Reflection of a Knife

Having been married for ten years and being a mother of two, you’d think I would have held some sense of accomplishment in myself, but the truth is, I held no sense of self-worth. My ex-husband and I had begun experiencing marital issues. (He wanted to rule, I had issues with that. Go figure.)

I loved my husband but deep down, I'd always been afraid that if I made just the right mistake, he would either leave me, or kill me. I think somewhere in my subconscious I knew the latter was unlikely, but the implication existed enough that I questioned the possibility of it.

He had a friend who’d recently purchased a “special needs” home. The level of disrepair could have staved off the extreme make-over team, but my ex-husband was a handy man and not entirely convinced that the house was without hope. After work at night, he would stop off at his friend’s house, have a couple of beers and help him and his wife with some of the work.

His visits became longer and longer, until at some point our two little boys had not seen him in several weeks. He was coming in well after they had gone to bed, and they left in the morning before he got up. I rarely saw him myself.

After talking about it for months, our anniversary came and he told me he would come straight home that night and we could talk it over.

I put the boys to bed an hour later than usual, having been certain that he would come home. They ate well really didn’t seem to miss him much at dinner. Once they were tucked in, I called my ex-husband’s friend and asked to speak with him. I could hear hammers going and my ex-husband told them to tell me he was busy and would call back in a while.

Determined, I waited until about 2 a.m., and called again.

When his friend answered sleepily, having been in bed quite some time, it became obvious to me that my ex-husband was at that time, sharing a bed with some other woman.

I had no way of knowing that this woman was the sister-in-law of the friend who’s house my ex-husband was working on, any more than I could know that she was living with them at the time and sharing her bed with my husband.

The realization charged through me sharply and I gave in to uncontrollable weeping. My ex-husband’s friend, (who was not without a heart), apologized and asked me if everything was all right. Lying, I pulled myself together, told him I was fine and hung up.

After much deliberation, I wondered if perhaps I should just give up on the marriage. He had cheated on me while I was pregnant with our first son, and then while I was in the hospital giving birth to our second son, and I had forgiven him.

I had always believed that if you forgive someone, you shouldn't re-visit their guilt every time you argue; you should forget about it and move on. Under normal circumstances, this is what you have to do to preserve a marriage and I would not regret that decision. We had six really good years after that.

I was told daily that I was fat and stupid and no one would ever have me. I was lucky he put up with me at all to hear him and his mother tell it. Every day I was continually reminded that dreams are for suckers; that I needed to get my head out of the clouds, and get a grip on reality.

My life had been plunged into darkness from which there appeared to be no return. The only man I'd ever loved didn't love me back. Here I was; thirty-two years old, fat, stupid and completely incapable of doing anything professionally because I was never allowed to work for more than a couple of months. The only reason my current job had lasted the past eight months, was because he had been preoccupied elsewhere.

My life was over.

My kids would be taken better care of in my absence. Without me in the way, my ex could be free to love who he chose, rather than being stuck with me.

I took a butcher knife from the kitchen drawer and I placed it on the glass coffee table in the living room. I turned the lights off and sat in the dark until my eyes adjusted. Light from the street lamp outside trickled through the blinds until all I could see clearly was the blade, the razor sharp edge glistening in the dark.

I considered my life.

Nothing I longed to accomplish could happen now. This was the third time I caught my husband cheating and I wasn't going to be able to forgive it again. I wanted to do better than my mother did in marriage, and I hadn't succeeded. I wanted to publish my first book before I was thirty and I longed to make a difference in the world.

What man in his right mind wanted an over-weight, thirty-two-year-old failure with two kids? Didn't my kids deserve a mom who could take care of them? There was no way my husband would let me leave anyway. He had told me long ago that if I ever tried to leave him, he would get his kids and there would be nothing I could do about it.

I hadn’t seen my own family in over a year because my ex-husband had insisted that they couldn't be part of our lives. He hated them and the feeling was mutual. Torn between the two, I was stuck in one place… with my children. No one would miss me. I was as invisible as a ghost and ready to become one.

An overwhelming sense of helplessness gripped me. My heart slowed to a steady, thick throbbing as I gazed at that knife.

