Dying is the Easiest Part

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Question For Question

He could kill me. I just yelled at him. I even glared at him. He's indeed going to kill me. I wait for him to order his lion to devour me. I waited and waited but nothing.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says as if he could read my mind. He could read my mind.

I just look at him, clenching my teeth in both anger and in agony.

I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you.

I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you.

I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

"But you already did," I firmly say, angry tears proceed to fall from my eyes. "You already hurt me!" Buong diin kong sabi.

Angry may be an understatement of what I am feeling right now. All the excruciating pain came back. I attempted to overdose myself thinking that it would end my pain, pero bakit hanggang dito ay sinundan ako ng sakit? At nasaan ba ako? Bakit ako nandito?

For a second, I thought I shifted from a parallel universe where I could live as normal as I did before I left, but now that he reaveled himself to me, I've realized that nothing is normal.

Is this what the afterlife really is? Am I dead?

Hindi ko na alam.

Hindi na mahalaga.

Mas marami akong tanong sa kaisipan ko ngayon. Mga tanong na noon pa man ay hindi na tinantanan ang aking isipan.

"You abandoned me," I found myself telling him with a whole new level of bitterness that I have buried deep within me.

He looks at me with pain inside his beautiful eyes. "I never abandoned you, Maeve..." He shakes his head. "I will never do what you did to me," he says, making me pause for a second.

"I wasn't the one who let go. I wasn't the one who left... I stayed beside you, Maeve. Through it all." He says.

Ako naman ngayon ang umiling sabay atras.

"Oh, really? Then where were you when I was hurting? Where were you through those nights where I almost lost my mind? Where were you when the passion that you instilled in me start to became tha poison that's slowly killing me?" halos mapaos na ang boses ko sa sobrang sakit. I've been dying to ask all of these. Where were you? Where was he?

"You promised not to leave me," I say matter of factly. "You also promised not to leave my parents." Natawa ako nang pagak at buong pait nang banggitin ko ang mga iyon.

"But where were you when their marriage begins collapsing under their feet? Where were you when my brother was dying on the public hospital bed?! WHERE WERE YOU?!" I screamed my last sentence at the top of my lungs.

With every inch of my heart and its pain that it has been carrying underneath.

With all my strength.

With all my lividity.

With all my broken pieces.

"Where were you when the works that I've wrote got robbed from me? Where were you when I needed you the most? Where were you when we needed you the most?"

I have a lot of questions to throw at him. Questions that are woven by my pain, my anger, and my agony. Where were you?

Where were you when you when we're at our darkest?

"You were such a powerful God," I say, the words slipping out of mouth in the most sardonic way.

"You were such a powerful God that you couldn't do anything when my parents were begging you to revive my brother... give him some time to live with us, to be with us."

I keep on talking and asking and yelling and he didn't say anything. He just let me. Or maybe he don't have the answers to my questions at all. Maybe he doesn't even know. Maybe he wasn't even aware.

Maybe he wasn't as powerful as my parents thought he was.

Maybe I'm right.

Maybe he's just an immobile God who turn his back when things get hard for his people.

"You said that even a faith of a mustard seed could make a mountain move, but we put all our faith in you! You said that people who put their trust in you will never be disappointed and we did put our trust in you. Me and my family. But what did you do?"

"My parents told me to use my talent for you. Because you were the one who gave it to me and you will never let me run out. Anyone who's goal was to lift your name up will succeed. For eight years, I pour my heart out into writing... I pour every inch of my soul and my passion with every book I write, I poured my faith in you, my hope in you as I try to chase for my dreams... but when my works and my ideas got robbed from me, you let the robber succeed and get all the glory and recognition and all the blessings and you didn't even fight for me!"

"I was alone. I had no one. I was begging for you to save me... for you to fight for me... for you to walk me through, but what did you do?"

He says nothing.

"Exactly." I say nodding my head. "Nothing." I vehemently nod my head still as I say that word.

"You did nothing," I say. "Just like when you did nothing when your son was right there, hanging on the cross."

Now I know why I like Jesus more. It's because he was abandoned, too. He knew how it felt to be betrayed. He knew all the pain, the agony, and how it feels like to mourn and to grief and to get hurt.

"You don't understand, Maeve..." he looks at me, pained and hurt. "I was there with him through it all... just like I have always been with you through all your pain."