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You can run, but never escape...

Walking on the beach is something I love to do and one of the few “suggestions” given to me by my doctor that I actually enjoy following. Dakota needs her exercise as well and there are few things in this world a Labrador loves more than playing in the surf; so long ago we made a mutual pack to share this healthy morning ritual.

One such morning while participating in our daily routine, my eyes caught the shape of a familiar figure. We had seen this quiet man on the beach many times before, always walking alone, coat collar pulled up high on the back of his neck and hands in his pockets fending off the damp morning air. At times our paths would cross and we would exchange silent nods and perhaps even a cursory smile, but hardly a word was ever spoken.

The Coronado Islands were lost in a dense marine layer offshore that day as I recall. I could see the man sitting on the sand, just beyond the reach of the surging tide and staring out into the mist as if he were looking for something or someone. It wasn’t until we were only steps away that he became aware of our presence and instinctively jumped up and apologized.

I assured him that there was plenty of room for us to walk around him on the beach and that he was no bother. Reaching out his hand toward Dakota, he asked if she was friendly and I couldn’t help but notice the faded Navy insignia on his tattered ball cap. Asking if he had ever served, he shared with me that he had retired from the Navy a few years ago, with San Diego his last station of duty. The next several minutes were spent sharing a funny story or two about time aboard ship and memories that most who have served would probably recognize and understand.

As suddenly as the conversation had begun, an awkward silence soon followed and with another nod and polite smile we each continued on our way that day. Calling Dakota to catch up as I headed back to the house it occurred to me that I hadn’t even asked his name. The thought of going back to properly introduce myself crossed my mind but I decided to just let it go. Surely we would see each other again on another morning and right then I just wanted to get home to a hot shower and breakfast. Looking back to the beach as I walked up the stairs to the house I could see that he had taken his place back on the sand, lost in his thoughts while staring out to sea. I wondered for a moment who this man really was. He was always alone. After talking with him today he now seemed very sad as well.

Making our way down the beach, it was Dakota who would first see him that next day and she would be rewarded with a treat the man took from his coat pocket - He had quickly figured out the shortcut to her heart and it was obvious that he genuinely liked dogs. Watching him play with Dakota I asked him if he had any pets at home. He explained that he raised and trained guide dogs for the visually impaired and was waiting for his next pup to be assigned to him. I was struck by the generosity of his act, knowing that I would have a difficult time giving up a dog that I had raised from a pup and after becoming part of our home, family and lives. Without knowing anything more about this man I was already convinced that he had a kind and giving nature.

We walked together for awhile on the beach that morning and I learned that he was divorced, lived alone here in Baja and had recently lost his only sibling, a sister a few months back. He wanted to go to the funeral in Michigan he said, but…

The sentence would float off into the air, not to be finished. I watched as he lost himself in his thoughts and his eyes were pulled once again out to sea. The pain this man tried so hard to hide would be deceived by everything that was left unspoken. Catching himself and looking back at me moments later, he realized that he had drifted off from the conversation and now forced a half-hearted smile. I said it was okay and we walked along for the next several minutes without sharing another word.

In the days that followed we would share more time together walking, comparing notes on life in Mexico, growing up as young kids, minor health issues that come with age and having to deal with the VA in San Diego. Listening to him paint the story of his life I could see a portion of the canvas left blank and at some point I asked about him about his parents. He grew silent for a moment and then quietly told me that they had both passed long ago. Not offering more I decided to let it go; it really was none of my business anyway. The subject changed to the weather, politics and countless topics more until it was time to get Dakota home and my work day started.

Days, weeks and months would pass by as we continued to share our morning walks together. I developed great respect and admiration for my friend and Dakota knew that a treat would always be found in his left coat pocket, something that he never forgot. With the passing of time the bond of friendship grew stronger, yet I could sense that there was a secret that he carried deep down inside. With each conversation he would open the door slightly further and along with the pain, I would also discover my new friend to be a very gentle and spiritual soul with a big heart.

What struck me was that he lived alone and never mentioned any other family or friends, other than the single mention of his sister who had recently passed and his parents many years before. He seemed to avoid the subject and I didn’t want to pressure him into divulging something he was uncomfortable talking about. A great secret was rooted in the sadness I had sensed in him that very first day we met and talked. It always showed in his eyes and I wished for the opportunity to be able to help him.

It was a powerless feeling in many ways and I was unsure what I could even offer him anyway.

