Page 49 of There I Find Hope

I love horseback riding. I haven’t done it much, in fact only once, but it was a lot of fun. I think, maybe it’s who you’re with just as much as the actual riding that makes it fun. I suppose since my experience is limited, I don’t know for sure, but the one time I went, I had the best company in the world. And that made all the difference.

I’d love to go again, but only if I could go with the same person. I don’t think I’d want to go with anyone else.

I’m really happy that you’re doing better. That’s something I’ve been praying for. I think your mom was wise when she said that time would heal, but I also think that you have to have the right mindset, and you’ve worked hard to have that. I admire that. Not everyone can do that. And of course, I think people do it at their own pace.

As for worrying about forgetting about your son. I don’t think you need to worry about that. A mother doesn’t forget her child. Whether that child is with her, or whether he’s on the other side of the earth, whether he’s in heaven with the Father. But I can understand the fear. You love them, and you don’t want them to become obsolete. But they won’t. Blake influenced your life. You are the person that you are because of his seven years on this earth.

Isn’t that true?

Wouldn’t you be a very different person if you hadn’t had those seven years with him?

I think that’s the thing that’s taken me some time to understand. I want the bad people out of my life, but I also owe them a thank you. Because every bad experience I’ve had, every bad actor I’ve come in contact with, every dishonest or rotten person who has been in my life, has made me a better person. Whether it’s because they opened my eyes to the fact that I might possibly be acting the way they were. Or whether it’s because I determined in my heart that I would not be like them, it doesn’t matter. They made me better.

Isn’t that a paradox? How we should thank the people who have been the worst to us because they’ve brought out the best in us?

I don’t know. Maybe that’s not true for everyone. I was just with someone the other day who said of someone they didn’t like, “If that’s the kind of game they want to play, I can play that game. They want to do that, I’ll do that right back to them.”

I guess in my heart I was thinking, you’re not allowing them to make you better. You’re letting them bring you down to their level.

I didn’t say that. That person wouldn’t have been very receptive. But I guess that’s when people who are unkind or mean to us don’t make us better. They bring us down.

I don’t want to let that happen. Not to me.

I suppose the same thing is true when you lose someone. You say, “Death hurts, and it hurts because I loved them. So I’m never going to love anyone again.”

Maybe we say that about marriage relationships too. “I was in a bad one, so I’m never going to be in another one, because I don’t want to have that pain again.”

Although, as I’m writing that, there’s a certain amount of wisdom there. After all, I’m terrible at picking people to be in relationships with. It just makes sense that I probably shouldn’t do it again. I don’t know. I think about weird things sometimes.

Thanks for your letter. It made me smile.

Your friend,

Business Boy

Chapter 20

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