The Sacred Gem Within

**Start at pg 194, 3rd last paragraph beginning at: Before heading back to his room Ending at pg 196, 2nd last paragraph, ending with: As quickly as the vision appeared, it disappeared.** Before heading back to his room, he stopped at the post office to check on the mail. There was a letter from his mom. He quickly browsed through the family news. When he got to the last paragraph in the letter he cried out, “God Almighty!” His mom had written: I assume you no longer stay in touch with Ada since she married. I just found out that Ada now has a baby daughter. “Oh, dear God!” Rob bellowed, crumpling up the letter. “Ada has had that bastard Norman’s baby. My God, why couldn’t it have been my baby? Why oh why was I born? I’m at the end of my rope. I can’t take anymore. I want out, I want out, I want out so badly. There’s no more hope for me. There’s nothing left to live for. No one cares. I’ve just got to get up courage to end this horrible pain. Oh God, I want to die so badly!” Rob kept his Dad’s old 44 colt revolver in a small carrying case behind the seat of his car. The 44 had been very special to William. He never carried it and stored it on a shelf over the door. He often cleaned and polished the revolver. When William died, Myrna gave the gun to Michael for safe-keeping. Once Rob began working at the ranch full-time, Michael gave the revolver back to him. Rob’s mind was no longer functioning properly. Mole hills had suddenly become mountains. He rifled behind the seat and with trembling hands, retrieved the box that housed the revolver. “There’s no hope left for me,” he cried out. “I’m going to end it all at the spot where Dad died.” Strangely, once Rob had made the decision to end it all and began planning out the details for his death, a lot of pressure and anguish left him. He decided to take a short cut across the open range to the spot where his dad had died, rather than driving close to the ranch buildings. When he arrived at the cross, he sat on the wooden block by the cross and began writing his suicide note. The drizzle had turned to light rain, smudging his writing. He was forced to go to his car to finish his suicide note. To Michael, Maud, Edith, Mom, Emil, Jacob, Jed, Eva and the rest of my family and friends: No one knows the pain I’m in. I can’t take any more. Please forgive me for what I have to do. Thank you all for your help over the years. Please bury me beside my dad. I’m sorry I turned out to be such a loser. Rob He folded up the note, placed it on the passenger seat, grabbed the sack the gun was in and went back to the block. As he sat there, memories began flooding his mind. He remembered riding the range with his dad when he was five years old, picking strawberries with his dad back where the forest abutted the ranch, listening to the stories his dad had read to him at bedtime, how cold his dad’s body was when he touched his forehead after he died and then how warm his dad felt when he visited him just a few feet from where he was sitting. “Please forgive me, Dad, for what I have to do,” he moaned. “God only knows how much I’m suffering. I just can’t stand this horrible pain anymore. I got to end it.” Rob was in so much emotional agony that he didn’t notice a raven, several hundred feet in the air, slowly circling the cross. He pulled the carrying case out of the sack, opened the case and retrieved the 44 Colt. The gun felt cold and awkward in his hand. He slowly loaded it. The gun barrel glistened from the drizzle. It took every ounce of strength he had to place the end of the barrel against his chest. For the family’s sake, he thought it would be less messy to shoot himself in the heart rather than in the head. It was a single action revolver. Once cocked, it took little effort to pull the trigger. With his eyes closed tight, he cocked the 44 with his thumb and then tried to pull the trigger. Nothing happened. His forefinger froze, refusing to squeeze the trigger. “Damn it anyway. Why won’t my finger pull the trigger?” Rob made three more attempts, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get his forefinger to squeeze the trigger. He quickly changed hands, but the left forefinger, like his right one, would not squeeze the trigger either. Strangely, the revolver no longer felt cold in his hand. He’d have sworn that the gun barrel felt warm. In disgust, Bob aimed the 44 at the base of the cross and pulled the trigger. The gun fired, blowing a small hole in the bottom of the cross. He sat on the block, in total mental anguish. “Damn it all!” he cried out. “What a loser you are. You screw up everything you try.” And then it happened. Just as he put the barrel of the gun against his chest again for another try, a vision flashed before his eyes. He saw Ada on her knees, tears slipping down her face. He’d have sworn he heard her voice pleading, “Oh, dear God, don’t let Rob kill himself!” As quickly as the vision appeared, it disappeared.