Running from the Ruin

I act like I’m intently setting my running watch, but I’m actually looking over at my neighbor’s house.  It’s the sad house.  That’s what Keegan calls it and I understand why.  Its windows are dark and lifeless, while the front entrance is constantly shadowed, icy, and still.  No one appears to live there anymore.  While it seems to be vacant, two people do live there – devastated and suffering from ruin.

I am tempted to skip my run and instead knock on the lonely door and ask Galina if she would like to take a walk.  Just walk. Truthfully, I really want her to run.  I think if I was suffering the way she is, I would never stop running.  I would just run as fast and as hard as I could – until the physical pain put an end to the emotional pain.  I always say that running is the panacea for all that ails me.  But, today I’m not sure.  Maybe I would never, ever run again.  Maybe I would just sit alone and cry and grieve and throw things and weep and ask why over and over.  I don’t know how I would cope.  I just don’t.

I look at their abandoned, snow covered vehicles and decide that I should start running before I start crying.  It’s another glorious December morning – very cold but brilliantly sunny.  Today, I don’t really feel like running in the cold but I know it will help me put things in the right place in my head and heart.  I think back on the day in early October when Keegan broke the news.  His friend, a first semester freshman at CU, was found dead in his dorm room one evening before dinner.  It was suicide.  The first words from my mouth, before the tears, were, “Why?”  Then, “Oh my God, his poor parents.  What will they do now? How will they ever live through this?”

I’m only one mile into my wet, slushy run and I already want to stop.  After years of running, I know that running heavy with emotion is exhausting.  But I cannot shake the memory of how frightened and confused Keegan looked as I tried to hold back the tears to ask how he’s coping. What does he need?  The filmstrip of my mind clicks to the next frame and I’m remembering my first visit to the sad house in mid-October.  I had a card – which seems so pointless now – that acted as a prop during my pathetic one-minute monologue in which I said nothing but how sorry I was as my lip quivered and my eyes welled up.  I felt so small.  I had nothing to offer.  There were no words that could take away their suffering.

Even though the run is taking me downhill, all I want to do is stop and sob on the side of the road and let the snow-melt carry my tears down the storm drain.  I take a deep breath and let go a little.  Recently, I am learning that I do not have to carry all the burden.  I think about the last few months, the serendipitous events that led me to Pastor Tullian Tchividjian, the first book he sent me called “One Way Love:  Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World,” and the spiritual journey that is helping me find my way back to God. Splashing along the wet road, I’m watching my shadow and focusing on how it feels to have someone beside me as I take this journey.  I’ve got a new running companion.

On the second visit, Galina opened the lonely door and stared through me as I mumbled something about my sadness for her and then handed her a Healing Bear.  I said almost nothing and she said almost nothing.  But then, before she closed the door, she quietly said, “Please, whatever you do, always talk to your children.”  When I stepped off the threshold, I could hardly see and I looked up at the sky and whispered, “Oh God, yes, I will always talk to my children. You have my word.” I’m standing in the cold and I’m praying.  Why should anyone have to suffer like this?  Why do some people have to hurt so much? How am I supposed to help her?

I’m still playing back that day in my mind when I return home from the run.  The sun is still bright in the sky and I raise my face and look directly into it.  I’m glad I took the run and feel a little less confused – but I still have so many questions about why people have to suffer and how to help those suffering and what to do with my own suffering.   Then, I almost trip over a small package left on my doorstep by the US Postal Service.

Inside is another book from Pastor Tullian entitled, “Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free.”  I’m astonished and grateful.  Tullian knew nothing about Galina’s suffering or my inability to make sense of it or that I was incapable of helping her through it.  He only knew that I was lost and needed help finding my way – and it all started with a morning treadmill run, one Tweet, and the gift of a stranger.  I don’t understand how this all came together.  I understand only that life is amazing and terrifying.  And so, my journey continues…