A Wasted Life (Intro and Chapter 1)

 

Introduction

This story began two and a half decades ago when I was in college. It appeared on the page late one night at my writing partner’s house. We munched on popcorn as we typed away. She wrote poetry, and I wrote stories! We both loved this story, but somehow it never got finished. I felt like I didn’t have enough life experiences to write it.

My friend seemed so much older: married with children! She must have been in her thirties! Haha! Those were the days.

Now, here I sit, after midnight, in another time and space. I don’t know why I decided to try this story at this time. The floppy disk I saved it on might still be around here somewhere, but it would be an antique for my laptop. I don’t need it anyway, the story lives inside of me. It has been here all this time, and it has changed, as I have. Hopefully, for the better. Though part of me wonders if it will be as interesting as my naïve, young adult self, wrote it a long time ago.

One thing I changed, just this week, is the main character. I think that has been my problem all along. I had the wrong person as the main character.

 

 

Chapter One

He Never Did Listen to Me

 

“You could have been a doctor! You could have saved people’s lives! You could have saved YOUR life!” I said to the form on the hospital bed.

I stood in the doorway, too afraid of my own emotions to get any closer. There he was, just as I had expected to find him. Broken and frail, yet still smiling – no LAUGHING at me. That silly grin and twinkle in his eyes. I could see it all from here. How could I love and hate someone all at once? My youngest brother.

I had been twelve when he was born, almost a teenager. He was MY baby. No, not like THAT. I mean, I was his favorite! I could get him to burp when no one else could. Later, it was my bed he crawled into. I even taught him to read. We were playing in the tree fort. I wrote him a little story using his name and a few short, easy words.

“God loves Jonah.

Jonah loves God.”

I had him practice until he had it … well, memorized probably. Mom was so pleased she said I could do his reading with him from then on. We read in the fort, in the hammock, in the boat, and snuggled on the couch.

That was when I was seventeen, and Jonah was five. That was before I became an adult. -before I turned selfish.

I don’t think he ever accepted the fact that I was an adult. Which is strange because I highly doubt he remembers when I wasn’t an adult.

Poor kid had abandonment issues because his SISTER moved away and left him behind. With his own, biological parents!

Grandpa and Grandma tried hard to be supportive of my parents’ choice to have five kids AND homeschool, but I think they worried we wouldn’t get a real education. They started a fund when each of us were born to use for college. I used mine to go through nursing school. All our siblings went to college and got good jobs.

And then there was Jonah. Our local college has a program where high schoolers can take college classes: but Jonah just wasn’t feeling it. When he was eighteen, he still wasn’t ready for college. An uncle invited him to help him build tiny houses.

 He was so excited the day he left. His Toyota pickup piled up with all his belongings. I was pregnant and had a toddler on my hip. He had laughed at me that day too. That teasing little brother laugh.

“Be careful!” I told him. “Make sure you use safety gear! Don’t cut any fingers off!”

“Why not?” he laughed “You don’t work at the ER anymore anyway. Don’t worry!”

“It’s okay for him to take a year off before college.” My Mom assured me. “Each person has a different path. We can’t really force anyone to be something they are not. The Bible says, ‘Raise up a child in the way he should go’ only God knows the path that is best for Jonah. I don’t want to be the one to stand in the way of God’s perfect plan for Jonah’s life.”

I knew she was right then, but now I wasn’t sure. Now that he lay in that hospital bed broken and hurting.

“You promised me you wouldn’t get hurt!” I pouted, as if a person can keep such a promise.

He mumbled something, but I couldn’t hear him, so I shuffled closer to the bed.

“That was when I left to build tiny houses, not as a tow truck driver!” he defended himself.

I scowled “You didn’t have to be a tow truck driver. You could have used the money for any career! I always thought you would have been an excellent doctor. If you had received ANY medical training at all, you would have known not to ignore a warm, swollen leg. You could have died from that blood clot!"

I was still angry.

"You chose this path!"

A hot tear rolled down my cheek.

“Yep” he said softly, “I chose this path, and, if I had the opportunity to choose again, I would still choose THIS.”

I stood in the quiet. My mind numb. Wishing I could wake up and all of this would be a dream. Wishing I could turn back time and… and what? What would I change? Did I really think that I would have done a better job of managing Jonah’s life than he had? Was I really that controlling?

Suddenly, I knew nothing.

A nurse came in and I wandered out the door and down the hall. It was so strange being the one leaving the patient’s room. -the one asking the questions instead of giving the answers.

Question like: Who was your visitor? 

Just his controlling big sister.

 Or was she just being helpful?

Who was he? -this man, laying on the bed, telling her he was perfectly capable of making his own life choices and willing to accept the consequences of those actions.

She laughed at herself. Of course he was right.

But did he have any idea how the consequences of his actions would snowball, affecting people he loved and even some he had never met?