It was a Friday morning, much like any other day but the simple fact that my friend was not there waiting for us on the beach below that made that day very different. I had become accustomed to the companionship while walking each day; Dakota running, playing and even chasing an occasional seagull or two as we talked. I wondered if he was sick, had gone to San Diego for an appointment or perhaps had just chosen to sleep in.

The longer I walked with Dakota down the beach, my thoughts slowly turned from curiosity into genuine concern. I remembered that in the days prior he had not looked well and even walked slower. When I asked he told me that he wasn’t sleeping well and fighting low blood sugar. I had never actually been to my friends’ house but I knew where he lived as he had once pointed out his back deck from where we walked down below.

Pushing the gate open I could see his pickup truck parked next to the house and knocked softly on the front door a few times. I was considering what to do next when I heard the lock slide back. The door slowly opened and the pale and unshaven face of my friend appeared, wearing a bathrobe and now inviting me to come in. He seemed dazed and mentioned again that he was fighting with low blood sugar.

He couldn’t remember when he last had something to eat so I sat him down and headed to the kitchen to see what I could put together. I knew that he needed sugar and carbohydrates or possibly face the effects of hypoglycemia. Opening the refrigerator I saw only some stale fast food leftovers and empty shelves. Remembering the tree outside in the front garden, I brought in a dozen of the most mature oranges that I could quickly reach and was able to squeeze out a glass of juice. Mixing in some sugar I gave it to my friend with some crackers I found in a cupboard above the stove.

He sipped the juice and began to eat the crackers while I slowly looked around his place for the first time. The dirty dishes in the sink, living room clutter and clothes on the floor told me that it had been a long time since a woman had been in this house. Not meaning to sound sexist but as one who was once a confirmed bachelor, I know the tell-tale signs all too well. As I looked around some more it occurred to me that it had probably been a long time since ANYBODY had come through that front door to visit. It was then that my eyes were drawn to an arrangement of several picture frames on a wall over the couch.

Old and discolored photographs were chronologically arranged of babies, toddlers and young children that appeared to be in first or second grade and others from family vacations, holidays and birthday parties. Looking closer I could see the resemblance of a younger man in the photographs to my friend. The man in the photographs was with an attractive woman and together with the children they appeared to form a family. On a shelf above his desk I found more photographs that were probably taken a few years later, judging by the size and ages of the children. I also noticed that he was absent from any of those later photos and thought that fact was probably significant to my friends story.

“That was thirty years ago”, my friend said to me and I turned to see him now standing behind me, recovering somewhat from the state in which I found him before and looking embarrassed that I had uncovered this evidence of his prior, unspoken life. I asked him if he wanted to talk about it. He made his way back to the chair where he sat down to gather himself for a moment. He then began to tell me a story of two kids who met and fell in love in a Detroit high school many years ago.

In the summer after graduation and before he entered college in the fall, they would elope. His young bride would take a full-time job during the day and he worked at night as a janitor and security guard to help make ends meet. Somehow they managed to raise two kids during those first three years of marriage. After finishing college he landed a good job with one of the big three auto manufacturers and she quit work to stay home with the kids. She was then pregnant with their third child.

Life continued on like that for a couple more years. She was a stay at home mom, he had gotten a promotion, the kids were now all out of diapers and together they paid their bills, a mortgage and even began to put away a little money for a rainy day. Coming home one day from the factory he would find out that his wife was pregnant with their fourth child. She told him the very moment he walked through the door, without giving him a chance to take off his coat, his tie or first tell her that he and his entire crew had just been laid off that afternoon.

The economy was bad and local job prospects even worse. Unemployment would not cover their bills and eventually they would lose their home. Moving the family into the basement of his in-laws was probably only one of many excuses he found to spend more time at the bar and the beginning of a life long battle against an addiction to alcohol. An affair and being arrested for public intoxication didn’t help matters any and soon he was living with his sister. His wife had filed for divorce and life was quickly spiraling out of control. Sitting on his sisters back steps and considering his options, he made a decision to take the road that made the most sense to him at the time.

He ran.

That first leg of the road would make a temporary stop in Chicago, where he worked a few odd jobs, mostly as a mechanic for a couple of months while figuring out what he would do. Finally reaching a cross road, he called his sister back home and asked her to tell his kids that he loved them. She pleaded for him to come back and try to work things out. He wanted to but he didn’t. Partly due to shame and largely due to fear, he took another option.

He enlisted.

More than ten years would pass before he received news from any of his family. His sister was able to reach him through the Navy to tell him that mom had just passed away. From a phone booth in Pensacola, Florida he would learn that his dad had passed two years before and his mom had asked for him up until the very last hour.

