Departed trail & Bitter trials.

Back to the hospital. I walked to the benches, in the front of the Hospital discharge and pick up, where I sat down. Time passed and my eldest brother came out crying and I sat next to him to comfort him a bit before he left to go with a family friend that came with us; they went home. At the concert bench my second older brother talked about my older sister’s wishes to be cremated and be spread out in the ocean. We also talked about a few things that made us laugh in the face of what was happening, at the same time Priscilla wouldn’t want us crying.

A lot came up about what made us laugh about her, how she would be flinch-less in the face of danger. How she would get drunk and always want to sing Selena. She was a big fan since we were kids, we even had a VHS story about Selena, growing up. It’s a real shame that this has to happen to my sister from just one surgery that turned out this way. One internally popped stitch caused aced to eat away and infect my sister with God knows how many viruses.

My family dealt with living in motels, a drunk father, and a scattered history of family fights; but this was so big and damaging that we will never recover from it. I begin to feel I brought some part in her suffering that lasted from the end of October to February this year. I can’t talk to my siblings about what I feel, because I don’t have the right words. From hell to back then to fight with this, I feel like I’m dying again. My brother-in-law goes up with another family friend to say the final goodbyes. Exposed inside me are dark seeds that want to burst in sudden growth and begin screaming at myself for not speaking up to say she shouldn’t have been here at all.

I grapple with the fruit I think of, little did my family know that I’m breaking down to sand, little did they know I couldn’t love myself without my sister’s voice in my heart. “At 4:25 our Love is gone”. And my family breaks at the message that is sent to the group chat on our phones. Soon it is followed with those that left to say the final goodbyes, with my sister’s belongings in hand. We weep over her back pack that she used to vacation in Paris and hick with, a scarf, and a shocking find, a bible; she wasn’t the religious type.

My mom grabbed her belongings and cried. After a time that I feel was long enough for us, we went to the car and my youngest sister began to drive us home. And on the road I was reminded of Job from the Bible. Job questioned his own existence and condemned it over the endured trail of God. No one could quench his questions of suffering, despair, and depression which was felt to be a curse by merely being alive. From his friends to angels themselves, Job could not be comforted. 

In the same manner I need some speaker of law, knower of knowledge, a mediator of covenants; all this to speak to God in confidence. While I practice civility, the evil men of calamity as well as evil men in times of peace, get to call out and receive God. I criticize my efforts as being the wrong messages and not enough. I thought: what if I become friends with the grave, fruit to maggots, mother to fleas, or an angel to the roots of a million blades of grass. I would be carried to the grace by no honor guard like the tombs of sinners of kings.

I would search for anyone who cared in the east and then west but nothing came out the horizon. I rebelled against the light, refused anything other than to be a liar, and ways to stay out of his path. God made me sick of justice and terrified of him. Night became my morning and ally along with the terrors that I didn’t think could hurt its own kind. At that point I didn’t think I could concede my point of view, which was my right; I even thought I would defend it out of spite.

I thought about these things as a teen who rejected God. After cutting my wrist like a string holding a grudge; I vowed to God to never hurt my family again. The only rights I had was given on to God to guide, not to confined; because he humbled me. How do I say my life wasn’t saved in all directions, jumping down on by angels at God’s appointed finger. He rescues the suffering, those dealing with adversity, and those at the edge ready to fall to hell.

‭‭‭I couldn’t save my own life without him, nor could rearrange and bind a cluster of stars into my name without God’s help; nor could I direct the moon to come at night. I’m sorry for spitting and being spiteful. I’m left only with “sorry’s” to God’s face as I felt I was given his back to ignore me. Often wrecked, often depressed, and often self destructive. Often cocky and drinking cocktails without chasers as a teen getting drunk at every birthday. Anti everything and frankly a West Craven fanatic for violence.

I have my brothers nowadays; but it wasn’t always that way, I blamed a part of myself on them as to why I was the way I was when they were locked up. No dad either could teach me how to deal with life; as well as be a man in and outside my flesh. I’m left manic and hiding my anger, arrested to my mortality, and human weakness that I never felt was so defining till now.

>Section:2 

“Bless strength to my heart in these unfortunate and unforgettable ways of time. Perseverance is mistaken for hopeful obedience. All stories seem null, yet I have to carry on my wayward journey in reluctance. Please raise me above the blindness of a man who’s since shut his eyes to hope in these moments. I wish I had that voice that could shout above all others and point myself out like a catcher in the rye who sees a lost soul at the edge and calls out. I will go to bed here sick stomach, back aching, and paid with a life of trials I never knew I was failing.”