My pulse quickened, as I contemplated how best to do this so that once it had been done, it could not be undone. I considered slashing my wrists, but I know what a sissy-Mary I am. I would have taped them up as life slipped from me and called for help.

I needed to do something that once it was done, I couldn't go back. If I cut my throat, I would die quickly and not be able to call out for help. That was the way I would do it.

Something about the knife seemed abstract in the darkness. Its reflection took on a life of its own as I thought about my husband finding me there. I knew it wouldn’t hurt him. This was a gift I was giving him. He could go on and love this other woman, as he could not find it in his heart to love me.

I reached for the knife. I snatched the weapon from the table but as I did so, something moved in the dark. I stopped, with the knife in mid air between the table and myself.

Someone sat down next to me in the darkness. Terror seized my heart as I scooted down the couch. Turning to see who it was, I felt foolish to find myself alone. You might think that the interruption would sway me enough that I might come to my senses… but it didn’t.

I began to move the knife and a man’s voice said to me in the darkness:

“Wait”.

I gasped. Someone was there.

“Who is it?” I had the knife pointed toward the farther reach of the couch where there was no light.

My heart raced inside me. My breath quickened, and my mouth went dry.

“Who’s there?” I asked again, jabbing the knife into the air before me, then sinking into the corner of the couch.

The voice came again:

“Your husband will not find you. Your son shall find you and it will murder his spirit even unto eternity.”

I could literally see in my mind as if it had already happened, my eldest son Chris, coming down the hall in the morning and finding my lifeless body.

I took a deep breath, put the knife away and tried to think of my situation by another angle. The more I thought about it…

The madder I got.

I considered my mother.

She and my father divorced. Yes, she could have raised us better, but she did her best and we were well loved. She had limited means and I hadn't turned out so badly as my ex-husband’s family supposed.

I considered my husband’s family. No one in it had ever been past the eleventh grade. I had a diploma and a college education. Though I’d not had my books published, I had illustrated a children’s book, and many of my poems had won awards.

Still… I couldn't find it in me to completely fault my husband for his earlier indiscretions in our marriage. He was only eighteen when we married. We grew a lot together and we grew a lot apart.

I went to bed.

In the morning, I rose, called my boss and asked for the day off. I was a supervisor in this job, so asking for my first day off was a cinch. I woke the children, got them their breakfast and walked them to the bus.

As I came in the back door, I set my husband’s uniform out like I did every morning, got his shoes, found his pager, assembled his things just in case he went to work, even though I fully intended to ask him to stay home. Being a supervisor at his job without ever having asked for time off, I felt certain he could arrange it.

I cooked his breakfast and then woke him up. Taking his breakfast tray, he flipped on the Sports Center before I had the chance to tell him good morning. I stood between him and the television as he took a bite from his toast.

“I want to talk to you about last night.” I started. Before I could get the rest of the sentence out, he barked at me.

“Look! Either last night was okay or it wasn’t. There’s no sense in arguing about it. If you say I shouldn’t do it, I won’t.”

“You know last night wasn’t alright.” I replied in calm even tones. “We’ve talked about this every day for the last three months. I took today off, and I want you to do the same. I want…”

He didn’t let me finish.

“Fine.” He shouted. “I won’t do it again. Now move!’

“Honey.” I said, refusing to get out of the front of the television. “I love you. I just want our marriage to go back to the way it was, when you loved me too.”

“I do love you.” He answered, chewing. “I just want to see the Sports Center right now.”

I sighed, charging him with my eyes so that he might see the hurt he’d caused.

“I can’t take the day off.” He muttered, cutting into his egg. As the yellow spilled over his plate he began listing the work orders and things he had to do right down to the last detail.

“There are two other people in your department.” I reminded him. “Can’t you do this one thing for me? Please?”

“I said no dammit!” He screamed, his face turning redder. “Look if you want a roof over your head and food in your fat mouth, you’re going to have to let me go to work.”

Under normal circumstances, I would either start crying or begin yelling back, but today…

I was relieved.

It was the most miraculous feeling I’ve ever had. I was free.

I went about my morning chores with a light heart and began singing, (Amazing Grace) as I worked. When my ex-husband came out dressed and ready for work, he apologized and promised to come home early so we could talk. (Sound familiar?)

