The River's Edge

PROLOGUE

I always enjoy this part of my day the most, and often find myself trying to prolong the time I spend sitting here waiting. Sometimes I come out here an hour or so early with the excuse that I have to pull the weeds back.  But I know the real reason: I can’t wait for her to get home so I can start living again. Two weeks ago I built a bench, the one I now find myself sitting on, so it is easier to wait.  It used to be that I would walk out here to the road and stand around until she arrived.  I love to watch the way her face lights up when she turns from her friends and looks at me for the first time.  And I love that warm feeling I get when I see her. That is when life starts for me again, the living part that is.  That part of life where you have that warm feeling inside and you hate to see each day end because, deep down, you know that another day has passed never to be enjoyed again except in those memories you keep in your heart.

            And when that day ends, the night brings its darkness and all those questions that still haunt me about why we live here and what we gave up to get here.  It has been a long hard road for us.  Not that I have ever regretted it, but still you do wonder sometimes.

            That, I think, is the real reason why I come out here so early and sit by the side of this twisting country road and wait.  I sit here and relive the events that took place three years ago in a place a thousand miles away.  But still, I can never seem to get an answer to those questions that still haunt me.  I don’t know if this is because I am afraid of the answers I will get or if she arrives and then the answers just don’t matter any more because I look in her eyes, see the smile on her face, and life, the living part, starts for me once again.  When that happens, the questions and answers just are not that important anymore.  But still they are there.  They will be there tomorrow when she leaves and I will bury myself in my work and watch the clock until I can make some excuse to come out here and wait.

            And so, after searching for these three years for answers, and finding none, I now come to you, the reader. Perhaps you can help me believe that I did the right thing. Perhaps I am looking at this from the wrong perspective.

            You see I was there when all of this happened.  I lived it all.  And, deep down inside, I feel that maybe I caused it to turn out the way it did.  It’s not that all of this turned out the way I wanted it to. But then I am getting ahead of myself, which would defeat the whole purpose of writing this down and asking you, the reader, for your opinion.

            I have been asking myself these same questions for three years and I hope that after reading this you can help me to understand some of it or maybe even all of it. For two and a half years, I have been trying to find these answers from this very spot where I now have a nice bench I built two weeks ago to sit on as I wait.

            I must say that this place is truly God’s country. The air is so clean and the mountains so strong and majestic that I cannot help but feel an inter peace when I sit here and wait.

            But then the questions start forming again and I once again find myself full of doubt…and fear.

            Did I do the right thing?

            So I want to tell you my story.  Perhaps you can find the answers that have been evading me for these three years.

I guess it would be best to start at the beginning.  That would be what?  Nine years ago for me.  That was the day my life really started to change.