The Little Red Book

Last night, I prayed to a God I'm trying to reacquaint with, in hysterics, begging for comfort. I hate asking God for stuff, because if it's a big enough deal to ask for, then it's big enough to be a serious blow when He says no (see the post where I profess my love for the phrase, "Fine, REER!").

I wore makeup today, for the third time since the funeral. So like, whenever you're ready to hand over my medal, let me know. Surely God rewards such efforts or puts you in Cosmo's Fun Fearless Female section. It takes every ounce of strength I have to get out of bed in the morning, and my courage and stamina are waning fast. At some point, I'm going to break. And what is God going to do then? I feel like at some point, this Heavenly parent of mine will give me a little credit or cut me a break or something. I don't know.

I had one very special experience at some point between the accident and now, and I don't dare ask God for more. But last night was wicked, so much so that I didn't know how much more of this I could take. I proceeded to wig out.

It's almost like I believed if I freaked out big-time enough on God, it might make Him really uncomfortable and hastily amenable. Like when I cry on the phone to I.T. at work, and they close out my Help Desk case pronto just to get off the call. Maybe God would just give me one more sweet dream, if I cried ugly enough. I cry ugly. I saw some pix of the first few days after we found out our three men had died, and I look disgusting. My face seriously like, grew a new muscle in it just from scrunching and crying, so it's shaped all different.

I went to bed, curled up in my quilt, and - get this - spent the entire night having horrible nightmares about Reboyfriend. Um, WTF? It was the most direct NO I ever got from God. (Reer!) A dreamless sleep would have gotten the point across, but OK. So, I think we have established that God can't so much be manipulated the way computer nerds can. And the louder your plea, the louder your answer. Clearly.

Then Reboyfriend's sister called me today.

Her: I have something I thought you might like to have. We found it in Jed's stuff. It's called, hold on, let me see...The Big Book Of Words You Should Know.

Me: [frozen. this is a mean trick. this can't be.] ............What?

Her: Yeah. And there is a really sweet note inside. It just seemed like something you might like to have.

And, after a couple of seconds of it sinking in, down dripped the makeup.

When God torches your future and it burns to the ground, and it's all erased and you don't want it rewritten...

Sometimes if you just ask, He does you a solid.

I got the book from her. He took it out of his backpack at his mom's, and they think he combined bags with his dad and it got left out. This is the first time I've been grateful for his flakiness. Just as I told you several posts back, it was a very sentimental part of our relationship. As Joslyn gave it back to me, I noticed that no part of it had been disturbed. In its pages are the love letter, a post-it he stuck in there of things from this blog he didn't get (his way of proving that he did read it), and a five dollar bill stuck in one of the pages. The giftwrap tag from Tabula Rasa (where I got him his equally special airplane globe), was stuck to the inside of the cover. His sisters kept it exactly how they found it.

I know we shouldn't cherish material things, but sometimes memories are not tangible enough. Material things have the power to aid through symbolism, to be something you can touch and see with your eyes. Almost smudged with emotional and spiritual residue from the experiences you had with it. Months ago, I mentioned that when Reboyfriend and I found one another, it helped me keep my attitude off of all I had lost that year. I wrote:

"...And I was happy. I didn't feel loss. I have been focusing on everything that felt like the opposite of loss. I focus, to this very moment, on anything reclaimed."

I have the book. I have the letter. Thus embodying, I guess, the opposite of loss. Wouldn't you say?