I kissed him dutifully on the cheek and told him to have a wonderful day. I waved good-bye until I could no longer see him, because I did that every morning and I couldn’t let him know that the second he was out of sight…

I would be packing.

I called my mother. She backed-up a U-Haul two hours later. In two days, I had a job at a resort, and an apartment at the beach.

I never told anyone that I had considered suicide, because to me? That was a sign of weakness. What my family didn’t know, couldn’t hurt their perception of me.

At some point, my brother, (who incidentally had begun his preaching career) asked me to church. One of his pastor-friends had just built his first church, and my brother was going to see the dedication that Sunday morning. I went with him, and I took the boys with me.

There was a man preaching named "Brother Gary". He began by playing piano and even though I didn't understand what the word “anointed” meant at the time, I knew that he had something special.

Midway through one of his songs, he stopped playing.

He stood silently for a moment, then strolled to the center of the stage as if listening to the ceiling. He said…

“I have something I'm supposed to say to someone, and I don’t know who it is yet, so let me just relate to you an experience of mine so that you can understand that God still is, and He still loves you.”

At this time, he began relating a story to us about how his wife decided to leave him. He didn’t get into any great detail, but he did say that one night after she left, he sat all alone in the dark, crying from loneliness.

As he spoke, he began making his way between the rows of metal chairs (no pews yet), and he would stop behind each seat as though trying to ascertain whether he had found the one he was supposed to be talking to yet or not.

Behind one woman’s chair he stopped and put a hand on her shoulder and said; “Yes sister. He will come to God.” She began sobbing. Later I learned that she had been sitting there asking the Lord if her husband would ever get back to his belief in God.

This continued for quite a while. My brother and his family and I sat in the last row. My children grew antsy and my eldest, Chris, had to go, so my brother took him outside to restroom.

They came back, just as the pastor’s discussion got interesting. He said that when we were so emerged in sin ourselves that God could not reach us, He would often do what He must to keep us from harming those who were without sin, or beneath the age of accountability.

He said that one night, he had decided that despite his love and belief in God, he cared so very little for his own life, he decided to take it.

He said he reached up to the top of his refrigerator where he kept his gun, and took it down to check it for bullets.

(My younger son had to go to the restroom, so I sent him outside with his older brother.)

Brother Gary said that the weapon was fully chambered. He snapped it back together, put the gun beneath his chin…

and pulled the trigger.

(My eldest son returned without his brother, Steven.)

The evangelist then said he checked the gun again. Everything seemed in order and he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t gone off.

(My brother took Chris with him and went outside to see why my youngest son hadn't come back.)

The preacher chuckled as my brother passed by him and continued by telling us as he made his way to the last row, that within mere seconds after he had taken that misfire, his wife and son came home. He said he realized at that moment, that God was using his son to reach him, and trying to keep Gary from making a huge mistake. He said that sometimes, the truth is too ugly to look at and we want to get away, but it would never let you down. Life can be quite ugly after all, but when you look into the eyes of your child, everything is right in the world.

He told us that though he and his wife were only reunited for a season, the Lord made him strong enough to bear it and he was grateful for the intervention.

(My brother came back in with my six-year-old and said that the door handle had fallen off and he had to get his tool kit from the trunk to get him out.)

Brother Gary came around to the back of our row, put his hand on my shoulder and said…

“I see the reflection of a knife in the glass. It’s dark, sister… so dark.” Here, a sob caught in his throat, and my brother put his head down saying out loud,

“Oh. Shoot.”

He would never have thought in a million years that this message had been for me. Neither would I have, even though I had lived something very similar.

“The Lord came to you in your hour of darkness” Gary told me, “and only His reflection will stay. He’s sorry He had to use your son to reach you, sister… but it was the only way.”

My heart crumbled inside of me. The tears streamed hot over my cheeks. Of course, my children had managed to get lost in who had whose piece of candy and were completely ignoring what transpired around them, and I am so glad.

I cried bitterly with regret for the sin I nearly committed and would not have been able to return from.

Here I am, almost twenty-five years later and the image of that reflection occasionally revisits me in my sleep. I see the sharp edge of indecision and doubt as a clear reminder that only God is absolute.