Sojourner's Truth

Creasy and I have some fundamental differences that we’ll never be able to resolve. From the day we met, our spirits have operated on opposite ends of the spectrum. I have an aversion to weapons and he loves them. He keeps guns in his home and I can’t live in a house w/ them. He’s fearless and confrontational. I’m a punk and will retreat into a shell when I’m in pain. Creasy and me = War and peace.

In the old days, he used to haze me out of my shell by calling me all kinds of names – yelling at me like a drill sergeant. My famous “my mama didn’t raise no punk” phrase comes from a time when I had to drive over a bridge over water (one of my biggest phobias) with him in the car. I didn’t want to hear his mouth so I repeated the phrase to myself over and over again until I got through. I didn’t even realize that he was paying attention to me until he doubled over with laughter after we finished and said “Good job…punk!”

This past few weeks have been HARD on me y’all -REALLY hard. I want to thank all of you for the kind words and e-mails about Max, but I feel like I’m in this well that I can’t seem to pull myself out of. Tears spring to my eyes for no reason – and I can’t stop thinking about his death – and my subsequent realization of my lack of faith in the Creator.

So in true form, I’ve retreated – or tried to. At first Creasy accepted my BS excuses for not seeing him – that I was tired, sick or whatever. I just didn’t.want.him.to.make.fun.of.me – the way he did when we were in college. So I hid. Then he insisted that we go to the movies. I tried to muster up some energy weekend before last, put on a fake smile, some concealer for my eyes and went to the show but late that night he heard me rush into his bathroom and try to hide my crying.

I figured that it was better to hide my sadness than to hear him tell me to suck it up or worse – call me a punk. So imagine my surprise this weekend when in the middle of a conversation about why he believes that my 1/2 birthday celebration is Pagan holiday and goes against his Christian principles (smdh) – he says “Seriously. How are you doing?”

So I decide to tell him everything – about how utterly lost I feel in my faith and weak I must be. And how I’m used to being the spiritually strong one – so I don’t know what to do. And then he says “Faith is the acceptance of God’s infinite wisdom.” He goes on to tell me that I’m NOT weak – that I’m one of the strongest people he knows and that this is only a “test in my testimony” of life (yeah…he said that and he doesn’t even know about this “Testimony” blog…Holy confirmation God!!!!)

And then he followed up the next day with words about not being afraid of how I’m feeling now and how when I come through this, I’ll be stronger than I ever was in my faith. And then, when I told him that I was watching Man on Fire and laughing about how much we resemble Creasy and Pita, he said “just remember the gunshot holds no fear” and neither does this test.

This new and improved Creasy is amazing me everyday with how nice and docile he’s becoming in his old age. He confirmed it when since he couldn’t see me right then, he sent me a text with a picture of just one of his dimples – so that I can crawl in there and hide until I’m ready to come out – instead of hiding in my own cave.