temperament, nurtured by dark and even grievous unhappiness, well, his temperament often responded just as he had learned from such an early age. So, where does he find those words that are the ones that will be right for the one who’s presently in need of them? Again, if we examined his life, we’d find him as a child, being surrounded by ignorant parents and other adults, some of whom were themselves not well informed. We would also learn this of him, somehow being a precocious child, something seemed out of place with this life he was thrust into. Still, no matter his precociousness, he was too young to have the slightest understanding of what that “something” might have been. As a result, often were the times when he’d sit in his bedroom, all alone. In his bedroom, alone in his ignored and not missed childhood, numerous were the times, in the space that was within his mind, he’d create a world full of light, color, and beauty where adults loved and cared for him.  But without realizing nor having a way to understand this, he could only paint in his very young mind’s eye, pictures that soothed only him. This wasn’t out of any amount of selfishness on his part, no! He only wanted and desired to persevere in a place where love was neither spoken to him nor shown to him. In our true and honest examination of this man as a child, we’d find this was the only way he believed he could stay sane and continue to live while pretending to smile in a very cold and gray world. Now, this truth becomes openly obvious to us as it finally dawns as to why we found the desperado living alone and being lonely in story number two. 

So, I’ll repeat the outstanding question, what’s story number three? And how can the hurting person in the first story receive a very needed kind word from our desperado in story number two? Well, this story isn’t easy to write, is it? The story needs a resolution, and we know what the resolution has to be. The desperado needs to quit mending the fence, walk past the fence’s gate, and show another person the tenderness, compassion, kindness, and yes love he’d also so beautifully given himself within his mind’s eye. Also, similarly, the person in need of the right word needs a heart open enough to receive the kindness and compassion they presently believe has escaped and left them abandoned and empty. This third story is difficult and complex. Life, both the life lived in the real world and the life lived out in letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages; is neither simple nor simply lived. Perhaps, I’m taking the easy way out, but perhaps each of us needs to write our own third story and make this story work for us both as individuals and individuals that live relationally.