Religion is similar to a forrest.
At some point you stop walking into it, then you are walking out of it.
A reasonable person would continue with the journey navigating straight. Some, love the forrest and wonder endlessly in it for their own perceived safety.
I am Adrian.
As a man who privately rejects the notion of the existence of things supernatural, I can only see things, all things as natural.
If I were an unreasonable person, I would say I am cursed. Of course I am not but my defect is I remember all, everything, every minor detail. Nothing escapes my recall. A touch, a smell, the faint breeze at the very moment I proposed marriage to Trudy. It is no gift but an impossible defect.
My earliest memory is a dark moment. Covered in blood, cold, beaten by a stranger as my mother cried and my father, watching on, standing in a doorway smiling. I remember and feel the pain then moments later, panic then sorrow.
Trudy, the only child to Pastor Joseph and Cynthia in a regional town just outside a major city. A very tight close knit community that was near the coast. While pastors daughters are often quite rebellious, Trudy was very grounded. She loved the ocean and longed to immerse herself in it, to be enveloped completely almost helplessly while at the same time vulnerable to the overwhelming power of it. Her parents would always host visiting pastors and their families because of their proximity to the big city nearby.
Because of this, Trudy had a vast network of friends from coast to coast. Fellow pastors kids who understood their beliefs and their lifestyle.
We married, unsurprisingly in her father’s church, surrounded by their congregation, friends and family.
Sadly, my mother had died several years earlier. As a small boy of 5, my father completely vanished, never seen again. I can not say I’m an only child like Trudy as this may betray my mothers memory. I was a twin but due to circumstances that can only be described as neglect by medical staff, he had died.
My bride had completed her doctorate of education while, just like her father, I had trained to be a Pastor. I had just completed a doctorate of theology as well as a doctorate of sociology. The future looked very bright for us both.
We both worked in her father’s church while navigated the difficult task of finding a place where we both could find employment in the same region.
Finally, after 6 months we were settled into a similar community 3 hours north. While it was further inland than we had hoped, it was close to perfect.
We had been given the task of reinvigorating a church congregation that had been running continually for over 130 years. In our first four years the congregation had grown from 65 to 190 locals. We both had made successful inroads into our community. We were networking with several local businesses with the help of Chantelle, a childhood friend of Trudy’s. Chantelle was one of the many pastors daughters that would visit Trudy’s home as an adolescent.
Trudy worked at a local private school while I ran programs both at church and in the community. We had an idyllic life. A new home, both careers moving ahead and now we had an opportunity to start our own family.
We took a much needed one week vacation to Hawaii before embarking on our next step of parenthood. On returning, we stayed for a weekend at Trudy’s parents home. It was while swimming in her favourite beach that a saw Trudy the happiest since graduation and our wedding day. It seemed that everything was falling into place. That memory I will hold as my dearest.
Because we were planning on starting our family we had booked in to see an obstetrician on the Monday. It was right there that our hopes and our dreams were killed.
Trudy had cervical cancer.
Terminal. Too late to do anything that would reverse her condition. Terminal was the diagnosis.
That was a little over three years ago.
Eleven months later, Trudy was gone. Devastated, I withdrew from work, from our community and life.
Our churches denomination arranged for me to have extended leave and later I was approved to do relief pastoral work for caretaking churches throughout the country.
I am one flawed human.