A Story of a Man

[Jenne]

There's a man I know.  He was once a boy.  Grew up slowly, though he had to be a man before he was ready.

This man was raised to a poor family, went to bed hungry most nights in his young life.  That rumbling tummy made sure he ate his fill and then some as an obese adult.

He met and married the love of his life while still yet a babe, not yet able to grow a beard.  His daddy drank himself and smoked himself a young death, and his mother ate herself into oblivion through nine pregnancies, hungry though her children were.

Not knowing what the man would be when he grew up, he graduated early and worked his way through hell.  Real estate, used cars, llp's and llc's.   Property managment and loan brokership waged wars in his career with the manager's position at Smith's Food King.

He left and came back to his wife and 3 kids in the 80's.  He lost and found his religion about the same time.  From a mountain vista, he found his heart's desire, a property of gold that would make him his millions, one day.

This man had dreams, loftier than you can see.  His little rumbling tummy remembered the bad days, and while his mind forgot them, his heart and his stomach wouldn't let him forget.  Bigger WAS better, don't you believe it.  And he bought every luxury his money could buy.

Any stranger needing family, any family needing a rich stranger, he was their man.  His love for his grandchildren superseded all, to the point that he supported the marriages that brought them into this world.  He gave life where he wanted to, he played a bit of god here and there, and no one thought ill of it.

His children, beholden.

One day a gatecrasher came with guns blazing and fire in his belly.  For a greedy gremlin had stolen this man's bank account.  Lo and behold friends were yet enemies, and the law was not on this poor man's side.  In chains he was bound to try and protect his heart, and sadness filled him, pouring out through every pore.

For he was yet a young man, not quite 50, and he had many babes yet to hold, many sons and daughters still to love.  A young wife, if not in years but in mind and soul, yearned still to be at his side, a love yet unrequited and waiting for him.

So this man is now bound, to try and wrest his future from clutches of vultures.  There are those still wronged with no rights.  There are victims on this battleground aplenty and bitterly soured on lapping luxuries.

The story is yet untold, the end result not quite finished.  This man is still living, still in prisoned, though we still find him hopeful.  Foolish hopes can feed a man's soul, even while his belly aches, starving himself and building strengths of mind and body to protect the little he has left. The little they allow him to have.

The lessons we learn from this man can only be thusly said, to take not for granted what we dreamed and built before, that we can use this to build again, even as they may take from us all things great and wonderful