It was the disruptive sound of activity that jarred me out of my sleep. So lazily I got up and went downstairs to check the source of the noise. As I walked through the living room I noticed the front door was slightly open and as I got close enough to investigate I heard a chilling voice say, "On your knees!" In a startled panic I immediately swung my fists toward the sound of the voice. Thinking I may have been in a dream haze of some sort I felt the cold chill of reality as my hands connected with a face. I had struck someone that was in my home, someone that was not supposed to be there. Going into full offensive mode I began pounding away on the intruder. I was still running on pure adrenaline and fear when I felt another body slam into me. In the dark of the room I struggled to see and comprehend what was happening. Then as I tried to rise to my feet I felt an excruciating kick to my face followed quickly by three more vicious kicks to my midsection. As the pain surged through my body I felt numerous pairs of hands pulling me up to my knees. I hear another voice say "everybody wants to be a hero." Then I heard a round being chambered and then I felt the cold steel of a barrel being pressed against my forehead. After all that had occurred in a brief span of no more than a couple of minutes I finally grasped what has happening. I had woken up in the middle of my home being robbed and was now about to pay the final price for trying to protect it and myself. I instinctively did what I had always done in my moments of trial and tribulations I prayed, but instead of guidance I prayed for God to save me. But it was in that moment that I finally realized a harsh truth...that every prayer including this one was falling and had always fell on the deaf ears of a spiritual being that wasn't the all knowing, all powerful, fate controlling being I had been taught to place my faith and trust into. It was almost comically tragic that the only visible item in the dark room I could make out was the picture of Jesus on the cross. But even in that despair of knowing I was alone, I still stubbornly waited for a divine intervention because habits are hard to break. So I made peace with myself because I knew God was not going to send one because he couldn't. I knew I was going to die and no amount of heart-felt prayers was going to change that and with that confirmation I accepted the fact that...God does not exist.
Even though I had known her since elementary school she didn't cross my mind until much later in life. And I, never being one for cliches, never thought any more of her than the girl who lived two houses down, the one that would always come over to our house to play with my twin sister. And perhaps it was because of this that I grew up seeing her as a little sister as well. But as it always does time has a way of changing things and things certainly did change for the both of us. So attribute it to puberty or God's plan but around the 9th grade I started to notice her more as a young woman than that clingy neighborhood girl that was always pestering me. Then the day happened when everything would change, our parents thought it would be cute if I was the one to escort her to the spring dance. It was that day that the spark between us would ignite a fire that would burn for a lifetime. As we progressed through high school I gathered the courage to ask her to be my date for our junior prom. She accepted and it was during our first dance that I fell in love with her and she in love with me. We would go on to date throughout the rest of high school and into college. It seemed Fate made us neighbors and friends but I also believed it was God's purpose to make us husband and wife. And on my 23rd birthday we would speak our vows of dedication in front of God, our family and friends. We would go on to spend 49 wonderful years together in marital bliss. It was on the eve of our 50th anniversary that everything we had built together would be torn apart. My beautiful partner at the young age of 72 would be diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. Her life was ripped apart and her declining health tore her away from my world in a matter of weeks, She became a shell of the woman that I had spent more than half of my life with and it broke my heart to watch her fade away. During the last days of her life I took her out of the hospital so that she could live out her life as comfortable as possible at home. It broke my spirit knowing that she would never experience another healthy day. It crushed my soul trying to accept that I would have to continue living without her and that realization hurt more than the greatest pain imaginable. So it was in the end as I held my wife's hand whispering I loved her into her ear that I said one last prayer asking God to save her but I knew he wouldn't because he hadn't answered a single prayer from my our kids, family, friends nor myself since she had been given her death sentence to make her better. So as the life faded from of her beautiful face so did my faith in God because I knew that it was a waste to pray and believe because I was seeing living proof that...God does not exist.
My wife and I are what many of our family and friends called late bloomers, as we didn't have children until we were well into our 40's. We had tried everything from ovulation schedules to invitro. But we could not bear children. So that made us pray even harder, we prayed so much our knees were scarred. It seemed that our prayers went unanswered until that eventful day when my wife called me screaming and crying at work. She had took a test because her period was late and the test results said she was pregnant. We immediately scheduled an appointment with the doctor and she confirmed the greatest desires of our hearts. I thanked God because it seemed our faithfulness was finally being rewarded. As the weeks turned to months we learned we were going to be the parents of not one baby, not even two babies but to three babies! Talk about an abundance of blessings! Our first time as parents and we would be parents of naturally conceived triplets. We welcomed our babies, two boys and a baby girl into the world with arms wide open. We recorded every moment we could. Snapped pictures of every memory we wanted to treasure. We were as happy as we had ever been. But like the saying goes all good things must come to an end and it seemed like that after all we had endured our happiness wasn't destined to last. We were great parents and did everything in our power to provide the best for our kids but there are somethings in life that you will never be able to prevent or protect against. It was the last day of school and my wife and I went to pick the kids up from school so we could begin our much anticipated and deserved family vacation. The truck was packed and the luggage was loaded. So that night we all slept so we would be well rested for the six hour road trip. The next morning we all ate and talked about how much fun the road trip would be. About 2 hours into the trip our lives would forever be damaged. A drunk driver driving the wrong way on the interstate collided with another vehicle causing a chain reaction that claimed the lives of other motorists including our children who were immediately killed when a car slammed into the side of our truck causing it to flip and roll down an embankment. Years of great memories that I had were suddenly replaced with the image of three little caskets and my wife sobbing uncontrollably as our children were carried out of the church and placed into hearses. As we watched our babies lowered into the dirt I found myself thinking how impossible it was to accept that this was part of God's divine plan. I just couldn't understand why this HAD to happen and what was the reason for it. Why after so many years of struggling to have children, would he seemingly bless us with children then allow us to experience the joy they brought into our lives, then after less than 6 years why, WHY would God cruelly take them away from us?! And as if my wife was thinking the same thoughts she spoke the words that were heavy on my heart. And in all truth I couldn't find any reason to dispute her statement because I knew in my soul she was correct when she said through her tears, "This isn't right. They didn't deserve this...God does not exist."
"Those that have greatness in them also possess the power...to bring the greatness out of those around them." - TWIL
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