“This is true,” Caleb said, keeping his eyes on the road and signaling to change lanes.
“Oh, shit. Were you there?”
“I was. I went into my parents’ room, because they had been so loud, then- after two loud bangs- were suddenly so quiet. I saw them lying on the bed, hoping they had gone to sleep, but everything was wrong. My mom’s leg, was dangling off the bed, and her shoes were still on. I remember thinking how unusual that was. My father was on his knees next to the bed, as if he was praying, his face in the mattress. I remember walking up to my dad to shake him awake and finding a hole on the side of his head and his face in a pool of blood. When I saw this, I didn’t even check my mother. I was so scared, I just ran to the neighbor’s house.”
“What happened to you after that?” I asked.
“I was in foster custody for a few years. When I was about eleven, a man took me in. He was kind and generous and loving and he just wanted to help me. When I was thirteen, he adopted me, became my legal parent. However, when I entered my teenage years, my anger and rage caught up to me. I took it out on him, this man who sacrificed his time, energy, love, and money to raise me when no one else wanted to. I would sneak out, vandalize things, break into people’s houses, do drugs, sell drugs. I would steal money from him when he was asleep, I never went to school, I would get in fights with random people. I was always in trouble with the law and he still just loved me and took care of me.”
“Do you guys still keep in touch?” I asked, hopeful.
“No,” Caleb said, casting his eyes away from me, “When I was seventeen, I wanted to go meet up with some friends and he put his foot down and told me I wasn’t leaving. I told him that he couldn’t stop me and he stood in my way and pleaded for me to just stay in that night, to just spend time with him and not go out. I tried to push him out of the way and he grabbed me and hugged me, so I hit him. I hit him multiple times, but he just kept trying to stop me. He would throw himself in front of the door and beg me to stop, and then I grabbed him with both hands by the front of his shirt and threw him towards the living room. He fell back,” Caleb continued with a small crack in his composure, “and hit his back on his granite coffee table. I left and went out and enjoyed my night. When I returned in the middle of the night, the cops were waiting for me. When he hit the table, it broke some of the vertebra in his back and damaged his spinal cord. He wound up being paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Is that why you went to prison?”
“Yeah. Elias- that was his name- begged for leniency for me, and told them it was an accident, so I received a reduced sentence.”
“So, is that what changed you? Like, is that how you found God?”
“No, I was in prison for a long time before that happened. I would read the Bible because I was bored and being involved with religion had its advantages in that place. I would mock the words in it because I just didn’t understand. I would read how God is love and God loves everyone, but found it impossible to believe.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“He showed me a glimpse. I remember those ten or twelve seconds so vividly. I was sitting in the cafeteria. There had to be about thirty other people in there at the time. I had just picked up a piece of bread to eat, when suddenly He opened my eyes and let me see the world and people as He saw them.
“I wish I could properly put into words what I felt in that moment. It felt like when you hear someone you love has been in a terrible accident. That desire for their well-being. In that moment where you would trade anything to ensure they were okay, where you just want to drop everything and rush to their side. I felt a love for every single person in that room. I wanted to embrace them; I wanted to tell them I love them and tell them everything was okay. It was as if I knew every single one of them intimately and understood their struggle and wanted to show them compassion. Those ten seconds completely changed my life.
“ When the feeling passed, the idea remained. When I felt that, I finally understood how Elias felt for me, how the good and love in this world exist, that you just have to uncover it. I met Law there, and he understood the feeling I spoke of. He has compassion for everyone and all things. That’s why his gift comes so naturally to him, that’s why it appears so easy. He can find something to love in everyone, he loves all of humanity. He can empathize with every person and every situation.”
I had so many questions to ask Caleb. I was literally in shock from his story and felt guilty for never being receptive enough to hear it before. I was so distracted by it that when I was able to string together my first question, I felt the car slow and come to a halt.
“Well, we’re here,” Caleb said.
Chapter Twelve
Who Are You?
My stomach did a somersault at the realization, that Caleb had sufficiently distracted me and now I was parked out front of my old home. It had been repainted. The trees in the yard had grown and stretched. Though bare in this
