The Barn That Saved Me

I needed a private place. My feet dragged along twigs and sod as I headed to the old abandoned barn. In my right hand, a twelve-foot rope dragged along with the same despaired movement of my feet. The left side of the barn door was intact, but the right side looked like some monster took a bite of the door and left it ravaged. I swung it open and the door bounced against the wailing hinge three, four, five times.

The sun was gone, as were most of the panels to the roof, allowing enough moonlight in to see a high beam still intact. I took the rope and began to thread it through both of my hands, examining the course and unforgiving like texture of the rope. I yanked through different segments to make sure the rope would not break. Then I dropped it to the floor, and my dragging feet took me back to the truck to get the ladder.

I had left the note in the truck. I hoped whoever would find me would find the truck first, to caution and prepare them for what they would find. I wasn’t here to traumatize anyone. I wasn’t here to hurt anyone. I wasn’t even here to hurt myself. I just wanted it to end. I had hit the end of my rope. That is why a rope waited for me as my dragging feet walked me back to the barn. An owl I had not seen before hooted and looked down at me. The owl knew; this barn has been marked.

I placed the rope over me shoulder and held the ladder upright close to the beam. I went to spread the ladder but it felt jammed. I tried to shake it open and it rattled with a violent protest as if it was clutching something valuable it refused to give up. I felt like a vial thief, or something even worse. I needed it to open. I was going to get it to open, so I muscled the ladder’s rails as the hinges squealed in protest until it clunked open in tears as I finally overpowered it. I could hear the ladder’s protest and plead still to not do this, yet still I chose to ignore it. I placed one dragging foot on the first step of the ladder, and my hand along the side rail. The other dragging foot found one step higher as I ascended the ladder until I had sight over the beam. I lowered my shoulder so the rope slid into my hand, but I underestimated the ladder’s fight. As I went to swing the rope over the beam, the step broke and flung me off the ladder. I landed on my side with my head toward the back wall of the barn.

I don’t know how long I layed there. I believe I lost consciousness, for when I came to, the angle of the moonlight now shined soft white and gray tinged light through the barn. I pressed myself onto my hands and knees and felt the achiness of the fall. I looked behind me to see the broken ladder laying on the floor. I let out a big exhausted exhale and pushed myself back onto my knees and that is when I saw her in front of me. The moonlight outlined her halo, and from her arms and hands extended outward moonlight flooded toward me. Awe struck me. Forgiveness enveloped me. Deafening silence surrounded me. I wept. She stayed with me through as much of the night I can remember, consoling my weeping for all the things I thought accounted for my miserable life. As I cried my heart out, really I was crying the pain out, and there was so much pain, so I wept and wept until I slept. When I awoke, I looked up again, and still there she was, but different; a beautiful stained-glass window of Mother Mary.

Before I left the old barn that morning I touched the stain glass window with curiosity, wonder, and reverence. I wonder if she lived in this window but I knew that not to be true. I still bowed and said my own prayer of grace and gratitude. I went over to the ladder laying on the floor from our battle, and ran my hand over the steps that broke, and thanked it for breaking for me, and also teaching me, that everything, everything, is alive. I took the rope so that no one could use it. I made my way back to the truck with feet that walked instead of dragged, and I looked back at the old barn, that abandoned, overlooked, run down barn; that barn that saved me.

I drove for an hour, windows down, feeling the fresh breeze of new air of a new day, and I could smell the water in the air from the river that followed the road. That’s when I heard the cry for help. I pulled over and got out of the truck to see a man clutching a branch in the middle of the river; his kayak overturned and already heading way further down the rocky stream. I grabbed that rope and ran to the river.