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Thursday, June 22, 2017

The Truck Is Gone (A Guest Post)


My writing, in recent days, has slipped somewhat. I've been busy finishing out one job, applying and interviewing for another, cleaning one house, attempting to buy another, taking care of surly teenagers, calming an anxious wife... You know: busy.

But my friend A. shared something with me, and has given me permission to share it with you here.

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The Truck Is Gone

Well God, the truck is gone. I suppose all the hopes and dreams associated with it were gone a long time ago. Gone before we already knew they were gone. Gone when he rejected who we are, months, maybe even years ago. The hopes and dreams died silently before we even knew that they were dead. The truck was just the last symbol of education, of honor, of marriage, of all we might have wished for our son.

I'm getting used to this new stranger. He looks like my son, sometimes I'm even fooled into believing that he can be anything like the person I had hoped he would be. On days like today when the truck drove away, it all seems so raw and close to the surface, but I keep reminding myself that the man I wanted him to be died a long time ago and I was too busy, too preoccupied with the future to notice. I wish there was some sort of memorial for the dreams of parents. Instead I have boxes of photographs and pictures I've taken off the walls. Yes, hope is a living thing. It breathes and reproduces and moves in jolts and kicks and foolish ambitions. But when it dies, there's no funeral or wake, just a broken down old red truck and the bitter tears of resignation.

 Lord help us all.


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Muted Hosannas Muted Hosannas
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