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“It is. It is the suffering of love. Every parent feels it. It is the suffering of being unable to shield or save. It is not love if it doesn’t hurt.”
“The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”
Every path is likely just a different version of hard.
It is the fear of being caught unprepared, at the mercy of fate and a friendless world. It is the fear of finding myself completely alone.
“These are the things the Lord hates. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.”
That’s what hope feels like: the best air you’ve ever breathed after the worst fall you’ve ever taken. It hurts.
“Just trying to survive makes things pretty clear most days. We have to eat; we need shelter; we have to keep warm. Those things matter.” I nod. Simple enough. “But none of those things matter at all if you have no one to feed, to shelter, or to keep warm. If you have no one to survive for, why eat? Why sleep? Why care at all? So I guess it’s not what matters . . . but who matters.”
It would have been easier to scratch and kick and bite. Believe me, I know. I spent the first fifteen years of my life fighting everything and everyone. But . . . endurance . . . is a whole different kind of battle. It’s a hell of a lot harder.
I don’t think my own world is that dissimilar. Maybe with Ma and Pa, that overlap was just greater. Ma had her duties and Pa had his, but those things were on the edges, and they lived and loved in the middle.
I realize now that life is just a continual parting of the ways, some more painful than others.
hope the reader will experience the story in the spirit it was written, recognizing that who we are is not who they were, and judging historical people by today’s standards prevents us from learning from them, from their mistakes and their triumphs. These people helped build the framework that we now stand on. We should be careful about burning it down.
