One More Prodigal Son

At the ripe old age of twenty-one (21), having just come out of the Marines and been discharged, he found himself lost, not just from the military, but from all of life as he had known it. He began to run, hard and fast from all that his Mother, his Father and his church had taught him. Surely there must be another way to live, he thought. And he found it - the road to hell itself, beckoning with alure and appeal at first, he reveled in "just doing it." One year went by, then two years and it grew easier and easier to forget Mom's calls and Dad's angry encounters. Life began to dim as he began to lose what he thought he had gained, first his job, then his reputation as the alcohol led to fighting, unemployment led to drugs and drugs led to home as a cardboard box, begging for his next meal. All along, Moma prayed, and prayed some more, anguished by her son's abandonment of her love and the love of a God that her boy knew so well. BUT GOD, had not forgotten him. Pony-tail dipped in pink and purple, clothes full of stench and holes, face drawn from hunger and a mouth foul as his physical odor, he called Mom to come rescue him. Little by little he stepped back into LIFE, bathed himself first outside and then in - basking in God's forgiveness of a life turned sour, but not forsaken. God and Mama were there waiting, Dad had passed on to eternity, and the prodigal son had come home. Full of regrets not only for what he had done to himself, to his Moma and to his Dad who would never known that the son had come home, the hardest feat yet he faced was forgiveness. Forgiving himself.