Here's to Looking Through a Narrow View

I didn’t believe in omens until that stumbling alcoholic of a curb outside of the Epoch coffee shop struck its drunk ‘screw you’ into Gus, my white Kia Spectra’s bumper on that apparently fateful Tuesday evening. The signs were there— an expired coupon, a snapped-in-two-shoelace, and Taylor Swift’s ‘Trouble’ nagging away on every freaking station— but even after my car bruised his jaw on that ‘begrudged barricade,’ we marched on. I don’t know, I guess all those hokey high school English classes taught us ‘not to shy away from adversity,’ that we could only make it to Heaven with welting knuckles and dusty knees, but sometimes the universe is just so tired of making us so tired. Hell, it was just trying to do us a favor because never did I think a little white lie could trigger a rage so white hot. As the Xs on your hands stretched with your clenching fists, as your face reddened along with the sunset behind us, I could do nothing but know that futility had me in its grasp. You have your father’s temper. Your mama always used to say that. He soaked his heart in whiskey, drank until he could no longer see himself in you, and chugged away his edginess from your face. He drowned himself in his unholy water knowing he could only love the little things mama was kind enough to pass onto you so that he knew which parts to avoid when slamming his regret into the only thing he was supposed to have been proud of. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were so mad. I’m sorry you had to relay your father’s resentment that night. I’m sorry you spent the moments afterward crying not for him, not for yourself, but for your father, apologizing punch after punch; you will never please him. No, you will not find concurrence with each other, but, trust me, there is forgiveness somewhere amid your bitter inheritance. You are asking for forgiveness from all the wrong people. Think, not with your fists but with your heart. Feel, and take that regret to the cross. You can find forgiveness if you just look up. Forgiveness is in the way the sun keeps on glowing. Little saplings stretch up, craving, stealing its warmth, and though they never come face-to-face, Mr. Sunshine keeps on giving. He will be there to pick you up when you’re at the end of yourself. I promise your knuckles are already welting. You don’t have to spend eternity on your knees; Mr. Sunshine has already resurrected for you a world of gold, but you have a very narrow view of heaven despite the unfathomable depths of this forgiveness. It’s soft. And it’s gentle. Forget your precedence because Mr. Sunshine is here, and now love will overcome.