August 3, 2008

From: Gary West
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 7:37 PM
Subject: Beginning of the ending

I am without the words to express my view, my emotions, my present
world.

Perhaps that is my lot. To be locked inside a maze unable to even
describe it.

I wonder what God is thinking, I wonder what I am to glean from
this...other than true misery.

The cut is not healing, it seems gangrenous. I pretend that it doesn't
exist.

Then an image of a boy, a couple, a child, a young man, a set of
shoulders, a pair or work boots, a labeled hard hat, a fishing lure or
old cap. They bump into the wound and the pain is all controlling and
migrates over and into my whole being.

So I am permanently flawed with the inverse of my great love. The
missing parts of my life are larger than I can explain. Larger than I
can ever replace.

The memories once so cherished, so taken for granted are the foundation
for the attacks on my heart. I hate that I cannot stop them. At the same
moment I could not live without them.

So there I am.

Stuck between a lagoon of misery filled with memories, and the cliffs of
questions, ringed with boulders of doubt.

I have tried to get out and for a while it seems that I actually
disengage from my reality and function in a non-real, shallow thought
field.

Where I just act like the whole event is some tragic novel that I am
reading. I just quit reading it for a while. Just pretend to be normal.

Just disconnect from the characters in the book. Just let it lay and act
normal. Don't read it, don't touch it, don't disturb it, just ignore it.

I just act normal hoping normal will come back.

I pretend to push, I pretend to care.

I run at the pile, I try and make it move out of the way.

And then I slow enough to be bumped by a memory. A memory that is
spurred by reality around me.

I miss my life. It is gone and I can't seem to find a handle on what is
left for me.

I wonder if the commentary will be "He was never the same, man did he
sink fast".

"He could never recover, he lost it..."

That is not what the boys would have liked. They would have thought me
tougher.

But I know now that my weakness is exposed. My soft sides are zeroed in
on. The spot that is sensitive to the touch is now gored out.

I stand in a state of hemorrhage.

I am not tough, I am found out. I am weak.

Weakness in the flesh, but calloused in the Spirit. I have had to call
on the Spirit man to work in this time. He has made blisters in an
effort keep me in Gods grip.

He is needed, he must muscle up. He must be stronger still, for the
battle is yet to come.

The battle for the beginning of the end.

I have a destiny, just as the boys did. I must win this battle inside to
meet up with them and see the end of time, and the beginning of eternity.

G