Sickness

Dear Levi,

The inevitable came, I suppose. After weeks of struggling with non stop fatigue and exhaustion, headaches, and reoccurring sleeplessness, my immune system gave way to illness. By Friday, October 11^th, my fever was 102.8 degrees and I was shaking so badly at work I could barely stand. When I stared at the screen and tried to talk over the swelling infection in my throat, the tears literally burned down my feverish cheeks. I clocked out of work through Kronos, our timekeeping system, and hugged the wall on the long walk through the compound to my car. Outside, the cold wind sapped my lungs from oxygen and made my knees weak. I almost fainted before I reached Zoila and climbed in. Was it a miracle from God that my benefits through Panera, never used, expired in two days?

I drove straight to the after hours clinic. After three hours in ice-cold waiting rooms, and finding the Indian doctor standing at the computers drinking coffee with the off-duty nurses at one point, I was glad to hear it wasn’t strept. A pretty severe upper respiratory track infection, I was told as I was handed my doctor’s note for work and a prescription for antibiotics. What the heck is that?

I drove straight home and crawled into bed with sweats, hoodie, scarf, double socks, and tears all folded under the comfortless cloud of down feathers. The next eight hours I tossed and cried in agony as the fever scraped every ounce of strength and feeling from my body. I awoke again and again in the darkness, sheets tangled and clothes literally drenched, sick to my stomach and unable to breath past the pain in my throat. I changed clothes, and the cold came instantly to stick to my clammy skin like death’s embrace and start my bones shaking.

I dreamt, and they were burning black dreams of you, and Anna, and your wedding. I was the smiling, faceless photographer behind the lens documenting your happiness, hers, the end of my dreams and prayers. The guests held champagne glasses, but the light sparkling through them was grey. And my lens kept trying to find you, and all I could see was the sharp cut of your white collar, the curve of your strong hand stuffed in your pocket, the silhouette of your coat’s shoulders. Anna’s pretty long hair kept blocking out the lens, bouncing and danging in festivity to her perfect laugh, perfect smile. She looked at me and my lens framed in her happy face and I knew she didn’t know me. Neither did you. Or the guests. So I just snapped away, and no one paid me mind. And I couldn’t leave, either. Again and again I woke up shaking and coughing and gasping, crying out to God.

I know He hear me. He was with me that night, in the darkness, in the sickness.

I cried myself back to sleep and whimpered for you, for Levi, for your strong, gentle fingers massaging the sickness from my throat, for my head on your chest, for your arms and coat and cologne… God held me instead, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted my Levi.

Have you been sick this year? Did you miss me? Was someone there to bring you a drink, to make sure you had medicine, to pray for you? I wish I knew. I wish I was there.

Your star,

Rigel

South Grand Boulevarde

Dear Levi,

Last night was almost too much. I sat in the parking lot of church, watching you and her and your friends laugh and celebrate in the sweet light of the front steps and I just cried. I cried in the darkness and let my heart break, shatter, explode into tiny little pieces of insignificance. I know I'm sick. I know my body and my mind is worn out. I know it's late and it's been a long week. And above all those things, all I know is that I can't stop feeling the pain, I can't stop feeling the love. And I can't take it anymore. I just can't.

So I drove back to the beginning. I often visualize the hill by the boy's dorm as the moment when I lost it all. Maybe it was. But as I drove down the darkness to the little pitiful park on South Grand Boulevarde, I realized for the first time that this was truly the end. This was the gravestone. This was the last place you held me, the last time you cried, the last time you tried. This was the place of my final failure. This was the last place when I saw Levi inside your liquid caramel eyes, the last time I was allowed inside Santana and against your coat. The last time you cared for me.

I drove there, and I broke. I sat on the cold asphalt and felt the splinter of glass shards among the cheap crumbling blacktop and I sobbed, I sobbed, I sobbed. Freezing tears in the freezing wind, just as cold as that night. I could see the shadow of your car in my mind, I could see the curve of the tires against the asphalt just behind my reach. And my car sat there, a solemn reminder that I'm not crazy. We were here, once, you and I. And the Devon Tower glowed at us laughingly back then, too. Twinkling like a Satanic statute of what would never be across the vast, black expansion of some kind of field. That night a year ago, I thought about walking out into that field and lying down somewhere in the void and giving up on things. I thought about it this night, too. Last time, you were there to stop me. This time, the echo of your memory was.

