I gave a challenge to a writer friend of mine to dump five minutes of her soul down in a page. I then took something that happened to me and started writing about it together.

I think it is a good piece of work…

But maybe that’s just me

She wrote:

For the past thirty years I choked it down, this life of mine. I spent hours, days, and weeks separating myself from what is really important. I raced from concert to concert, party to party, drug to drug. It crumbled on top of me every time I engaged (life) it, because I thought all along that I was engaging it. Now I know I was only running, only hiding from (Him) it.

I embodied the typical destructive behavior of a teenager. I used, abused, shoved and loved every person who loved me. I was careless and carefree. I was selfish and self-righteous. I was backed into one corner after another on so many occasions that I thought my heart would break from so many thorns that I put in my side. I ran into darkness and hugged it way too tight. Something had a hold on me. Someone held me too tight. Someone held me not tight enough.

My Response

Life is something to be choked down without the need to understand. I met Jessica on the second air shift I ever did on KLLL. She was a confused 13 year old who desperately wanted her parent’s attention. But her parents were divorcing and neither understood the desperation that was in her heart. So she called me up since I said that I would talk to anyone about anything and we talked. She talked of the destruction that her life had taken, the drugs, the sex, and the entire assorted affair. Then she told me that she was going to kill herself. I spent the next four hours helping this confused woman find out who she was. At the end of the shift I was mentally drained. I felt like that the pressure of a life was in my hands and I hoped I did right. I went home and slept for what felt like a year.

The next weekend seem to take decades to get to. I waited and waited for her to think about the “worldly” knowledge that I had, praying that she would call. Each minute seemed like days were passing. Until the red light flashed and I answered. It wasn’t her. The self doubt began to creep in. What if I pushed her to doing it? I could not bear that pressure. The red light of a phone call again flashed. It was her. We have talked about every six months since then.

Ten years have passed. Today I saw a life that was once gone and abandoned brought back to life. She called to see me and came up to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I had to ask her. I had to know if her life was worth saving.

“Do you feel like everything that I told you, all the great things that I said that would happen, was right?”

I needed to know.

“Yes, Thank You Sean.”

So the life you save of another may be your own. I’ve been through the destructive days of my life, the drinking and been down paths of darkness that I cannot even bear to remember. But I always remember the things I told my friend when she wanted to give up and I fought on. Searching each day for the light of success thinking that I am blind.

But the light is there; faint as it ever so shall be.

So to my fellow friend and writer;as long as you are held, with someone to love, life is good.

Today, my friend told me that she found “him” and I could see in her eyes that she loves him with every fiber in her heart. I hate to steal a line from Huey Lewis but,

That is the POWER OF LOVE!