They divorced in 2005.
After 23 years of being together, through so many things, having 3 children, moving away from home for college, many jobs many challenges, they divorced.
It was his fault. Discouraged in the ministry, desperate for God to speak something to him to let him know what was what, desperate to feel meaning in a pile of broken dreams, he gave in to listening to dark ideas. Someone else could love him better, someone else had no problem expressing love and adoration for him. Someone else wasn’t his soulmate and sworn partner.
The darkness, that seems so much like light at the time. The “light” of the darkness was the darkness of the grave. Proverbs talked about those who listen to the voice of the enticing woman. That her place is the place of departed spirits.
When he gave in to setting his affections on the siren voice calling him to the rocks, his spirit departed. The man he was, the “stand up” guy known for his faith and sincerity became the hypocrite making excuses why this was the right way to go. But it was the way of death, and he walked it in pain and sorrow, suffering all the while, ironically because he thought it would end his pain and sorrow. The way of death.
18 years he stopped listening to the voice inside him that screamed he was going the wrong way. He and Carole became strangers more than ever. The break was a tearing of their knit souls.
18 years. The woman that was his escape abandoned him. Ignored him, left him in the grave of his choices. He was a fool and he knew it.
Carole wanted nothing to do with him except the most minimal interaction. Couldn’t return, couldn’t go forward, depression was a constant companion.
18 years he went from relationship to relationship, failure to failure. The voice buried in the muted vault of his soul. Now and then he would dream about Carole, in pleasant scenes of their home together. She loved him, welcomed him to a kiss or a hug. The dreams were torture when he woke up. Back to the nightmare – “how did I get here?!?” “What the hell happened?!?”. But he knew. And he suppressed the pain and the love for Carole that never left.
18 years and then he knew he couldn’t live that way anymore. He left the woman he was with. Found a place by himself, near running trails and nature. He went to the mountains to remember what backpacking was like, a true core of himself. A true love he had learned from Carole, from that part of his soul he couldn’t ignore.
He turned back to God, to faith, to many nights alone in a tent in the woods, reading and praying and crying. So much crying. The 18 years of fear and loss pouring out of him when just a thought or a song would pluck his heart strings and leave him in a bent over wretch of pain and regret.
She had never remarried. Still single. He reached out… and she made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing. But still he set the wireless, scanning the channels, day after day hoping for a signal, anything to say the battle had turned, but nothing ever came.
And one day he realized that he had to let go. He had to shut it down. Only then perhaps could God work. When he had stopped striving. When he had to put it all in His hands, if there was ever going to be a chance. A move to a new relationship, not going back but forward, to something new. To be with her again, the very fiber of his being. It would have to be God.
He grasped the dial. Turned up the volume and listened for awhile. Though he had in the past sent desperate broadcasts “are you there Carole, over? I love you. Over” now he was afraid to, she had replied with no uncertain terms and then silence. Just static now…
finger on the power switch… minutes going by, sadness welling into his throat and eyes… *click*
Memories and stories