Our 1

Just saw a message on my phone that meant a lot more than the few sentences seen on the screen. I couldn't cry though, not now at least. I've cried enough.

Tuesday will be a really hard day.

Fate. Decisions out of my control. A life with more potential than I can even describe. It's all gone.

At least that is what it feels like. I feel like I've been hooked up to donate blood but they forgot about me. I started out helping someone else - but now I am slowly dying - losing more blood than is healthy or the required amount.

Exhausted. Numb. And tear-less.

I gave all I could, and maybe it wasn't enough... maybe it was. Their resources. Her life. It's all smacking us in the face and kicking us in the gut.

Why?

I don't know the answer to that question. I've sat on a public school hallway floor confused, disappointed, and searching for the same answer to that question. I've driven around dimly lit streets in search for it. Laid on a small mattress in the basement looking deep into the eyes of one who I thought could give me the answer. I came up short every time. We all do.

Every day I look a pictures of days that were different. We were young. We had dreams. All that mattered was that we were together. In that basement our hands marked up the walls. We became a family. Still a family. Always a family. Just a lot older, more distance, and our cracks are now broken pieces shattered all over a tile floor. And no one knows how to put them back together.

The world consumed, trapped, and claimed her victim. I just pray that one day I can look at our boy with the same eyes I did when he danced in the parking lot that summer where face paint was more common than secrets in backpacks. Eyes that have changed perspective over time, but eyes that still love. Right now it's hard. Being away is hard. Being circumstantial fun is hard. Not knowing what it's like is hard.

I am a shepherd searching for her 1. The 1 out of the other 99 who is lost. Ready for him to come home to the family, but baring the truth that this shepherd, and the surrounding shepherds have to come home with just 99 some days.