The Past

To understand what is written, you must understand the author....or something to that effect. I remember that being the reasoning behind all of the college literature classes I loved so much. So, now there's me, the author of this blog. When I was young and still idyllic I wanted to be a journalist an author, anything to write. I loved being on my high school paper. I loved literature classes. I even loved writing papers. Then, the summer before my junior year, nine days before my sixteenth birthday, my mother died suddenly. I stopped having dreams for the future that day, and just began moving through it day by day. She wasn't sick, she wasn't in an accident, she just died, she stopped living. With no warning, my mama was gone. She died on a Saturday, while helping my sister move into her first apartment. I was at my best friend's house recovering from a night of drinking and partying despite having a virus of some sort. My best friend had left early that morning to go to work. Another friend and I were lying around her house nursing our hangovers watching Duran Duran on MTV. The phone kept ringing, but we didn't think of answering it. My friend's father ran his business out of his home and the answering machine always picked up the calls in his home office. The ringing was annoying due to the size of my headache, but did not register as out of the ordinary. At some point early in the afternoon, we watched in confusion as my best friend drove straight through her yard to the front door. She ran into the house and said that I had to get dressed and come with her. There was an emergency. I refused to move until she told me what that emergency was. I will never forget her next words "Your dad called me at work, he was crying, somebody died, I don't know if he said you mom or your grandmom, he was crying, I couldn't understand him. It must be your grandmom, right?" My grandmother lived with us. I thought surely it's my grandmom. But in my soul I knew, my dad wouldn't have called her at work if it was my grandmother. Someone would have just come to her house to get me, my mom would have made sure of that. She said we were supposed to go to the hospital ER. When we arrived, we were ushered into the "family room". The door opened, I scanned the room, all of my grandparents, my dad, my sisters, all of my family was there, except my mama. Then I fainted. When I woke up, she was still gone. I was sick, I was hungover, and mama was dead. I was fifteen. I ran into the ER waiting room. An associate pastor from our church was there, he said these words to me "Just remember, The Lord never gives you more than you can handle." I cursed at him and shoved him away. I found out later that he asked the youth to pray for me the next week at summer camp because I had let the devil into my life. Seriously, he expected me to hear anything beyond the roaring in my ears. I was angry, I wanted to lash out at God. In my fifteen year-old mind, He had taken my mother. I did not need a pep talk from the youth pastor who had once upon a time dated my older sister. This was the first time I remember hearing that God would not put more on us than we can bear. It would not be the last, not by a long shot. It was a litany sung by many in the following days. Little did I know then that I would not seek the truth in the Bible for twenty more years.