The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living (8 page)

W
hen Jazilyn came home from the hospital, I was five years old and officially a big sister. I took this position very seriously. I planned to teach her everything I knew. How to color, draw, read, make up stories, put on plays, make peanut butter sandwiches—everything.

She didn’t start getting into trouble until she began to crawl. Boy was she fast! She always headed right for the cat food.

“No, no Jazz! That’s Bowie’s food! It’s yucky for babies!”

“Thank you, Lacey, but I’m the momma. I’ll take care of your sister,” my mother would remind me.

Jazilyn was brilliant. She had white-blonde hair and big blue eyes. She looked like my granny. When she first started talking she would mimic everything she heard. She loved to
pretend she was on the phone when you were and babble everything you said right after you said it. She was really good at sounding like whomever she was mimicking. We called her Lil’ Mockingbird. By the time she was five she was an excellent impersonator and totally hilarious. She was a great performer and loved to put on a show. She is still one of my favorite storytellers. She and I have very different personalities though.

Jazilyn was definitely a girly girl. She loved to wear dresses and bows and wanted her hair fixed just so. She was organized and would collect all our junk mail and shove it into the ugly old purse we got her for a quarter at a garage sale. She called them her “important papers.” She held that thing on her arm like it had gold bars in it. If you ever touched her purse she would start screaming like a banshee.

“Don’t touch my important papers! Mooooooom!! Lacey is touching my important papers, Mom!”

When she ran out of room for the junk mail in her purse, she would put it in plastic shopping bags and carry that around on her arm along with her purse. Eric and I called her a “little old bag lady.” That’s what she looked like when we were walking through the grocery store with her wearing those ridiculous bags full of trash on her arm.

Phillip is a year and a half younger than Jazz. My little brother has always been a deep thinker. He feels deeply and had the most delightful mind as a child.

One evening all of us kids were sitting in the back of Gary’s truck. He was my mom’s good friend. He drove us along some country roads in the warm Texas night air. The sky was clear, lit up by a big bright moon. We all sang songs.

“Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

“We Built This City on Rock and Roll.”

“I Will Always Love You.”

The stars shined brighter as the night grew darker. Eric led us all in the clapping song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” to celebrate the glowing constellations above us.

I noticed Phillip wasn’t singing or clapping. This was one of his favorites. He was staring at the sky, contemplating something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He looked at me with genuine wonder and concern and asked, “Why is the moon following me?”

I laughed. “Well, I don’t know, Phil.”

My Little Loves

The next day, Phillip had overheard my mom say something about how leather was stretched by getting it wet, so in the middle of his bath he ran and grabbed his almost-too-tight but beloved cowboy boots, put them on, and sat down cross-legged under the bubbles. When I went to lift him out of the water I noticed he was heavier than normal. The boots hung like buckets on his feet, gushing water all over me and the bathroom floor. After we all had a good laugh, I cleaned up the mess.

I was towel-drying his hair. He was watching himself in the mirror and admiring the new cool steps he had just gotten shaved into the sides of his head. Suddenly his face lit up.

“I know why the moon was following me! Because he likes my new haircut!”

“Of course!” I exclaimed, and congratulated him on figuring that out.

I was ten when Stephana was born. After that I lived for her smile. She was brilliant and enchanting. By the time she was three I had helped teach her to read and she could sing along with the Abbey Road CD I kept on repeat in my bedroom. One of her favorite movies was
The
Lion King
. Every time the daddy lion would die she would run to me, climb onto my lap, and wrap her arms around my neck. Through her sobbing she consoled me, even though she was the one crying. “It’s okay, Lacey. You don’t have to be sad. He’s gonna come back in the stars.” She has always had deep compassion, grace, and a love for animals.

I was thirteen when Roman was born. My mom honored me by allowing me to be the one in the delivery room with her when he came into the world. I cried when I saw him. He was so magical and tiny. I wore a hospital scrub shirt, and I was the second one to hold him after my mom. The nurse put his little feet on an inkpad and lifted him up to stamp my shirt with his perfect little footprints. It was one of the most miraculous days of my life.

Roman was just as clever as my other siblings. More clever than me at times. Once, when I was making a pizza, I opened the oven door to check on it and flames shot out. The whole oven looked like it was on fire. I think I had forgotten to remove the cardboard from the bottom of the pizza. I stood there in complete shock with the oven door open.

Two-year-old Roman stood close by with his eyes bulging. My mind went completely blank, and then I heard myself say, “I don’t know what to do!”

A little two-year-old voice behind me said, “Water! Get the water!”

Yes!
I thought.
Getting water is what I should do.

So I ran to the sink, filled a cup with water, ran back over, and tossed it on the burning pizza. We were saved! I turned around and snatched up Roman. My eyes filled up with tears as I thanked him and kissed him over and over.

“You are so smart, Roman! You saved us! I was panicked, but you knew exactly what to do! I love you so much!”

Living for Something More

I did love Roman so much. I loved them all so much. I thought through all these memories one night as I finished drying my hair. I lay down in my bed and let each one slowly talk me out of wanting to die. This was why I couldn’t kill myself. I didn’t want to hurt them.