He was too ashamed to even ask about his kids. His sister would bring them up anyway and share that she had been in contact with them over the years. She added that it had been awhile since she last heard from them. His ex-wife had remarried and moved to Texas, leaving no phone number or address.

He just sat down in that phone booth and cried. He told me that he couldn’t even remember for how long but it must have been awhile because the MP’s were called to come get him. His CO offered to give him leave to go home but he told them that he had nothing and nobody to go back to, so he just picked himself up as best he could and moved on.

At that moment in the story I could feel the pain in my friends heart and together we both cried as he continued on. He shared how he faced and accepted his drinking problem and his daily walk since to stay sober. He had remained alone during all his years with the Navy and after retiring he moved around from job to job in California for a few years. Seeing no point to his life there he decided to move down to Baja, a place that he knew well and where he had learned to get away at times in years past.

His story now drifted off and it grew quiet and uneasy in his living room for several minutes as he just stared at the photographs on the wall. I could see him going back through the memories in his mind and the pain that quickly followed.

Nostalgia, low blood sugar and mostly the weight of 30 years of guilt and shame this man had carried in this unfinished story would overcome him at that moment. I had to put my arms around him to keep him from collapsing right there on the floor. I recognized a man truly facing and accepting the consequences of his actions. A heavy price he would pay for trying to run from that which he could never escape.

I know the pain of losing a child and could connect on some level with what he was experiencing. Sobbing almost uncontrollably on my shoulder I knew that his health was the immediate problem that needed to be attended to and I thought of who I could call to lend a hand to my friend at that moment.

Conferring quickly with the Señoras of the neighborhood, I was given the name of Gabriela, or “Gaby”, as they liked to call her. She lived alone nearby in a home that she had shared with her father who had passed away a year before. She had worked as a nurse and attended to her father in his last months of life. Her only son was married and living in Veracruz and she was looking for something to keep herself busy.

I brought Gaby to the home of my friend and showed him how she could help him get back on his feet. It wouldn’t hurt if he let her get his house in order as well, I added before walking out the door. The first few days were probably a bit difficult as Gaby did not speak a word of English and my friend knew only a minimum amount of Spanish. I gave them a Spanish-English dictionary and told them to “be creative” in communicating.

Although my friend initially resisted the idea of accepting any help, Gaby quickly overcame his objections by just ignoring his protests and went to work with a smile and started by boiling water for a cup of tea. I sensed that deep down inside he felt that he didn’t deserve anyone’s help.

He had done a terrible thing abandoning his kids years before. No question about that. Life presents many challenges and obstacles; we all face them. At times it can seem overwhelming, even to the strongest among us. That can lead to fear and sometimes we might even feel compelled to run.

Some may actually run away in the physical sense while others may escape to the security found in a needle, bottle or prescription drug. There are still others who may just withdraw to within the depths of their own pain and suffering in their soul. Not one of these escape routes will lead to the answer to your problems and my friend had managed to travel down all three exits. Guilt can be a very heavy burden to carry, especially as the years go on and the weight of our actions become clearer.

I wouldn’t pretend to make any excuses for what my friend did. It was wrong. He was wrong and he knew that. Life threw him a couple of hard curves and he took what appeared to be the easy road at the time. For that journey he has paid a very heavy price and it was close to finishing him. Part of that price was not being able to forgive himself and extracted a heavier toll on him than his bodies inability to control his glucose levels.

I think about the great story of Saul on the road to Damascus and how God temporarily blinded him, changing his life and the story of the Christian faith forever that day, two thousand years ago. God didn’t choose a Holy Man or one who had lived a devote life dedicated to good deeds and faithful obedience. He chose to convert a man who had sent Christians to their death in the coliseum in Rome and now would be reborn as Paul, one of the greatest figures of the New Testament.

They say that just as evil lives in the heart of the very best of us, a lot of good also exists in those guilty of even the most heinous acts. If we be honest with ourselves, most of us would accept that we probably fall somewhere in between on the road of life between the best and the worst. Forgiveness and healing can happen under some of the most difficult circumstances and I figure that if I ever hope to be forgiven, I have to be capable of forgiving others first.

God truly works in mysterious ways and it would not be this Gringo who would help my friend take that next important step in his journey. It would come via the hand and touch of a beautiful woman who spoke no English but while caring for him would teach him that his life still had value and meaning. She showed him that he needed to face and accept what he had done and take steps to make amends wherever and however possible.