It was so hard. It was so, so, hard. I cried, because there was no other option. I wept, because all I have is the fruit of my own failure. And there I was, all alone in the cold, and you were out somewhere in the warmth of your happy life.

How did you do it, Levi? How did you move on? How did you feel nothing, grieve nothing, find happiness again so soon? How did you dismiss all the dreams, all the plans, all the memories? And how did you decide that night as I drove off into the distance that you would never, ever try again?

Was she already in your life at that point? What happened on the long, black drive back home? What did you think when you got back into Santana? What did you think when you watched my lights disappear and heard my enginge explode into the quiet of the night? What did you think when you drove along that own route? Where did you go? And why did you come home so late? Why did you even bother to text me? At what point did you decide my tears were worthy of your hate, your disdain? When? When, Levi? When? And why? Oh, why why why?

It's because I can't comprehend how you moved on that I can't comprehend how you would ever come back. I used to dream. I used to dream, dream, and pray, pray. But now? Now? In the aloneness of that night in the miserable little speck of a park in a worthless city in a country that doesn't even know of my dreams in a world that is too busy for my existence, there was no hope. No more hope, no more dreams, no more prayers.

Just tears.

So many anguished, dying tears. Like the night I walked out of Andri's house and walked into the city night and found the church. When I crawled under the bench in the darkness of the garden and just cried, cried, cried. Another cold winter night in another pointless American city. Another night when I realized my lost. The pointlessness of it all. The hopelessness of it all. And that you would never, never care.

Andri came for me that night. Brad bundled me up in his coat and they drug me to a psychologist. But you didn't come for me this night. And I knew it. I knew you wouldn't. I knew you never would come for me. All I can think about is the night you found me on the bus, how broken I was, how empty and lifeless and... a shell of a soul, cringing on the edge of existence. And all I can think is that if I go to work tomorrow, if I put on a smile and pretend to join the world of the living, it's just a huge facade. Because I'm dead on the inside. I'm so dead anymore.

Just me, just God.

And that's when the prayers return. You see, it was never suicide. Not in anger. Not in despair. It was just... a desperate wish. A wish to be with God. Because if people are only going to leave me broken and cold and shivering and crying on the asphalt of an empty, soulless city... I just want to be with God. I just want to be in his arms. I just want to go home.

Please, God, please. Can't I come home to you now?

I'll never get him back. I know it. I'll never get him back, I'll never get a second chance. And that's okay... somehow... it's okay. I never deserved him the first time. I never dreamt he'd reach out in the darkness of that bus and change my life. He gave me hope when I had none... and then slowly took it all away agian, and here I am in the same place. With nothing but you, God. Isn't it enough? To just want to be with you now? You gave me my memories with him, and I wasn't ever worthy of them He was too good for me, too perfect, too sweet, too precious, too... unreal. Like an angel. My Levi angel.

And he's never coming back for me. Dri never did. Levi never will. I will only know loss. And I'm so tired, God, I'm so scared and alone and little and, please? please? must I beg so hard? Must I cry so many tears before you take me up in your wings? Where is your mercy? Oh, that you would show a drop of mercy on my broken soul. I can't bear the pain anymore. It is growing too great. It is swallowing me up.

And I went home, when I was so cried out there was nothing but dryness. Dryness and hollowness and... dizziness. A dizzy, swirling, distorted reality. Soulless. Resigned.

And I pulled out my Bible, and I read Psalm 69. And the verses, wow... they were me. But David is so much stronger than me. He had the patience of grace to bear his burden. Do I? Did I ever become a stronger girl than the one who died in Lake Arlynn in Pekin? Did I ever become better than her? Did I? And I went to bed, and I cried myself to sleep again, pitiful tears against hot cheeks and a feverish throat and swollen mind... and I knew that God was with me.

Somehow, in this darkness, there has to be hope.

Your star,
flickering in the darkness of the night sky...
Rigel

Outside the Window

Dear Levi,

Outside the window of this Starbucks is the Radio Shack symbol glowing in the gathering darkness of night. Somewhere across the expanse of parking lots, is your car, little Santana. And somewhere out there, is you. How are you tonight?

