Love For Lexi

9/23/2014

Love For Lexi

I’m not much of a drinker.  When I do, it’s undoubtedly to excess but I only make the decision to drink about twice a year.  I’ve often said that the combination of a hangover and dealing with a toddler the next day is like hell on crack.

Recently, I’ve been going out just about every other Saturday night with my best friend Lisa and her all-but-in-name-husband Mike to karaoke.  Not to drink, but to drive them home.

What I’ve found at this bar is a close knit group of friends who are welcoming, encouraging and full of energy. Granted some of the shenanigans are likely due to the drinking, but lets face it, it’s a bar.

It is also a grill which means the kitchen is open until midnight, making the hours family friendly until then.  Occasionally, people will bring their kids in to sing at karaoke which I have done in the past giving my daughter a chance to shine for about three and a half minutes at a time. 

One girl in particular is my reason for this post.  She doesn’t know me that well, only in passing really. Her parents only know that Lisa and Mike are two of my closest friends and that I will occasionally get the nerve to sing one song. They also know that when I am there, I’ll be making sure our mutual friends get home safely.

I know little about Lexi. She just turned 16 and she has a beautiful singing voice. She is charismatic like her dad and sassy like her mom. She’s confident in that fearless way that all kids are, and she’s also sensitive to the needs of other people which tells me she has a big heart. Since this last Saturday I’ve decided that it really doesn’t matter what I don’t know about her.  What matters is that I care about her.

On Saturday the 20^th, Lexi was out picking up pizza in Mesa with her boyfriend. She was a passenger in her parents van which was T-boned by another car traveling at 45-50 miles per hour. Lexi’s body took the brunt of the impact. The left side of her body having suffered multiple fractures from ankle to head, with brain bleeding in three places.

From the instant I got the call that she’d been injured, to this very moment I haven’t stopped thinking about her.  I say a silent prayer every time she crosses my mind. I know that prayer is a powerful thing, but I am afraid that one person’s prayer, one person’s love, is not enough.

I think about her parents and the fact that they haven’t left her side since they got the call. How their lives were changed in one instant. I know that this ache that I feel, this infuriating powerlessness is not a fraction of what Lexi’s family is feeling. I would give anything to ease their burden.

I’m not particularly religious in the uniform sense, but I believe that something exists in this universe that is greater than myself. More specifically I believe in God and I have seen his work in action. I have seen what prayer can do, and that the power of love regardless of faith is something that cannot be questioned, or broken.

Lexi is a 16 year old girl. You don’t know her.  In fact, I really don’t know her all that well, but that doesn’t matter. She is someone’s daughter, someone’s friend, the center of someone’s universe.  Lexi is a light, no less bright than your own, or one that you love.  She is not my daughter, but I feel a mother’s pain and helplessness at the injury she’s sustained and the fear that is looming at the door. I know, with conviction that the human spirit inside of that little girl is fierce and ready to heal the body around it. I know, that in life, all living things respond to love, and that prayer is the vehicle to give motion to the love and intention behind every uttered breath from the heart.

I wish that I had all of the money in the world to donate, to help this family, but I don’t. So I will pray. I will ask the universe, the guy that spins this planet, the one that created the first molecule that started this whole thing, Jesus, God whatever name the divine prefers - to give love and healing to this girl who still deserves every chance to live a full life. I will ask that people hear her story, give if they are able to give, but more than anything, I ask that they pray for her healing.

http://www.gofundme.com/eu7j1s

Confessing My Truths

Confessing My Truths

9/19/2014

At what point does the confession become too much?  The unabashed perspective?  The clear and biting truth in all of its visceral glory? Confession is good for the soul, but does that apply to an audience or only if God is listening?

All too often I’ve found that a taste of my truth is too much.  Too bitter, too raw, too real.

Most of my life I have written to get to the core of it, to ferret the truth of it out… in seven versions of the same story; all of them mine. 

Sometimes I’m sharing as a form of absolution, sometimes approval. Sometimes I tack on some whip smart sarcasm to add humor to already traumatic events because no one should have to experience the real truth.  Not in the same way that I did. Maybe someone can reap the benefit of my experience without ever having to suffer the same end result.

Sometimes I write to celebrate the ache in the loss of love or of life to sing to the soul; to wrap myself around it, to touch it.  To measure its depth, and to never forget, and to remind myself that in that precise moment; I was humbled.    

I am writing it down to capture this instant, to inspect it from all angles and breathe into it just to make it move, to bring it back, then send it home.

I believe it is human nature to want to be understood. We are a social species.  We crave interconnectedness, touch, warmth and above all things love, as much as we reject it. I have loved when it has not been safe for me to do so, and yet I have pursued it anyway. I have learned to be afraid because sharing that truth is not often well received. I have learned that writing my truth; so often a confession, is not a hard line but a delicate series of arcs shifting in waves.