I'm Not Sure

I’m Not Sure

I am not sure about this. I think that maybe I am making a mistake. I should have stayed at home and watched the television as I normally did. I just wanted to get out of the big house. I couldn’t stand the walls closing in any more. Maybe you want to know a little more about me maybe not but as this is my story, I’ll give you some of the details.

I was nineteen when I fell in love the first time. She was two years older than I was but I didn’t care. I am a big person.I mean size wise, I stand six feet plus. She was so small and petite, barely five feet. I loved her eyes. They just drew you in and smothered you. They were the deepest shade of blue, like the ocean on a cloudless day. Her hair was black but for a streak of white at the front. This was the result of a childhood accident. I used to stare at her for hours, just trying to memorize every line of her face. It took me almost a month to ask her out. Imagine a man of my size scared of someone so petite. To my surprise, she said yes. I was already in love with her it took just a short while until she loved me too. God, I think back and can’t believe how much I was in love with this woman.

As I said, I am a big man. I am also a martial artist and weight lifter. Most people just naturally moved aside when I was walking down the street. Its weird she never was afraid of me. Children and animals just seem to know that I would never hurt them. I think she sensed this in me. She used to call me her "gentle giant".However, I was scared to death of hurting her. I grew up in a home full of violence and abuse. I swore that when I left I wouldn’t be like my father. I would never raise my hand against a woman. I never have. I am abnormally strong due to the life I’ve lived. I worked earning my living with my back for many years. I was almost afraid to touch her, afraid that I would hurt her. She was so patient with me I don’t know how she did it.

She taught me so much about being a man. She taught me that I could be both gentle yet strong. I never knew how much my heart could hold until she showed me all the space I had to hold my love for her. She filled it up to overflowing. I can’t really explain all that I gained from knowing her. Much more than she gained from me, I’m sure.

We were married only a year after we met. I didn’t know there was that much joy in the world. We designed and built our house in Southern California. We were so happy together. Some times in the winter when it would rain, we would sit in front of the fire with nothing but a blanket around our bodies. I would hold her and we would sit for hours listening to the rain and the crackling of the fire. Then we would make love. Not the mad passion of youth, though at times there was that, but the slow time spanning lovemaking. The kind of love that you make, when you are so consumed with the other person that you can't tell where you end and they begin. Where you caress each other and taste each other learning each other’s bodies. My eyes, my hands and my lips knew every inch of her body and hers knew mine.

We were so happy with our lives. Then she told me that we were going to have a baby. My heart expanded again. How was she able to do that? My chest would burst if my heart continued at this rate. The day my son was born, she did it again. She handed me this wriggling drooling bundle. I looked down at my son and openly wept. He reached up and grabbed my finger that I was using to hold the cover back from his face. I will swear that he looked at me as if to say it was ok. He then closed his eyes and fell asleep still clutching my finger.

We took him home and soon our lives were filled with not only each other but also this little human being that we had created. He opened our eyes to the wonders of the world. His constant exploring and marveling at everything. I had never sat and watched an ant crawl across the floor before. I marveled at its determination and perseverance. My wife would come home and find us in the hammock him asleep beside me and me staring at the clouds. We had lain there for hours watching them with me rocking the hammock until he fell asleep. I would come home and find her asleep with the baby still attached to her breast. I would marvel at how much I was blessed with the things I had been given.

I should have known the universe is a balancing act. I should have known that there would be a price to pay for all this happiness. I just didn’t know that the price would be so high. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the job it was too close to Christmas. She had insisted though. She said I would be done in plenty of time and the money was good. I said ok and went on my merry way. I could pick her up the present I had ordered while I was in New York. Little did I know she had a present for me too. I wouldn’t learn until later that she was pregnant with our second child. I promised her that I would meet her at her parent’s house on Christmas Eve.

I got back a couple of days early so I thought I would surprise them. There was a message for me to see my employer before I left when I got back. I walked in and he told me to sit. It’s strange it’s been years but I can remember every detail of that day. He started talking and I heard family, killed, drunk driver. I don’t remember standing but I must have because I had my boss pinned against the wall screaming at him. I called him a liar. I told him that God wouldn’t do something like that to me. Shows what I knew. I killed a man that day. I don't know when or where I did it. I just know that I killed a man who had everything to live for. I killed a man who had just lost every reason he had for living. Strange but I don’t think any body missed him.

I went home to my house and life passed me by. She had been going to her parent’s house. Some guy coming from an office party, with one to many drinks under his belt, had crossed the center divider and hit my wife and son head on. They died at the scene. He walked away with a couple of cuts and bruises.

I sat on the roof across from the prison with a sniper rifle waiting for him on the day he got out on bail. I don’t know how I got there or where I got the rifle. I just knew I was there and he was in my sights. I was looking at a man who had taken away my life, my world. At that moment, I heard my wife’s voice saying it wasn’t worth it. I turned around to tell her that he had taken her away. She wasn’t there. I turned back and the driver was gone. I took it as a sign. He got six months in jail plus community service. His license was suspended for two years. He got it back in one.

I told you that the universe was a balancing act though. When he got his license, the first place he drove to was a bar. He got drunk and then tried to drive home. This time he tried a tractor-trailer. He lost. He was killed on impact and the driver of the big rig didn’t get a scratch.


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