I envisioned Jazilyn having to babysit the younger ones and how hard it would be on her when my mom was working. I didn’t want to abandon them.

So my life was saved for a season.

But living
for
people will only last so long. One day my siblings would become more self-sufficient and would have other people in their lives to care for them better than I could. Then my reason for waking up wouldn’t be there anymore. And then what?

Relationships, to me, are a big mirror reflecting the source of all relationships. You and I may love our families and our
significant others because we were created to do so. We exist on this earth as relational beings because we come from a relational God. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—a community of beings. Some say we were created out of this loving community in order to create our own loving communities. So no matter who I love on this earth, my love for them must not surpass my love for my heavenly Father. If it does then I become an idolater. It would be like me falling in love with my husband’s reflection instead of the real person. I would be left rather lonely with only his cold image to talk to. That image could not hold me and speak to me; that image could not help me when I needed it to.

And so it was with my own family relationships at the time. Loving them helped me hang on just a bit longer. But loving them would not ultimately save me. I needed to get at the root of all love—to the source of all relationships, the shining relationship from which all other relationships stem.

My most beloved relationships at some point fell short of what my heart truly longed for. Living for your family isn’t strong enough to hold you up in certain seasons. And that season for me would change soon.

I feel I am caught in a place for which I was not made. Yet God equips me to carry his brilliance even though I see but dimly through the glass, the fractured glass of a world that thirsts even for a portion of his brilliance. I live and dance in the half-light. I am a shadow chaser.

Timothy Willard

R
ampage, rampage, rampage! The world didn’t care! It was all
their
fault. She lumped me into it as well. Rampage, rampage, rampage.

“If you hadn’t gotten into so much trouble in school!”

Rampage and more hysterics.

“Too much stress—you cause so much stress.”

I came here to get better. I thought since my grandparents had some money, I wouldn’t be such a burden in their house. After the last violent family outburst while living at my mom’s, the police counseled me to move out. I was sixteen years old. They told me that if my grandmother was willing to take me, then I should live with her in Mississippi. They
told me my mother didn’t want me causing drama in her house with my younger siblings anymore.

But even though what they said made sense, I needed someone else to tell me that leaving would be okay. All I wanted was to help my brothers and sisters, and I didn’t see how my leaving was going to fix anything for them. My stepdad asked the officers if he could talk to me in private. As much as I didn’t trust cops, they seemed genuinely concerned about our family and allowed Michael and me some privacy. My stepdad’s long, curly hair hid his face while he talked with his head down. When things were serious it was hard for him to look me in the eyes. I know it was because he loved me so much and he didn’t want to cry.

“Lacey, there is something I learned when I went to rehab. I want to share it with you.”

He handed me a bronze coin with writing on it. I looked down to read it as he recited what it said by heart.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

“So, what does that mean?” I asked him.

“It means,” he said as he pulled me into his arms and wrapped me up in the familiar smell of his leather jacket mixed with cigarettes and motorcycle exhaust, hugging me with all his heart, “that this is one of those times that you can choose to change things. I know you don’t want to leave the little ones. But I’ll be here to help look after them while your mom works. And I don’t want you to go, because I’m gonna miss you a lot. The hard truth is, sometimes we have to stop and help
ourselves
before we are even able to help anyone else.”

“So you think I should go then?”

“I think you should go . . . and get better.”

So that’s why I was here, at Granny’s. I came here to get better. I was a thousand miles from my brothers and sisters, who my mom seemed to think were better off without me around. But now, in this barrage of hysterics from my grandmother, I felt like I had left one sad place only to make things worse in another.

I’m sure she didn’t mean what she said, but her words painfully wedged their way into my already tired and pain-filled heart.
I might as well be
an orphan
, I thought.

And I felt that way. I did. An eerie feeling of being an orphan passed over me. Granny was drunk with pain and continued to vent her fears and hurts. I listened closely for her to confirm the overwhelming thought tormenting me:
The world would be
better off without me
. She didn’t have to actually say anything close to the phrase, “You’re better off dead,” for me to manipulate everything she said until it sounded that way in my head. I looked for reasons to give up. I looked for “noble” reasons. All my rationalizing was always done in order to make me “noble” in my own mind.

I could not remember the last time I had fallen asleep without crying. That night I tallied up all the times I had made life harder on the people around me and concluded I was more of a burden than anything else. I talked myself into believing that I was making life worse for everyone.

I was so tired of feeling pain all the time. I wanted it to go away for good.

Being an atheist, I didn
’
t see any reason to keep waking up if I wasn
’
t happy. I tried to keep myself happy and nothing lasted. Everything led to an empty place. As I lay there, I was
relieved to have figured out how to make my death something noble: my death would make things easier on everyone. I made myself believe that lie.

I made a plan to commit suicide the next day.

