I am starting to realize that although many of my "trust" issues were seeded during my early childhood the devastation of the innocence that trust calls for (childlike trust) didn't truly begin to take place until right after I turned 16. I don't want to recount the details but one night we found out that my brother was killed in a car wreck. I saw my uncle tell my parents. I saw my Dad's heart break in that instance. I went back to my bedroom before they saw me. I shut my door and I wrapped my blankets around me tight like a cocoon and I asked God why. And silently in my heart I heard my brother say they took my money out of my wallet and my necklace and my buck knife - he really liked his new buck knife and was never w/o the necklace... a long silver chain with a small pendant... . I heard him say he was happy and this was good and then I felt him leave. I felt nothing. I may have been in shock. Again I asked God why. He said nothing. I never stopped believing that God was there - where ever there is. But "there" seemed to be a long way away - too far away for God to care. It was pretty easy to go from believing that God didn't care to rolling up into a person that didn't wouldn't eventually couldn't care. I became cynical and sarcastic. I became brittle and detached. I made a conscious decision to just stop listening for a God who chose to be invisible and silent. I mean really. Even sitting here so many years later I can feel the shards of pain that that idea - lie - lacerated into me.

As I may have said in earlier posts - my childhood was chaotic. My brother - this brother - represented all that was safe and consistent to me. He was my best friend. Something dysfunctional about how we were raised made him very protective and responsible for me. He definitely had an eye on me and set most of the standards that have guided my choices. I felt a lot that same way towards my younger brother.

My mom went totally around the bend that day. A few months later I asked my Dad, who had physically shrunk and was showing every indication of a man who will drink til numb on a routine basis....I asked Daddy if Momma was crazy and he said don't talk about your mother like that - she just can't cope with this. I noticed that he couldn't either. So the way it worked out was they both became even more absent then they had been before my brother's - their son's - death. I wasn't angry with them - I was angry with God.... My capacity to trust God was ... how do I express it... it was brutal...shocking...sudden annihilation that leaves you looking around in utter confusion...every piece of comfort that is offered feels like a mockery...people say God knows best...you'll understand it by and by (People actually say stuff like that and it makes things worst if possible)...Looking back from the perspective that time and maturity offer I can see that God was in fact very present. I can see His consistent steady hand. It's taken years to come to this place but I think I trust Him ... and I think I am afraid to put that trust to a test. I believe, help my unbelief. I get it.

A few days after the funeral a stranger knocked on our door. I was home alone or maybe Tommy was about too. I answered the door. A man asked for my parents and when I said they weren't here he gave me a big white envelope. He said I must not open it, just give it to my Dad. He said he was sorry about my brother and that these were his things in the envelope. I don't have any idea who he was...just a guy. I took the envelope to my room and openned it immediately (come on - of course I did). It's contents were a wallet - with some stuff, but no money - a High School graduation ring and a wristwatch - both encrusted in dry blood. I took them to my bathroom and held them under some hot running water and washed the blood off of his things...I thought about the fact that I was probably ruining the watch and then I thought so what - it's not like anyone will ever use it again. I pulled the band away because I coudn't get the blood out from between the links and I put it on the floor under my heel and ground the finish off my floor with it... I didn't put it back with the other stuff. I thought how could they bring this stuff to my Daddy with his boy's blood all over it. I dried the ring and watch with Q-tips set the hands to 12 and put everything back in the envelope...the envelope with no buck knife and no necklace.