One

 

One

            “Unbury the Pain.” Melissa murmured as her fingers tapped the steering wheel.  She stared out the windshield at dense clinging fog that reflected her own brain fog.  She’d spent a lifetime burying the pain now she was supposed to unbury it.  Pain she’d long forgotten but served as the root for the emotional pain she so wanted to avoid now, not unbury.  She was startled out of her reverie as knuckles rapped on the passenger window.

            “Hey,” her best friend Jan scowled, “You gonna unlock the door and let me in!  It’s cold out here.”

            “Sorry,” Melissa grimaced as she pushed unlock and Jan quickly slid onto the seat.

            “Turn the seat warmer on,’ she stated as she rubbed her hands together, “Girl, this damp fog chilled these old bones!”

            Melissa shook her head and chuckled ‘old bones’ was a common theme with Jan ever sense she’d turned sixty.  Unfortunately, she more than understood Jan’s lament seeings as how she’d just turned sixty-two.  They were a pair, friends since their twenties, where had the thirty plus years gone. 

            “Find what you were looking for,” Melissa asked her friend as she backed the car out.

          “Ha!  I wish!  Guess I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and order it online!”  Jan said with a wave of her hand.  “So, how’d counseling go?”

            “Well,” Melissa began, “I think we’re going to have to stop at the hardware store on the way home.”

            “Huh,” Jan frowned, “What’s that have to do with how your counseling session went?

            “So, it appears I have need of a pick, axe and probably an industrial strength shovel,” Melissa glanced over taking in the bemused look on Jan’s face, “and if that doesn’t work, I may have to rent a back hoe or maybe even a steam shovel!”

            “What are you talking about?” Jan stated with bewilderment. “Do you just not want to talk about today, or is this some new sort of therapy I don’t know about?”

            “Maybe,” Melissa wryly laughed and continued, “Naomi said I need to unbury my pain.  So, I’m trying to decide how I should do that.  It’s a pretty big job.  Not to sure if just a shovel will do because after all it is a lifetime of buried pain!”

            “Dang girl!”  Jan responded with a grin, “and she doesn’t even know the half of it!”

            “I keep thinking I’m to old for this therapy business,” Melissa sighed, “maybe I should have just muscled through and gave it time.”

“Do you really want to slide back into depression?” Jan asked.

“No way! I DO NOT want to slide back into that dark abyss of nothingness which slowly sucks the life out of me.” Melissa shuttered, “I hate, hate hate it!  I know mind over matter isn’t going to keep me out of it this time.  It goes too far back.  I’ve always just thought I’d deal with the garbage during eternity not the here and now.  But obviously God had other plans for my garbage.”

            “You know I’m always here for you, even if it means going shovel shopping.”  Jan laughed.

         “Of course, we’ll have to go shovel shopping!” Melissa grinned, “We know our husbands won’t want us using theirs! With all the unburying I need to do it could wear one out!”

            “At our age maybe, we should check on buying a power shovel, if they make such a thing” she said with a wry smirk.

            “You and this age thing,” Melissa giggled, “seriously when are you going to get over being sixty!”

            “Only when I turn Seventy! I can only imagine all the fun I’ll have with that,” Jan wiggled her eyebrows.  “I hear with each decade comes a darker shade of purple. I don’t mean the kind you wear!  And I don’t even look good in purple!”

            The woman shared a knowing glance, which threw them into hysterical laughter as they imagined purple splotches all over the other ones body.  Their shared humor was one of many things that had cemented their friendship.  That and a deep abiding faith in God.  Through many a dark valley and glorious mountain top their relationship with one another and their Savior kept them seeking and finding His ways in their lives.

            Jan had been so relieved when Melissa’s husband insisted, she go to counseling.  She’d prayed for and listened to her devastated and heartbroken friend but didn’t know how to help.  The counselor, Naomi, had been an answer to prayer and for that she’d be eternally grateful.  Thankfully she was helping Melissa, as a lightheartedness was slowly seeping back into her heart and mind. 

            Their laughter subsided as they chit chatted on the drive home.  Melissa pointed out the hardware and building supply stores where they could buy shovels. Jan suggested the back hoe’s when they passed the rental yard.  She attempted to grunt, more power, as Tim Allen had in Home Improvement.  This only resulted in another round of uncontrollable giggles.  Melissa was glad for the laughter for she knew that she knew her buried emotions would bring tears she’d avoided all her life.  But for the moment a merry heart was a good dose of heavenly medicine, a light before another dark night of her soul’s broken heart.