Free What Difference Do It Make? by Ron Hall Page A

table, we blessed the food and praised God for the strength he had given Deborah to prepare it. And, of course, we asked for healings. I’m sure he meant no malice, but before the first bite, Dad commented, “Cancer ain’t no big deal. I’ve had prostate cancer for four years, and it don’t bother me a bit. Y’all are making a big deal about nothin!”
    Deborah left the table in tears. Daddy was angry that she left the table. He looked at my mother and said, “Let’s go home Tommye. We’re not welcome here!”
    They left. Denver walked them to their car. The meal went into the refrigerator. Carson, Regan, and I crawled into bed with Deborah.
    Denver acted as though he was very uncomfortable but avoided taking sides. It was his second Christmas with us, and he was confused. He took a walk down by the river to gather his thoughts, then returned to the house and knocked on our door.
    â€œBless him,” he told me when I answered it.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYour daddy. He meant no wrong, and I praise God for your father and his life. He’s a good man, and he’s a part of my blessin. If it hadn’t been for your father, there wouldn’t be no Mr. Ron. And if it hadn’t been for you and Miss Debbie, I’d still be in the bushes instead of havin Christmas with you.
    â€œI want you to hear me real good on this, Mr. Ron. Just bless him.”
    I listened to what Denver had to say and acted as though I planned to take his advice. But the truth was, I thought his advice was ill informed at best and possibly tainted by the fact that he was used to living around all manner of addicts and alcoholics. Besides, Denver had no idea of the hell and embarrassment Earl Hall had put my family through over the years. And even if Denver had a small point—that there was more to the man than the “Earl in the bottle”—I wasn’t ready to let him out.

12
    Ron
    I was fifty-five, graying at the temples, with half my heart lying in the ground at Rocky Top. How to survive? How to move forward? I felt trapped in a whiteout snowstorm with no guide and fresh out of supplies. The intensity of my fear surprised me.
    For weeks, I wandered through the house like a ghost in a graveyard. I haunted Deborah’s closet, opening the drawers and cabinets, touching her scarves, her stockings, burying my face in her clothes, trying to breathe in her scent. Sometimes I closed the closet door behind me and sat there in the dark, holding the last photograph ever taken of us together.
    O n November 3, 2000, my wife of thirty-one years and seven days passed into eternity. Cancer took her, but I blamed God more than cancer for ripping her away from me and shredding my heart in the process.
    For a couple of weeks, a whirl of activity blunted my new reality—the private graveside service where we buried Deborah in her favorite spot at Rocky Top, the church memorial service, a getaway with my son and daughter meant to help us process our grief. But then the busyness was done, and I stood at the edge of the yawning black chasm that was a life without my wife.
    I paced the halls, crying, tears running down my face in sheets. I couldn’t stop. And nothing that anyone could say seemed to help.
    Worst of all were the expressions of Christian sympathy.
    â€œYou know, Ron, we’ve been praying for Deborah to be healed,” some well-meaning person would say. “And now she’s healed forever.”
    Bull , I thought. She’s dead.
    In my blackest moments, I might even have said that out loud. It angered me that people might think some pat little Christian phrase would quench the inferno of my grief. At other times, I realized people meant well and, mainly, spoke wounding words because they didn’t know what else to say.
    There were just a couple of people who did know what to say: “I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling, but I just want you to know