I never come here, to this corner of Oklahoma City. I stay as far away as possible, because I know it would grieve you. But tonight I came here to be a little blessing for someone. I've always wanted to get to know Ms. Kari better, be a blessing to her, and she suggested this place. So I drove down here from work and sat in the corner and uploaded all the letters I've written you in my little notebook over the past month. And I can see Walmart glowing through the distance, and under the cadence of Latin music over the speaker, my heart misses you.

Are you happy? You look so happy when I see you. I don't know why God has deliberately put you across my past the past few weeks but it has almost been more than my heart could bear. You would not believe the bottles of tears that have literally been wrung out of my little frame after each service. It's like a wound that keeps oozing and bleeding, a pain that grows deeper, and all I can do is go to God in prayer.

God, take this love away. Heal this brokenness. Or give me the grace to endure the loneliness. God, please.

Maybe it's the holidays. Maybe it's because I'm sick. Or maybe it's just time. All I know is that God has brought me to this place for a reason. And if he is to bring you back into me life, this time of pain and emptiness and exhaustion is for a reason. And if you are to be happy with her for forever and never ever think on me again.. then somehow, this is for God's glory. Even if I don't understand it. Even then.

I was listening to Ms Kari talk about how God is working in her life, and thinking how much respect I have for her. To just hear a lady who is trying to honor God in her heart under the pressure of so much expectation from every direction she looks. And I was so challenged... I hate the limelight, I dodge it all the time. But when I am in it, am I honoring God? Am I being an honor for a Heartland graduate? For the daughter of my parents? For the daughter of a King? And I was so challenged about some little things in my life that I have kind of let slip, little thing that haven't really bothered me much but that may not be the best things for my life.

I don't even know why I am writing about this. I just know that I am trying to be as pleasing to God where I am as possible. Even here, sitting at the art deco table with a small cup of chocolate chai latte, looking out the big glass window across to where you are, so so so so far away in body and even more so in spirit... God has me here tonight. And in His plan, this is the best place for me to be, no matter how badly I want to be wrapped up in your arms, how badly I want to feel your fingers massage the sickness from my throat, how badly I want to feel the warmth of Satanna.

Will my love for you never die? Will your love for me never return?

Oh, please be happy across the parking lot. Please, be happy in the life outside this window. Be safe, sweet prince, be free, be happier and lighter in spirit than you ever were with me. But at some point... think on me. Think on me kindly, sweet prince. Little Levi, think kindly on your Noelle.

Your star,
Rigel

A Quote

Dear Levi,

Dear Levi,

I heard a truly phenomenal quote: “No one’s relationship with Christ will ever rise above the level of his praying.” Wow. What a thought! The credit goes to Dr. Frizzell from his book How to Develop a Powerful Prayer Life. I’ve decided that I need to be reading after godly minds, to help broaden my own perspectives and horizons. Because I don’t have a lot of life experience or all the answers, to be honest. This year has been successful in regards to demonstrating to me how pitifully naïve I am, how needy for direction from godly leaders, my dad, the Bible.

But this quote made me think of you. When I say “you made me a better Christian,” this is what I mean. You had such a real, living dependency upon God through prayer. I recall late at night after work, or just driving to a random park, to pray through your exhaustion. I was speechless most of the time. You demonstrated to me my own lack of prayer life. And you, Levi Pierce Fowler.. you inspired me. Did you ever know that? Maybe I never told you, or never got it across. I should have told you every day, while I had that chance…

Thank you for being you. For showing me what a real, living prayer life looks like. For giving me an inspiration that resonated through the length of dark and silent months to still burn so brightly in my memory.

You would be proud of me… or at least in my dreams, yo uare proud of me… I’m trying to be like you, like the example you set to me of Christ, of Paul and Peter and the many other heroes of the faith… I’m trying to change. I have changed. Maybe it was the necessity of the situation, when you only have prayer left because everything else is gone… I began to pray a whole hour every night through the summer, and in the cold creeping chill of autumn’s nocturnal frost, the prayers have become more solemn, more resigned… the long enduring prayer of a dream that may never be answered, the quiet prayer of a sinner at the mercy of a Holy God, the lonely prayers of a girl so far away from her family to a tender Father, the humble prayers of a heart pained with the burden of those around me, the needs of my loved ones, the challenges of work, the ministries in church and the nursing home… And somehow, God still listens to me. Why?

