The Key to my Soul

My mother Shannon passed away when I was ten. I cried. A lot. I remember lying in the same bed as my brother and my dad when all of my family was down prepping for the funeral and screaming "mommy! mommy! mommy!" Over and over again wailing it repeatedly into my teddy bear snowy. That week I seemed to lose my tears because since then I've cried very few times.  I cried when I was sent to the principal’s office for the first time in 5th grade (but I'm not sure if this should count because I did it so I would get out of trouble because they thought I was crying about my mom.... Shameless I know but ever the opportunist.).

 

The next time I cried was when I found out my grandmother died when I was 13. My dad had shown up at my junior high to tell the news to me after school. I stayed at school and minutes later my science teacher, Mrs. K, pulled me into her classroom and held me as I cried about my grandmother.  This incident really dried me up because it would be almost four years before I cried again.  This time she had a name.

She was undoubtedly my first true love.  I met her at EFY (a church camp) and we hit it off immediately!  She lived in a different state but that didn't stop us from falling in love. I was almost seventeen when she changed my life. She sent me a scripture passage about a man named capita in Moroni.  It described all his great qualities and at the end it said that if all men were like him that "the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men."  

Next to the verse in her scriptures was written "perfect husband!" Oh how I wanted to be that for her!! I was able to go see her and spend a week with her and her family. It was then in the back if her parents minivan that she and I shared our first kiss. My first kiss ever.... Well not ever but the first one that meant   anything. It was 2 weeks after returning home that she text me and told me that she had cheated on me with her best friend’s boyfriend and that we were over.  I was crushed! My heart was torn from my chest and shown to me but not because she broke up with me but because of how much she had changed for the worse.  I remember sitting up with my dad crying because I knew that it could never be now.

 

After Aubrey it was only about a year before I cried twice more.  One will seem quite trivial to most of you but other wrestlers will understand.  I cried after my final varsity match of my senior season.  The realization that I would probably never wrestle again hit me like a ton of bricks and I cried sobbed really.

 

Then the summer after graduation I again attended EFY. There I met Nathan but to avoid confusion with another Nathan in our group he chose to go by his middle name Andy. Andy and I were inseparable that week. We talked about music, games, our secrets, our sorrows, what made us happy and our testimonies of Christ and of course girls!!!  We quickly became best friends and realized our kindred spirits.  

          That week ended far too quickly and we had to go our separate ways. Andy to Utah and I home to SoCal. We parted with promises of reuniting and making a band. 

          We kept in touch and had planned to hang out in December.  I got a text one night in October from a mutual friend. "Sam! They're saying Andy killed himself is it true?"  I called his phone. His mom picked up and confirmed that my friend and her son had indeed taken his own life.  I went in to my father's bedroom and told him what I had learned and cried. 

 

Only a year would pass before I would cry again. October 30th 2010 I was in the MTC and discovered I needed to squire a stronger testimony in my beliefs before I tried to teach others them. As I knelt in prayer I felt my mother’s embrace... A feeling I hadn't felt in almost nine years. 

          To say the least I broke down and shared a very tender moment with my roommates and we were all able to grow a little spiritually that night.  

         

Again a year later I cried due to a combination of serving in a hard area with a hard companion and the compilation of all the loss I had ever felt in my life coming to a head on new-year’s eve 2011.  My companion and I were heading home from a drudgingly slow day when a man, obviously drunk, shouted

"HEY!!!  ARE YOU MORMONS?!?"

We told him we where and he went off on how he did not believe in god man or the devil and that all he believed in was himself and the money in his pocket.  Through the chilled air and his warm whiskey breath his drunken spittle flew as he spoke and pulled out the largest roll of cash I have ever seen! It was easily twice the size of my fist.

It is important that I set the scene now because his next words will set me off.  I had just passed through the anniversary of my best friend’s death and my mother’s birthday and then my best friend’s birthday and was now only a day away from my mother’s death anniversary.

          Ok now that that is taken care of the man leaned in real close to me and said, "F*** life! It aint worth it.  I should just give you this wad of cash and go for a walk on that frozen lake and pray that I fall through!"

I stepped off of my bicycle and stood toe to toe with the man and in the firmest voice I could muster told him that he was wrong and that life was worth it.  My companion misjudged the situation and though I was about to attack the man and started screaming at me to get back on my bike.  Anger and sorrow coursed through my veins as I reluctantly complied and we rode the rest of the way home.  I was ready to throw someone through the wall by the time I to my door.  The dam had burst and I through myself on to my bed and let every emotion course though my body all at once.  I was shortly transferred out of that area and away from that companion. 

 

It was almost 2 years till I would cry twice more so if you are keeping up with the time line then you know that these two incidents have happened quite recently.  In fact August and October are the exact months.

          The first is when a woman I had come to love deeply and who returned my love told me that she felt we needed to break up.  I didn't cry then.  I cried later that night when I was alone and venting my frustrations at God!  I sobbed and realized that I had lost a precious gift in my life and might not ever get it back.  I've become ok with this and I’m getting better every day.

         

The last time I cried was just last week.  My car got broken into and my battery stolen.  I was fine and replaced that battery then I opened the trunk and realized that my guitar had been stolen.  In front of my dad and unashamed I sobbed.  My guitar, my closest friend at the moment, my anti depressant, my encouragement, my voice gone!  How could someone do that to me!  Not a minute later I realized that this had become such an attachment to cause this response from me.

          So I guess that the best way to know a guy is to ask him when he cries.  That is the key to the soul.