To Be Found | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: To Be Found | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
03/02/23
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I was drawn to the reeds as a child.

I used to think cattail heads were hotdogs. One quick taste when I was five told me otherwise.

When I was ten, my dad showed me how to paddle my little boat into the reeds. It felt like my own secret place, the perfect hideaway.

It became exactly that after my dad developed bipolar disorder and our lives turned upside down.

While my mom went on a quest for a cure, I went on a quest for solace, for peace, terrified at the tender age of thirteen that I would end up like my dad.

I fled home at seventeen, joined the workforce and split an apartment with my friend Stacy. I had to sell my beloved horse to make the move - but not my kayak. There was a pond near our building, and every chance I got, I paddled out into the reeds, just to feel protected and alone.

One day I brought someone else with me, shared the secret place where my soul was fed. His ocean blue eyes captivated my heart; his touch captivated that broken part of me that longed for wholeness.

In our shared kayak, he held my hand, gazed into my eyes. “You love me,” he said.

I leaned closer until our foreheads touched. “Did you read my mind?”

But Brayden wasn’t reading my mind. He was reading my body. I gave myself to him in every way, only to have him get bored and move on.

I fled to the reeds. But in my grief, I wanted to slash them all to pieces. Their solace was gone. Was my soul officially broken? Was I too lost to be found?

When I heard the news - my dad took his own life - little changed for me. I was no longer surprised at the arrival of pain. I paddled out on the pond to where it fed the river and sat there, entertaining the dare to keep going, let the current take me until it swept me over the waterfalls.

Little would have been lost.

After I got fired, Stacy threw me out. Big surprise. I bummed a couch at Brayden’s sister’s house. Thank God they were estranged.

Had to sell my kayak, and with it, the last piece of my soul.

I walked the streets of no-man’s land, wishing the ground would swallow me up and be done with me.

What was the point of me?

At Easter, Brayden’s sister, Colleen, invited me to her church. I tried to get out of going, but I couldn’t disappoint her while I was sleeping on her couch.

I always thought churches were weird. So was the young youth pastor who introduced himself with a smile that could melt sunshine.

I knew better than to be attracted to anyone again, especially a religious guy.

But Colleen was only too happy to bring me along one Sunday after another. Joshua, it turned out, was an outdoors-y kind of guy, so we had a lot we could talk about.

Aching for affection, I dressed the way Brayden had liked, flashed flirtatious smiles. Joshua didn’t seem to see any of that. I couldn’t decipher what he wanted in a girlfriend. It frustrated me to no end.

Finally, one day, he asked me out. On a date. In his kayak.

It might have been a soulmates moment . . . until he asked me about God.

What was I to say? I didn’t believe in God. Why should I? “I think . . . I think, if there is a God, he forgot about me.”

I didn’t think we’d have another date after that.

But we did. We took fishing poles out on the water. Then a picnic basket - and got caught in the rain.

Finally, one summer day after church, Joshua gave me a journal inscribed with a Bible verse. “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.”

I read the words again and again. How often had I fled to the water, seeking solace? How often had I thought about ending it all, or wished the world would do it for me?

What if there was a reason I was still here? What if there was a plan? A purpose.

“You don’t know everything I’ve done.” I grimaced. “What if God can’t find me?”

Joshua smiled. “He never lost you.”

We shared our first kiss in the reeds.

*Fiction

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