Armageddon

There was one CSI episode (no idea which city it was in, though, there's way too many to remember) that captivated me. A very young female investigator helped in the case of a murdered 19-year-old girl. Of course, in the end they caught the perpetrator, but on physical evidence alone. They could not find a shred of motive for him to do it. In the interrogation room, she looked at him and asked "Why did you do it?" Remaining silent, already convicted beyond rescue, he called out to be retrieved, that he was done talking to the detective.

Then, a week later, she came down to the prison, a haunted glow in her face. She arranged for him to come down to the phone booths, and he started with an ugly twisted smile when he saw who it was. Pressing the handpiece tight to her ear, she pleaded with him on the verge of tears "Please...I need to know why you did this..."

Lacking emotion except for the hint of a self-gratifying sneer, he said "You came all the way down here for that?" Placing the phone back in the cradle, he got up and walked away, leaving her to be haunted by her faceless demons.

......

There are just some things that we'll never get a chance to understand in this life. Things we throw money and time and emotion at to protect and understand it. And whoever the person is or whatever the problem is, sometimes they hang up the phone and you're left with the loose ends of their life in yours and no where to anchor them for understanding. And for some people, like me, not knowing and being helpless is the most torturous and frustrating feeling every emotioned into existence.

But why? Why do we need to know? What comfort could we possibly reap from an understanding though it changes nothing and reroutes no mistakes? Maybe it's that last-ditch instinct to try and something, that maybe, just maybe, if I knew...I could make it right.

I'm not trying to compare my distress on an equivalent to a loss of life, nothing like that. But that image, that message, hangs with me because of the starkness and honesty of it. I would like to say I have no regret, and am known to say it anyways when asked...but the thing I regret is not knowing that Why answer. I want to know, I want to make connections, I want to explain it right into oblivion and forgetting. Yet I do not have the luxury, and it's like a thorn in my side.

I make no apologies for what I did. I review my past actions and don't find myself in the wrong with this particular person. The details go in circles and are unnecessary to relate or dwell on, but that's what baffles me most. Maybe I'm being unobjective and vain. Maybe this will "build character" or whatever the older people in our lives say it will do. Maybe I'm completely blind to a major character flaw I have. But I would hope if I had one that i would hear more about it than from a parting shot.

But I've learned something so far. It's one of those things that I've heard and read half of my life but have yet to own. I do not have to justify myself to him. Other more respected people in my life tell me something completely different about who I am and are in harmony with one another. His is not the standard I have to live by; I'm trying, and often failing, trying to follow Christ. And here's a test He has put in front of me. I've done enough and now it's time to open my hands and let him take the dangling ends of this boy's life in mine.

the boy may have hung up the phone, but I'm ok with that. The prison walls are behind me and there's a fresh day and life ahead of me. And I want to live it fully and unburdened.

So that's exactly what I'll do.