Thinking and Remembering

The message came early Thanksgiving morning. It was a cousin of my former husband. The question was fairly simple, "Would I give them a photo of Gerrald that they could use in searching for him?". I was taken aback by the things I felt when I read that message. I was frightened for Gerrald  ... his family was sharing my fear .... that something has happened to him and we will never know what. I was struck by the way everything in me tensed up and I could feel the adrenaline rush ... in the "fight or flight" response. (That seems to happen every time I am faced with something dealing with him). Old responses to a past I do not enjoy thinking about. I also felt a great sense of dread. I did not want to search through photos of happier times of times when I still had hope and a dream for what God could do through us together.

However, I spent a couple of hours of Thanksgiving Day searching through what photos I had that I could e-mail to them for the search. And I found it so .... so very painful. It hurt because of the broken dreams and promises, it hurt because the photos chronicled the cycle of Gerrald's addiction and it hurt to see that I had very few photos of our last couple of years together. When I did the math I realize that he has been gone for almost 5 years now and most of the photos I had were of 3-5 years before that. Most of  them were 10 years out of date.

But I finally chose a photo and sent it off. I found myself siting and staring at the screen for a long time, thinking of everything that I had lost through those dark years. Thinking how long ago it seems, yet how fresh some of it is still in my mind. Thinking of a wonderful man with a terrible addiction and  how that addiction changed him into someone that still gives me nightmares.

Thinking, remembering .... and praying. Praying for his safety, that he will find freedom from the bondage that he has been in. Praying that I continue to move forward and let God continue to bring light to the dark places of hurt within me. Praying that I will find God lesson for me as I sort through all of this.

Praying ..... and that is a pretty good thing ...

Just Conie