Page 63 - MailOrderBrideFlipBook

Jim couldn’t remember changing, but somehow he knew he had. He found himself getting angry at the men at the camp for the smallest reasons. The men didn’t laugh and joke with him anymore. He was well aware of what people thought of him, but his anger against God seemed to boil over against everyone. By the time he retired, he couldn’t say that anyone thought of him as their friend. He thought of how, at his very lowest point, when he didn’t even have work to give any value to his life, Eli had come. Eli had changed everything. He had given him hope again. He could remember that day vividly. On that evening, as he was sitting down to eat, he had looked at the calendar and realized that it was Jimmy’s birthday. He had slammed his fork down and walked out the door. The anger had welled up in his heart the further he walked. He found himself walking down to the dock - to the end farthest out to sea. As he stood there, looking out over the bay, he made up his mind he was going to jump into the frigid water and swim out to where the tide would pull him away from land where there would be no hope of survival. As he thought back on that night, he realized it had been a beautiful evening - the kind that follows a violent storm. The sun setting in the west painted the sky behind him with beautiful reds and purples. A rainbow, signifying peace and goodness, danced across the sky. He had barely been aware of things around him, as the storm in his heart still raged with terrible fury. Suddenly, someone was standing by him. It was a young man, who asked him if he knew where he could find a place to stay. Jim remembered continuing to look out to 60