journal and praying. As I was writing, a guy named Alan came up to me. My first
thought was, “Oh great. Here I am trying to do my devotions and someone wants
to disturb me.” I welcomed him anyhow.
with my parents. I voiced my feelings to close friends. I told God how I felt.”
asked.
We were in love.”
He began telling me his life’s story. “I had one older
brother once. We were close. I loved him. We worked at my parents’ pharmacy.
They own two here in Granada.
But my brother hung around with the wrong people and got into drugs and
alcohol. It was bad. He sold everything for the drugs. He even sold his
clothes. My dad kicked him out of the house. I have a very hard headed father.
“So I cared for him as best I could. I brought him some of
my clothes. I tried to help him. My dad disowned him, though. He didn’t see
anything good in him. But he was my older brother. I was compelled to help him.
He lived on the streets like those dirty homeless men who have nothing. He
didn’t have anywhere to go. He lived like this for a while. Eventually he just
couldn’t take it any longer. He hung himself.”
I watched as Alan’s eyes turned red and welled up with tears
as he opened his wound for me to see. It was deeper than I thought at first.
“I was with a woman then. She had my heart. We had a
daughter. She’s beautiful. They’re both very beautiful. I was in the good
graces of my father and had been working at his pharmacy. He trusted me with
everything. But when my brother died, I went to one of his friends to talk. He
could see how great my pain was and said I should take these drugs he had and
I’d feel better. So I took them, hoping to forget my brother and the pain of
losing him.
“I began taking drugs pretty regularly after that. Every
weekend. But then I started drinking too and soon it became weekends and
Tuesdays. Then it was weekends, Monday and Tuesday. And it wasn’t long before I
was drinking and doing drugs all day every day.”
I looked at this man’s body – thin enough to make me wonder
when the last time was that he ate. His face was weeks unshaven. His toenails
showed themselves jagged and discolored through his sandals. I wondered if he
was still into drugs and alcohol every day.
“Sometimes I didn’t have money,” he continued. “My
girlfriend was asking for money all the time and I couldn’t always give it to
her. Plus I was always drinking and doing drugs and I didn’t last long at the
pharmacy after that. I started taking money from the register and my dad found
out. He fired me from the job and kicked me out. He put me right on the street
just like my brother. My girlfriend couldn’t take it, either, so she also
turned her back on me. Everyone that I loved pushed me away.”
Again Alan showed me a tender part of his heart. I looked
around to see people beginning to file into the chairs nearby for the Sunday
morning service. I felt the urgency of getting a shower and changed before it
started. I hated that I thought that then. I decided I would sit with Alan as
long as it took. Who knows if this man has ever said all this, if he has anyone
at all or if he’s at the end of his rope. Tears again gathered at the bottom of
his red eyes. He sniffed a bit, looked down at the ground and tried to gather
himself together to tell me the rest of his story.
I will continue Alan’s story tomorrow…
