Chap. 13 - A Continuation

18 Jul, 2025

The First 23 Years (Cont'd.)

We never know, when all is going well or not too well at all, when a few words, perhaps an event will occur that turns your world upside down. There was such an event in Michigan that would catapult my family into a darkness that made the moments before Michigan seem a bit lighter.

Maybe you've known this too. Some turning points aren’t marked by thunder or fire. They begin with a tremble—a single thread loosening in the tapestry. The soul often knows before the mind does: Something is about to shift.

It started after my father was robbed. Dad was paid every two weeks and on payday he and some work buddies would go out for a few beers at the end of the shift. On one of those nights—as the story goes—my father was robbed as he walked to his car.

We lived paycheck to paycheck so this was pretty devastating. There we were living in a brand new home with a brand new car - payments to make on both - and now no money coming in for another two weeks. I don't know how my mom managed to buy food but we somehow survived it. Or did we?

I look back now and wonder if that moment—the robbery, the silence that followed—was a kind of soul turning. Not a punishment, but a pivot. A crack through which the deeper work of this lifetime began to seep in. I didn’t know then that darkness can sometimes be a form of initiation.

It was some time later we all went to a wedding. That evening when we got home, something triggered in my father. I remember him lying on the couch crying. My father crying. Unheard of! But there he was, crying. My mother was sitting next to him trying to comfort him. The atmosphere was quite sober.

I don't recall how it was after that except that a day came when we were all moving back to Pennsylvania. No time for good-byes as I recall. Just packed up a truck and got in the car and moved.

What do you say to a child who’s just learned that home can vanish overnight? That wide open skies can be traded for alley shadows? Maybe nothing. Maybe you just sit with her. Maybe you listen.

The darkness there seemed darker than before we left for Michigan. There was now a contrast. Instead of a large ranch house with a big yard both in back of the house and in front, with wide open space and skies, we were living in a small house in an alley across from a warehouse. Again, a basement kitchen—this time barely a yard. I can only imagine now how devastated my mother must have been. I don't believe she ever recovered so whatever her anger was about when I was 5, it seemed to go into hiding when we lived in Michigan but it came blasting out like an unrelenting wind when we ended up in such a dark awful place.

I wonder if, when life collapses, a soul chooses to enter the fire more deeply. Not to suffer—but to remember. To burn off the illusions of control, of comfort, of safety purchased by status. The anger that returned to my mother wasn’t new—it had only been paused, softened by Michigan’s space. And now, it roared again, perhaps because she too was grieving a life that had slipped through her fingers.

There are lifetimes within lifetimes. Some fall apart so the soul can gather what was scattered before. The return to Pennsylvania wasn’t just a move. It was a descent—an underworld journey. And even in the forgetting, the soul was watching.

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