Love Of God Endures Many Things

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN MY LIFE IS me BECAUSE I can’t depend on nobody else but me.  And that, to me, is the most important thing in life; to be able to depend on someone.  A person’s dependability is his most valuable asset.  Such a person won’t hurt you needlessly.  Won’t devalue you.  Won’t abandon you.  Won’t betray you.  Such a person will fight for your happiness.  For your dreams.  For your very existence.  I’m thinking, and you may agree, perhaps I should have said God, even if only as a matter of course.  But, He knows that would be a lie and He knows He lies at the core of my being the most important person in my life. 

My leaning toward not depending on anyone outside myself came early in life.  Straight from the hand of God.  He revealed His own lack of dependability by bringing the stunting reality of loss of life, death, to my life at the tender age of four (or three).  Much too early.  And I was aware they were permanent losses.  I knew what was happening.  Somehow.

Mama up and died when I was three or four.  I knew something was wrong when daddy went with the big vehicle that came to take her away.  I tried to go.  Stood out in the brisk night air requesting to accompany her but was denied the privilege.  Then came the funeral.  Mama in that long box.  Her legs seeming to have been cut off.  Though I know better today, of course.  I also knew she wasn’t going to get out of that box and come home with us ever again.  How did I know?  I don’t know.  Not before that day nor after was the finality of death or the concept itself ever discussed or explained to me.  I just knew mama wasn't coming back, ever.

Then daddy gave up and ran right after mama when I was not quite ten.  He often cried for her in a drunken stupor.  I cried too, but alone, to myself.  Only once my younger brother came upon me in my grief and mocked me.  For I wanted to join mama too.

We lived in a shotgun house, typical in New Orleans.  The first room was the living room.  Next room was my brothers’ room.  Next was my room.  Then...daddy’s.  Beginning that faithless morning, neither that room nor the ones beyond mattered any longer.  My brother came to me, I was still in bed, and informed me that daddy hadn't gotten up for work.  I said, “Why didn’t you wake him up, stupid?”  So I went.  Touching daddy then was like touching ice.  I love ice.  I eat it constantly.  I’m warned it will damage my teeth.  But I don’t care.

Looking at my daddy, it came back to me.  The previous night’s events.  Daddy’s doing what daddy does.  The three of us (me and my two brothers) watching TV.  Watching what does not matter nor can I remember.  Then daddy comes to say good night, he’s going to bed.  “Remember I love y'all,” he says.  My brothers’ eyes stay focused on the TV, mine, however, follows my daddy.  Why did he say that like that?  He’s never said it like that.

On my way to bed, I notice daddy’s left leg extended off his bed.  He’s on his back, feet closest to me.  It should be bent, hanging down the side, shouldn't it, I think?  But I go on to bed.  Devastatingly, that’s how he was in the morning when I went to do what my brother failed to do, wake him up.  But there was no waking him up.  Ever again.  Oddly enough, there never had been reason to attempt to wake him before that morning cause 'til that morning daddy always woke on time, on his own.  So, it should have registared to me from the very start something was wrong.  But no, I, arrogant, selfish call my brother stupid and proceed to discover what he already knew but was obviously, painfully unable to utter from his lips, "Daddy is dead."

Why was I given the understanding of the finality of death at the early age of four, maybe three?  Why given the responsibility and task of diagnosing and pronouncing it the fate of my daddy at the still tender age of ten?  Why has a love for this God who began attacking me at His earliest convenience been instilled in me?  Why does this love endure, despite His failure to be someone I can depend on?  For love?  Comfort?  Assurance?  Happiness?  Hope?  The much needed desire and will to live?  Maybe it endures because I can’t definitively prove He’s behind it all; that He willed it all and took my parents.  The only thing I can prove is His failure to hold me and speak to me when I cried out to Him in pain, begging Him to do so.  Begging him to make an exception, come down from heaven, comfort me, embrace me, and give me a reason to go on.

But then, I must remember that His inability to do so is not due to His lack of wanting to do so.  Right?  I mean, that fault lies in the hands of mankind, the first of our species, a fault passed on from generation to generation of mankind of which I am part.  Man's fall from the beginning of creation.  And thus, it can be concluded that the fault lies, at least partially, in me.  I have brought this all on myself.  I am not dependable either after all.  So I stand corrected.  The single most important person in my life is nonexistent because even those who seem dependable turn out not to be.  Including me.