What I Didn’t Understand

Sometimes prayers are answered, but you just don’t understand it at the time.

Praying silently for hours at my mother’s bedside begging God to give her back to me because she was the last person I had left in the world who loved me.  What good is this life without love?

Leaving my mother’s side for a moment, my mind was overcome with pain, hurt, and loss.  Yet, in a moment a name was whispered in my ear.  He had not been a part of my life for years, I brushed that moment aside as soon as it happened because when it came to him I left so much room for doubt.

When we were together it was different – I was different.  Just being near him I was different.  He made me feel alive in ways I can’t explain.  He had a way of turning me on – not just sexually, but parts of me I didn’t believe I had.

However, I was so hurt by him.  I believed he felt the same for me, yet he never spoke of feelings to me.  I believed he was either ashamed or embarrassed to have feelings for such a large woman.  I cannot begin to explain the pain it caused for him not to speak to me, or share his emotions with me.

Years later after our worlds went in separate directions, I tried as best I could to reach out to him.  He closed the door so severely it made it impossible to approach him again.

Perhaps, though what I didn’t understand in the moment when his name was whispered in my ear was that my mother was not the last person in the world I had left who loved me.  Perhaps, he did love me, or perhaps there was a man out there who could and would love me and that was my destiny and my future.  I did not need to spend years of my life caring for her just to have some form of love.

The problems with my father at home were and are so difficult to explain it was hard to believe in any other future other than protecting my mother.

Perhaps, what God was telling me and letting me know – in an answer to my prayer – is he is out there.

Returning home from the hospital my mind was a mess thinking about him while trying to put my life together.  What do I do next?  Thinking of him at the same time, trying to understand why it was his name that came to me.

He has been the strongest connection I’ve ever made.  He was not my first love, or even my friend really, we were just a boy and a girl who went to college together.

We were in a play together.  I was Big Momma and he was Gooper in a Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  The director stopped and changed direction.  The direction was for me and him to turn at the same time from opposing sides of the stage.  The director said it looked liked incest.  Because I couldn’t help myself when it came to him, I was excited and happy every moment I got to see and be a part of his life.  I remember the turn.  My heart leapt at the sight of him.  It was something I couldn’t control.  It was just pure happiness.

Our last conversation I will not forget.  He and I sitting on the lawn just talking.  He was going one direction in life and I in another.  I knew that would be that.  We said our good-byes.  I walked away.  But, I looked back, I had to look back as we walked away from each other.

I was a mess for months and months afterwards.  It was as if I was in this world, but not apart of this world as my tethering point – which was him – was gone.

Yet, at this moment he has been presented to me as my greatest enemy, killer of all my hopes and dreams, the one person who has brought me to the point of suicide every day for years.

Perhaps he is my enemy with only one wish to destroy and torture me.

I don’t know.  We haven’t spoken to each other for years.  He chooses to not be a part of my life.

But, an answer to my prayer was he is out there.  I just didn’t understand at the time.