Chapter Snippet
 
THE END OF THE ROAD
 
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him.” (Luke 22:42-43)
 
No one ever tells you that heartbreak is a debilitating disease. Most times, I could override heartbreak by returning to the default setting of Little Miss Perfect, the overachiever or going back to John. Performers and overachievers are adept at tucking away the pain and powering through; for finding a safety net. But this was different. Little Miss Perfect had failed. The day after everything fell apart, I called out from work. I was suicidal and homicidal. I wanted to kill myself, Vaughn and his whole family; anyone connected to him. Sad and depressed don’t seem adequate enough to describe how I felt. I can, however, say that I was terrified of the life ahead of me. I couldn’t even get out of my bed. I had a separate counselor from the marital counselor that Vaughn and I shared. When I called her, she didn’t answer. I called my mother. “Mom, come get these kids,” I said. “No Vivian. You need to…” Click. I hung up on her. She was not hearing me. I called Pastor’s daughter. “Carolyn, I need you to come get these kids. I need to commit myself because I’ve lost it and I’m not thinking right.” I also called Aunt Debbie, Pastor’s sister. She gave me the idea to take the kids to daycare. By this time, Bria was two and Baby John was six. My baby boy was picking out their clothes because I couldn’t. It would later become routine to pay for the kids to go to daycare everyday and go back home and get in the bed. On one of those mornings, I dropped them to daycare and the daycare lady asked, “Are you okay?” “No,” I said. I couldn’t even fake it for her. Carolyn and Auntie Debbie arrived around the same time on the day I was losing it. I told them what happened. We prayed. They tried to encourage me. They may have done their best work that day because if it were not for them, I would not have made it. By the time my counselor called me back, I didn’t feel the need to commit myself on that day.