The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

Marry the man who’s going to walk with you through the next fifty or sixty years. Open doors, hold your hand, make your coffee, rub lotion on the cracks of your feet, put you up on a pedestal where you belong.

I was starting to learn that she used humor to ward off the pain. I’d seen other people do it. Usually something in their past had emotionally wounded them, and so they used humor or sarcasm to mask it. Take their mind off it.

“If the worst is a possibility, then you keep it on the table. Don’t hide from it. Don’t run. It can happen. And if and when it does, you need to have thought about it ahead of time. That way you’re not crushed when your worst thought becomes your reality.”

“Just look at him. If ever an animal had a Napoleon complex, it’s him. He’s got the attitude of an angry bullmastiff shoved into a package the size of a loaf of bread. He’s the poster dog for ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.’”

Made me consider what people need versus what I, in my ivory tower, wanted to give them.”

that I have a tendency to take myself a little too seriously, and that laughter can heal the hurt places.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but if you want to hurt someone…way down deep, use words.”

love is worth doing. No matter how much it hurts.”

“You asked once, ‘What can’t be forgiven?’” I nodded. “It’s words. Words you can’t take back because the person you spoke them to took them to her grave four and a half years ago.”

Forgiveness is a tough thing. Both in the offering…and the accepting.

Broken people just need piecing back together.

Maybe each of us was once a complete whole. A clear picture. A single piece. Then something happened to crack and shatter us. Leaving us disconnected, torn and splintered. Some of us lie in a hundred pieces. Some ten thousand. Some are edged with sharp contrast. Some dim shades of gray. Some find they are missing pieces. Some find they have too many. In any case, we are left shaking our heads. It can’t be done. Then someone comes along who mends a tattered edge, or returns a lost piece. The process is tedious, painful, and there are no shortcuts. Anything that promises to be one is not. But somehow, as we walk from the crash site—away from the wreckage—whole sections start taking shape, something vague we see out of the corner of our eye. For a second, we stop shaking our heads. We wonder. Maybe…just maybe. It’s risky for both of us. You must hope in an image you can’t see, and I must trust you with me. That’s the piecing.

I swallowed. How then does one live? A memory echoed from beyond the dunes. Put one foot in front of the other. Maybe piecing is continual. Maybe the glue takes time to dry. Maybe bones take time to mend. Maybe it’s okay that the mess I call me is in process. Maybe it’s a long, hard walk out of the crash site. Maybe the distance is different for each of us. Maybe love is bigger than my mess.