Chapter 1 The Road to Lazarus

Chapter One
The hand sign of Love

The road to Lazarus house has been a thirty eight year journey for me. A road where I have often been told I am worthless. That essentially my life meant shit to those closest to me. Where my parents would have rather put me up for adoption then let me stay in their home. It is an evolution of moments that have transpired to create the man I am today. A man that will fight and die so others may find the love that heals their wounded souls.

Now as I sit in my home with my family I trace it back to the moment when Love became the one thing, I knew I most desired more knowledge of. Yet I knew nothing about it on that day. I was thirteen years old. Trying to find what I was as a boy turning into man and what being a man really meant. On this day one of the most beautiful girls I had ever known asked me to come home from school with her.

We both had friends with us, that safety in numbers thing. While at her house we “made out” This girl was delicate and sweet. Her kiss rocked my world so to say. Before we got too far into things her mother came home and we dispersed. We decided to go for a walk and talk.

In my hometown of Newbury Park, CA one of the main streets is Reino road. Her parents’ home was east of the road tucked away in quiet suburban neighborhood. We had walked up from her house to a little bridge in the road right before Michael drive. Here I was still reeling in what a teenage boys body does. We stopped and sat on the side of the bridge. It was the moments that followed that changed my heart forever. It also started a battle within that I fought for years. The battle that asked, if I would ever be good enough as a man.

She smiled and laughed and talked about her life. How she knew sign language. I asked her to show me what she knew. She took my hand with the gentlest touch I have ever felt. Positioned my hand to what felt like a really awkward position. She did the same with her own hand. Looking at me, I had no idea what she was thinking. She held our hands up and said “This means I love you.” She followed up with a kiss on my cheek. Then she said the words to me again. I can’t recall exactly what I did at that moment. I can recall what happened. She broke through a wall I had on my heart. All the pain from over powering parents melted away. Scars that a thirteen year old should never have seemed healed.

I had no words for her after that. I went home and instead of focusing on the truth of the moment when she showed me the symbol of Love. I went about like a jack ass talking about the “make out” session. I never forgave myself for that until many years later. It was the moment I first wounded a human heart. Either by force or by a lie. When I got home and met up with my friends, I casted her as not the beauty she was. No I made her a physical entity. As you read on you will see this pattern often in my life on this road.

She hardly spoke to me after that. I can’t speak for her, I know I was drowning in a ton of self doubt. I still vividly remember Her eyes, when she held my hand she let me into her heart. I will never forget that day.

Our lives were never that close again. I can remember days when I wasn’t coked out or stoned that I would look at her in the halls. So much beauty on the outside, but I felt her heart ached. That, somehow she was deeply wounded. Not by my actions. However, something had happened that took that amazingly graceful heart that showed my hand how to say “I Love you.” I never heard her sing again. I don’t think she ever heard me sing again either. Nor did I think she wanted too. We have both lived. I wonder where she is. I have sent her e-mails in the past that didn’t get returned. Last time any one said anything about her was about 1998. That saddens me now. Although it also inspires me in who I am to my wife and family. As well as how I counsel people now.


I hope one day to talk with her again. To say thank you. To let her know just how grateful I am to her. That I wish I could erase the moments when I spoke lies of her. Instead show her the poem I wrote for her as a thirteen year young man. That poem has long been lost, too a life led out of fear of being known as soft. The whole purpose of this book is to tell the stories of those that have helped me understand “The Lord of Lords”. That we all bare his image in who we are. She is the one that started it all. Laurie, thank you for that day. I wish you all the hope and joy your heart can handle.