"The Dream House..."

6337 Hermsley Road, Charlotte, North Carolina

I think that we all have dreams of the perfect home in our mind... I know I did, and for a very long time, I worked towards obtaining and making my "dream house" come to life. But I'll never forget the morning Stephen described for me his "dream house..." When he told me about it, I was ready to cast aside all my own dreams of sharing the home I had worked for many years to make. He told me it would be the home we'd have together someday.

Stephen said it would have, "five bedrooms, one for me and you, and one for a child or two, and one bedroom a piece for our fathers and a guest room." He talked about other details like the kitchen and the kind of neighborhood it would be in. It sounded wonderful to me and that was the day I told him I loved him enough to follow him wherever he wanted us to go... I would happily sacrifice what I had built on my own for his "dream" for us.

I bought a hundred boxes and started packing my belongings as Stephen went on job interviews across the country. All of this was predicated on his October 2006, promise to marry me. Instead of moving away to find our "dream house" together and begin our "wonderful life," he took a job in Detroit that he didn't tell me about until he knew he had it. I knew then that his motive was solely to maintain the status quo of our relationship and not to have to fulfill his many promises. Although at the time, Stephen ate all his meals here in my house, and I chauffeured him to and from work each day and he slept in my bed each night, he never brought anything that he left, not even a toothbrush... I knew the dream was deferred.

Whenever I would ask him to account for his treatment of me and his never ending lies and willful deceptions, Stephen would run away and hide himself. He did this many times. After a while, even I tried to run away from the pain that loving him caused me... For despite his promises, I was here alone and haunted by his memory and my steadfast love for him. But after nearly a year of separation, in the midst of my ceaseless prayers, out the blue, he came back to me. He said, he didn't "want to be alone in the world anymore..." He told me what I already knew, that he'd left Detroit and moved to Charlotte, NC.

At first, he didn't tell me about the house he'd bought or who was living with him, although by God's grace and the Spirit of Revelation, I knew much more than he ever told me about where he'd been, what he'd been doing, and with whom he had been. When finally he did tell me about the house, (but not about Alonza Gray) he said he couldn't wait for me to see it... He said he'd bought it with me in mind. He said he was finally ready to marry me. He promised that we'd go to California to be married.

August 4, 2008, I flew to Charlotte to see the house Stephen had told me so little about. He finally told me about Alonza on the drive in from the airport, saying he was just a "roommate." Of course I knew better, but I love Stephen so I had forgiven him long before he ever told me the lies he told that day.

I would have recognized the house without being told it was his (theirs), it was exactly as he'd described to me nearly two years earlier while lying in my arms that morning, telling me how we'd find the perfect house and together make it into a home for "us." Although Alonza was no where to be found, his furniture, his dishes, his papers, his clothes, his pots and pans and everything else were still there. It was clear to me that Stephen bought the "dream house" with Alonza and not for me. It was months later that Stephen would tell me that he and Alonza had had a falling out over Alonza pressuring him for sex (perhaps that was true, but I'm sure it wasn't the whole story). But still, at the time, I was glad to be there... I loved him nonetheless, and I had waited a lifetime for him... he was the one I would always love, and who might love me.

On that long weekend together, I cooked and cleaned and even ironed twenty shirts for him. I installed dimmer switches and light bulbs for him. He seemed happy and I know I was. He promised to love me forever... And that we'd be married in a month or so when his project at Celgard was completed. Since I had promised him my undying love almost two years before and had kept my promise with perfect fidelity, I looked beyond everything that had happened before and I believed him.

Stephen Christopher Harris made me many promises, he broke nearly all of them... But eventually, I came to live with him in the "dream house" although he hadn't planned on it. Again, he promised it would be our home and he would love me as he had promised. So while looking for a job in my new hometown, I cooked, I cleaned, I painted, I repaired, I tended the yard and I loved him completely. Yet in the midst of this, I suffered constant lies and deceptions at every turn, but I loved him still and everyday more. I love him even now, for God Himself made clear to me that Stephen's heart knows how to love and could, if he would but chose to overcome the selfishness and fear that also dwells there and keep his sacred promises.

Yesterday, while in Charlotte, I visited the "dream house." The flowers I'd planted had grown and were blooming beautifully in the warmth of a sunny spring day. The grass seed I sowed had come up and was tall and emerald green. The rain had washed away the mud from the new houses being built down the street... Someone was home. I don't know who lives there now, but for a while, my love and I lived there. And though it was at times so very hard to be there knowing it wasn't really for he and I that Stephen bought the house, my love for him made it possible. I love him still.

"Fear Eats the Soul"