Your star,

Rigel

Amos 9

Dear Levi,

You walked out of church tonight. Was it because Pastor Gaddis was preachign from Amos? Was it because he was preaching on God rebuilding the broken down houses and vineyards? And why did you walk out the front of the church? Was it so I would actually notice now that I don’t look for you anymore? And why did you leave and not come back? Was it to reaffirm to me that you are truly never coming back for you star, your little Noelle, no matter what God could do if you would just let Him? And did you walk out on church and her just like you walked out on me and what God may have been calling us to do? And why, oh why, do I not understand you at all? I miss, oh how I miss, my sweet Levi, my precious little prince. You have become such a confusing, unfathomable mystery to me… but saddenly so…

What am I to do? I sat there in church stunned cold, my whole body shivering in shock at seeing you just walk out of church. Much the way that night you left me froze me blood in shock. I would never have in my wild dreams believed you to do either; and yet, there I have been wrong, wrong, wrong like a bad train wreck of stupid, naïve errors.

It made me cry, you know. To remember you so happy once, so in love with God, and with me, and with life. And see that you seem so hapy ever since the fallout, but only remember your bitter, anguished tears; your struggle with God, with me… with yourself..

I know I have no control over your decision to walk away, and the decisions you make now. But I know I contributed to why you walked away, and started down whatever road you’re on. It haunts me, that guilt. And the fact I will never be given the chance to rectify it… I’ll never hear you say, “I forgive you.” Or “I love you.” Or feel your hug, a Levi hug.

You missed a beautiful sermon. But the words of God are still there in your Bible.

“In that day I will raise the tabernacle of David that is fallen.. I will raise his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old… Behold, the day comes, saith the Lord… they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof: they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit thereof them…” Amos 9:11-14

\That is my prayer.

Your star,

Rigel

Parking Lot Car

Dear Levi,

There is a car in the parking lot at work that is a little bit like Santana. Such a happy-go-lucky blue-green color. Sometimes, my heart squeezes and I feel it so unfair; but other times, I have to think it is God being kind to me. All I know is I miss you more each day. It never got better, the pain just moved deeper inside of me. Did you feel anything at all? Ever? Do you feel anything at all? Ever? Ever?

Your star,

Rigel

Yellow, Yellow Butterfly

Dear Levi,

Something amazing happened today. I went outside on lunch (yes, it’s amazing that I finally have an hour lunch just like you, too!) and stood in the sunshine, basking in the liquid warmth. I’m so unaccustomed to being in a huge dark building without my big glass windows, swinging patio doors, and cheery drive through window. I soaked up the freshness of real air, admired the rolling dark grey clouds bringing in another thunderstorm, and strengenthed from fingers to toes.

And when I looked back up, I saw a fluttering in the landscaped bushes. I couldn’t believe my eyes – the most beautiful, exquisite yellow butterfly! As yellow as you could ever wish for yellow, without another psot of color anywhere. I remembered the butterfly bushes at the park in Edmond, with the baby trees of every kind, and the bridge… and you. This yellow, happy-go-lucky butterfly fluttered into the air over my head and disappeared high up into the skies. Amarillo, right? The world you taught me. Did I ever teach yout the Russian word? Zholtii. Not quiet as pretty, but still so lovely a meaning… 

I walked back inside from break and opened the folder where I am keeping my letters to you during desk work, and I caught a glimpse of my raindress in the mirror, the one Nina helped me buy on Sumskaya Street, a fine classy pencil suit of perfect yellow linen, complete with little amber drop buttons and a trench coat collar. You’ve never seen it. I was holding it as a surprise in the spring….. when I did finally pull it out I was all alone, and it was my graduation rehearsal, and I had lost so much weight it hung sadly on me, tired and lifeless.

I can still see that little butterfly in my mind, effortlessly fluttering about. It seemed like such a good omen, a kind of sign from God, a whimsical promise of happier days to come. Why would God even take time to think of me? Why? His mercy and kindness is so humbling, that he would notice the girl in the yellow dress and the butterfly in the yellow wings, even if no one else does in this city.

Your star,

Rigel