My Plan

I would go to school for a little bit. Hug my girlfriend. She and I had started as friends—friends for years. But we had been dating now for about a month. Our shallow friendship had developed depth when she barely made it through some intense family dysfunction. I happened to be around when some of her worst living nightmares surfaced. I was the only one in her life who knew about the abuse she endured. After those experiences we both came away with a general hatred toward men. We became closer as time went on and we partied together. Eventually our friendship became romantic and she clung to me to help her through. It felt good to be needed at first, but eventually she started to become jealous in a way that proved to me that I was not equipped to carry her life in my hands. It was too much weight for me to be her god, and I felt guilty that I couldn’t keep her alive by myself. I knew that it would take a miracle to heal what she was going through, and I also knew that, as much as I wished I could help her somehow, it was clear that I was not that miracle.

Next, there were a few people I wanted to tell off.

After that, I’d leave school and walk home to Granny’s house. Granny was supposed to be at the hospital with Gramps. I wished that I was brave enough to go see Gramps in the hospital, but at that time I was terrified to see him that way. He has always been so important to me.

Granny and Gramps used to own a houseboat. Once, when I was four, I was stepping onto the boat and fell into the small
space between the dock and the boat. I was drowning when Gramps jumped in and saved me.

He was the best listener. He had a practical wisdom and a deep genius that made life seem limitless when I talked to him. He was also a safe place. When the world was falling apart, I could sit beside Gramps, and even if he didn’t say a word, I felt better. The last time I’d seen him, he’d driven me to school. Granny and I had just had a bad argument and I knew I was wrong for the way I acted. When I got in the car beside Gramps, he said nothing to me. But his silence was a relief. Somehow his wordlessness let me know that he knew I knew I was wrong. He gave me grace with his silence. By the time we reached the school, the quiet refuge of the car ride beside Gramps was exactly what I needed to get my head straight. As I opened the door to get out, I said, “Thanks, Gramps.”

“I love you, Lacey,” he said back. I needed that so much. His love was so believable.

When Granny vented her fears that day, she made me believe Gramps was never coming home from the hospital. I tried my best not to think about it when I came home from school and he was in the hospital. But Granny made it seem like he was already gone and was never coming back. It was too much. So since I knew that the day after our fight Granny would not be home during the day, the house would be empty and open for me to carry out my plan.

When I woke up that morning, I couldn’t remember falling asleep. But I did remember that today was to be the last time I would wake up.

Suicide Day

I arrived at my third-period class. I saw a girl who talked trash about me all the time—she didn’t know that I knew. She walked by me, reached out her hand, and touched my hair.

“You have beautiful hair,” she said.

“I hate you,” I returned. “I hate you for saying that. I hate your shallowness.”

I hated myself for having long hair because if there was anything beautiful about it, it misrepresented me. I was terrible and worthless on the inside, but no one cared about that. No one knew. This girl cared about hair and nails and shoes—that’s it. I hated her for that.

So I grabbed the scissors from my teacher’s desk, went to the bathroom, and cut off all my hair. Already it was too much to stay at school and face people any longer. I interrupted my plan of telling people off and walked out of school, and went straight home.

I didn’t want to carry the constant pain of my life in my heart anymore.

The Joke That Saved Me

“What are you doing home? What happened to your hair? Answer me!”

I didn’t.

Granny should have been at the hospital with Gramps like she said she was going to be, but she wasn
’
t. She was home. When I walked in the door I headed straight for the backyard where I was allowed to smoke. But she saw me and stopped me.

“Please, leave me alone. I just wanna smoke,” I said. That
’
s when she snatched the pack of cigarettes out of my hand.

“No. And you aren
’
t smoking anymore. That
’
s it.”

Something about her doing this really sent me into a meltdown. Smoking felt like the only thing I had left in the world, and she wanted to take it. I lost it.

“Gramps bought me those because
you
said I was allowed to smoke! I
’
m losing my mind! I need a cigarette! Give them back! Please, just leave me alone so I can smoke! That
’
s all I
’
m asking. Please!”

I threw all of the pain of my heart into this issue of her taking my cigarettes so that I could deflect her from the fact that I was really losing it because she was getting in my way. She was interrupting my plan just by being home. But she saw straight through my irrational screaming fit over cigarettes. That
’
s when she began to scream back at me. Her voice has a particular way of cutting through anything.

“Something’s wrong with you! You’re going to church!”

“
No, I
’
m not. Church is for fake, hypocritical, naïve people who don
’
t know anything about anything! Church is a joke!”

I can
’
t remember what she said after that, but she said it for an hour in the loudest, sharpest, highest pitched tone I could ever remember hearing up to that point in my life. I finally made a simple, rational decision. I did not want to spend my last day on earth listening to this woman scream at me this way. In order to get her to shut up, I told her I would go to church.

It was a Wednesday, so they were having an evening service at Pass Road Baptist Church. Granny was not “dressed appropriately,” so she didn’t come in. She dropped me off at the front doors and parked right there so that she could make sure I didn
’
t run away.

I sat in the back row in the corner as far away as I could from anything or anyone. I slouched down and closed my eyes, wishing it would hurry up and be over. I had a prejudice against southern accents and thought of Mississippians as unintelligent because of the way they talked. So when the
preacher, Brother Edgar, trolled on with his thick southern twang, I hated him.

Then he stopped talking. Right in the middle of his speech, he stopped.

“The Lord wants me to change direction with the topic here,” he twanged. “The Lord wants me to talk about families.”