Thoughts. They come many times in the middle of the night. You think of a hundred ways on how you could have done things different.
Words. They escape you when they are most important. Oh, but they have a way of coming back when everything has been said and done.
Emotions. That never seem to go away. They settle in your heart and grow stronger as they linger reminding you, as you sit and write.
Writing is my way of getting it all out.
Of screaming through my fear.
Of pushing through the pain.
Of throwing dust to the wind.
And…
I wrote a few times of an old man on a bench, a man that I visit often for advice and reflection. He is an old man full of wisdom that has been a guide in difficult times.
I mused him with my problems and conundrums. He always had a way of making me fall into reason and never ignored my feelings; he acknowledged them and never laughed. This old man knows what it is to be me.
He talked me through my break up and showed me that there is hope. He encouraged me as I spoke to him about chasing after the one I had so cowardly let go. He nodded his head in agreement when I spoke of my desire to love and looked intensely at me as I spoke to him about the paralyzing fear.
I recounted to him every scar. He sat silently listening as I reminded him how each one of them was made.
He smiled.
“Son,” he said as he looked up to the clear blue sky “I bet every single one of them was worth it.”
“How can they be worth it?” I shot back at him, my eyes blurred in tears and my heart aching as I relived every single one of those painful moments.
His hand reached over. He held my hand in his calloused, trembling hands. “Look at yourself. You’re learning. You’re growing. You’re trusting God deeper and completely. You may not understand right now but one day you might be this old man in a bench, sitting next to a young and eager boy telling him that it’s all worth it. But don't let go son. Keep fighting, even when you feel that you've messed up greatly” and he smiled again.
I stared into those deep brown eyes. The wrinkles on his eyes, forehead, and mouth each told a story of pain, tears, sorrow, loss that were overshadowed by the joy, happiness, fulfillment and assurance that can only come through experience and complete reliance on God. His eyes were not sad, they were full of peace of a life well lived, without regrets for he made every moment count even when they didn’t make sense.
I pressed my hand harder on his. Stood up and kissed his cheek. “Thanks,” I whispered as I turned and walked away.
I turned to say something else but I saw him walking away. His peppered hair swaying in the soft breeze of that cool summer evening. His age did not show as he walked upright, his head held high as if he was a victorious soldier returning home from war. And I smiled.
I know that the next time I come to that bench he will be there. Sitting. Patiently waiting to hear, to listen to the musings of my heart. And he will smile, he always does, when I write.
“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
― Maya Angelou