They say that time heals all wounds. I guess some take longer than others and the ability to face our mistakes as well as ask for, give and accept forgiveness is what makes that possible. It took my friend thirty years. I wonder how many others struggle with similar demons of guilt, shame, hurt and anger?

They serve no good purpose other than to steal years away and separate us from those we care for and love as we find our own way of running, escaping and hiding. To face up to and accept our errors is to cut the chains that bind us to those dead end roads. To forgive is to heal, whether you have been hurt or the one who first caused the harm. The end result makes little difference as all involved are victims of the damage such pain will cause.

I received an email from my friend not long ago with a photo taken at his new place in Veracruz. He was sitting on the front porch with Gaby and the new Labrador pup that they share their home with now and are training to help someone else one day.

He has made contact with his grown children now living in California and Texas. His oldest daughter was recently down to meet him and introduce him to his grandson. A lot of work remains to be done, yet on some level healing has begun. The past cannot be changed but what is important now is that my friend is heading down a new road. No more running or escaping.

Time will tell what happens with the rest of that story.

In the end we make our choices in life. Some may be done in private and be known only between ourselves and our Maker while others may be sins that we pay for publicly during a lifetime. We are all human and I am still learning to be careful before being too quick to judge.

I am also coming to understand the wisdom in seeing someone for who they are today. If I am to judge, I want to judge someone for their best qualities. To see them for what is good in their heart, not based on something that happened in their weakest moments. I would hope that others would extend to me that same benefit of the doubt when looking at the complete story that is my life, some chapters of which I am not proud.

My friend spent a lifetime hurting, in pain and drowning in shame. He found healing and learned to begin again here on a Baja California beach. I suppose that people come for different reasons but healing is one that I can truly understand. After losing Olivia, I spent months myself staring out from that very same beach five years ago.

If we are honest with ourselves, we can all find something to seek healing for. Perhaps we need to be the first one to ask for or reach out and offer forgiveness. Not sure where or how to begin? Stick a treat in your pocket and take my hand.

I'll bring Dakota and let’s go for a walk on the beach …

That is really something of a story and you tell it so well! Nice job Ron...

Well you know what they say - real life is always way more interesting than fiction. Hard to make this stuff up...

Great story - just forwarded it to a friend who really needed to read that right about now.

Thanks.

BG I hope you never tire of people telling you what a wonderful way with words you have. After reading Baja Healing and How to Explain a Love Affair I sence that you love to sit and write. Your words sure grab a person into the story. And I would hazzard to guess that there is a lot of healing for you by writting them.

Barb

Ran a lab... would have like to have read your reports

Thanks for sharing and/or telling us a part of someone's life and how it impacted you and others

It's really good to see that there are "people" that do care.. on just a human level.. it is really not all that hard to have feelings for others and to just offer a hand to help..

You restore my faith in the human sprit, thanks so much.. I can now go and get a cup of coffee..

How is it going in this particular situation... well, I hope

Wiley

Well said Ron, Maybe I'll hang up my pen for a while.

Ron, thank you for sharing your story!

Thanks Wiley, David, Barb and all for your kind words. Writing is something I enjoy and wish I had more time to pursue. Maybe one day.

Osprey - I still consider you one of my favorites to read and I am honored that you would even kid with me that way.

As far as my friend, I heard from him around New Years and they are doing well. They bought an old multi-story place in Veracruz and are converting the downstairs into a little grocery store - something they tell me is lacking in their neighborhood. Once the store is operating they plan to build out the upstairs into their home.

He asked about Dakota of course and sounds genuinely happy. I wish them well...

You can't beat that with a stick...

Well done.. to all.. it should be a movie.. what's wrong with a happy ending once an a while

Sensitive & well-written!

Obviously I was deluding myself when I thought I'd read everything that'd been posted prior to my signing up here!

No worries - I won't be asking any of you to be writing a book report...

Not worried! I just don't want to miss the really good stuff! Besides, I heard there's going to be a pop quiz!

Wonderful story - I love happy endings too!

Wow Ron,

I finally had time to sit down and read. Great story and well written. Thank you.

I am new to this forum,I was very inspired by this story,I love to be around people who live in the solution and are willing to let themselves be a chanel to pass that gift on to those who are in pain and don't know where to turn.
Thank you for sharing this story BajaGringo

Thanks for reading it Scotty and the nice comments. Take a moment and tell us a bit about yourself in an introduction thread you can post here.

That's a great story! Very touching and shows your human spirit.