“I’m crying and wanting a smoke, dragging out some semblance of gratitude. I’m left wanting any self worth that makes me strong and forget I’m weak. I want to listen to a song and not cry, I want to see a face and not choke up behind a literal mask, nowadays in this post-Pandemic world. I want you by my side to never feel alone, never feel absent of kindness, never have to put my veins on the earth nor leave it weeping. I should’ve worshiped sooner and taken myself to church if I knew I had a lifeless life without you.”

“Absorb, absolve, and abruptly take all my weaknesses away. Leave me worthy, leave me without bad habits and negative concerns; but don’t leave my side as I walk with you.. I’m no longer feeling obsessed with the obscenity of blasphemous harbors in the shadows, so where should I dock myself to, but you. In my nights I’m a troubled sleeper and from time to time I duel usurping figures in my head. Without gold to rattle an applause to him, with calluses and driving cuts like tattoos, claiming to never know heaven; please help me LORD.” 

>Section:3

We get home and everyone quietly seats with their own solitude. I called the living room; my brother and mines bedroom due to Covid circumstances. Right now he went to the garage to be alone, which me and him would do out of respect for each other; sometimes you just want to be alone with your own thoughts. I can respect everyone wanting to handle and get a grasp of themselves during this day and the next few to come. Of course I don’t know if my family are thinking selfishly like I am, aside from my own thoughts conversing in conflict with each other; a question popped in.

Who was going to keep the peace with my sister being gone? Our family didn’t have a history without conflict over small things or even big things. A few thanksgivings, Christmas, and birthdays ruined with fights. Both verbal and physical. Sibling against sibling, parent against child, and whatever domestic scenario came with fighting. I walked into the front yard smoking my head out with some “American Spirits,” a brand of cigarettes I just recently got into.

I was out of tears so I hiccuped every now and then with some noise like weeping. I tried eagerly to get my mind calmed safely.  I’m being tested by the laws keeping me in check, when I want to burn it all away. I never feel acceptance over some matter and here I can’t accept my sisters passing quietly. I grew up sad and bitter, and now I have a light that’s shining on the memories that I didn’t want in my head.

Again my storming mind came back up, behind my swallowing voice I’m shouting out the abnormal scratchy screech. I guess I can’t keep it all inside like I did with everything else. At least I’m okay with not letting this go when this scar is deeper than any scar I cut into myself. Anyone can take away anything and be taken; I just learned this truth so I guess I became an adult or maybe not yet. The young bury the old or at least that is how it’s supposed to be; so I cry for my youngest sister.

She’ll have to deal with 5 more graves before she can rest from the pain; this was shared in a conversation by my brother in later days. I’m sorry if this is true but I know it’s all uncertain. The conversation is getting louder in my head and offering one way to end it all. But I get up and head back indoors. As I sat in the living room, I felt a call to church, I just had to go.

I had called a brother in Christ to come pick me up and take me there since I didn’t know how to drive well. He admitted that he didn’t know how to talk to someone who just lost someone, his honesty didn’t offend me when I don’t offend easily. The best thing to do for me right now was to go to church. At a Calvary Chapel, I braced myself for the church family that was going to console me. My real family was dealing on their own and I did not want to listen to them right now, I just wanted to be in the company of God.

I went to a chair and began to listen to the brothers and sisters talk to me about being both surprised and inspired that I came despite my situation. But honestly I came for some confirmation from God that my sister was in heaven and I didn’t need to worry about her anymore. The word of the day was obedience and what it meant to be obedient to God. This was not the wowing topic I wanted. At the end I went to a church elder to pray for my sister’s soul. After the prayer I went to fellowship with the brothers and sisters at an “In and Out” in Cerritos.

The church brother that I came with had bought my food for me to which I was grateful since I had little money to spend right now. Two new brothers at the church sat with me and spoke about how they came to this church, when they got saved, and what they went through before they got saved. Franklin I don’t remember it all clearly to recount it. But I do remember being able to speak about my own trials and testimonies to the group which was a sign I hadn’t noticed I grew into; it was honestly barely a year and I only told a few people at the church had knew that I tried to kill myself.  I guess after losing so much and being hit so hard that some things become easy to talk about. I used to be overwhelmed by little things that got me drunk in anxious thoughts and became self consciously ready for the next fearful thing to set me off.

It’s like a cycle feeding on itself. Stuck in the turns with expectation for more tension to guard against when 8 out 10 it wouldn’t be necessary for me to feel that way. This madness gives me high blood pressure.