Follow Your Heart

“Just come with me. Please, trust me, and come with me.”

I’ll never forget the words she said that day. My mother was leaving to start a new life in a new place. At 18, and fresh out of high school, I was certain I’d figured everything out and had no interest in leaving. I had a boyfriend, a job and an offer to move in with him instead of following HER dreams. I had my own and they were with him.

Though she begged me to come by before she left, my boyfriend had planned a little overnight getaway for her final day. He said he wanted to help me get my mind off of things. He was so thoughtful and I was ready to escape that nagging feeling in my soul.

The next afternoon, when we arrived back home, I noticed a box by the front door. I knew she had left it. It had her written all over it, not in words but in the way it was decorated. I was angry and had no interest in what she’d put in there. But, part of me knew if Elliot saw it, he would throw it away. I guess part of me knew I would need it one day. I picked it up, brought it inside and tucked it away in the back of the closet while he unloaded the car.

My mom was a free spirit. When I was a child, we visited churches but never stayed with one. I felt like I was missing out and that I needed to be more involved with the church. When I met Elliot, he said he aspired to be a preacher. I saw my future self serving as the preacher’s wife. That vision, married with 2 kids and a golden retriever nestled safely behind a white picket fence, drew me in. My mom hated white picket fences.

Elliot had never been a fan of my mother. Her spiritual approach to a relationship with God didn’t go over well with him. He claimed to be very religious, which was, initially, what drew me to him to begin with. I’d felt like an outcast, growing up without structured religion and with a mom who saged the house and charged her crystals in the moonlight. That approach wasn’t “normal” on the outskirts of the Bible belt. Most kids, where I grew up in the south, went to church camp over the summer. I went on road trips and tent camping with my mom, where she’d ramble on about the benefits of herbs and standing barefoot in the dirt. Gross.

My anger and frustration at my free spirited mom kept me from taking her calls or answering her texts for the first couple of months. When I mentioned, to Elliot, that I was thinking about making amends with her, he forbade it. He said she was worldly and would risk my walk with God. Later, he forbade me from having contact with any of my family. He was convinced they would reconnect me with her. Eventually, I no longer had to ignore my mother’s texts or calls. They just stopped coming. Elliot convinced me that my mother never loved me. If she ever did, how could she have stopped trying? My ego believed him, but my heart sang a different song.

To make matters worse, during those months, the political climate of our country had gotten more extreme. There was much unrest. Supply chains nearly froze still. Gas prices skyrocketed and making ends meet grew more and more difficult. The right blamed the left and the left blamed the right. Somewhere between their arguments, the people grew more and more desperate and hostile.

Elliot came home one day and announced that he was going on a trip to meet with some leaders of our faith. He said he had an opportunity and needed to check it out but that I couldn’t go with him because we weren’t married yet. He was worried that even though I was living with him because he’d “saved me” from my worldly mother, they wouldn’t understand. By that evening, I was alone with little food in the house. The next morning, I went to the store to try to get some groceries… whatever they had available. When I went to pay with our debit card, it was declined. I called the bank and realized Elliot had drained the account. His phone went straight to voicemail. I ate a can of pinto beans I found in the pantry. What I wouldn’t do for a pot of my moms homemade pinto beans.

That afternoon, there was a knock at the door. When I opened the door, there was no one there but there was a notice taped to the door. It was an eviction notice for failure to pay. I had a week to vacate.

My only “friends” were the friends and family of my boyfriend. I began calling and texting them to see if they’d heard from him. No one answered. I logged on to social media to try to reach out through direct messaging. That’s how I found out there had been a domestic attack on our Capitol. We were at war… with ourselves.

I turned on the news to see if I could make sense of what was going on. They were showing live footage of the attack. Then I saw him… Elliot was standing in front with a bullhorn, leading the attack. He wasn’t on a trip to meet with religious leaders. He was leading a siege to take over our government… and had left me behind, with no one, no money, no job, and, soon, no place to live.

I sat, in disbelief, for what seemed like forever. How could I have been so blind? And then I heard her words again, “Please, just trust me, and come with me.” She knew. She always knew and though that drove me crazy when I was younger, and even just a few months ago, I immediately longed for the benefit of her intuition.

Though Elliot had deleted her contact from my phone, I remembered her number. She taught it to me when I was six and had kept the same number all these years. I tried to call her… only to learn that my phone had now been disconnected, too. It was then that I remembered the box. As I got up to go dig the box out from the back of the closet, the lights went out. Of course. I opened the blinds in our room and reached to the back of the closet, my hand leading the search. There it was. I could feel the design of the intricate painting. I pulled out the box and opened it.

She knew, of course she knew. The first thing I found in the box was a wind up flashlight. Up next, my favorite protein bars, a smaller box, her journals and three maps.

I opened the smaller box to find a heart shaped locket that had been engraved on the back.

“Follow your heart. It will show you the way.”

I could hear my mom’s voice in those words. Inside the locket, was a picture she and I had taken on one of our camping trips. We were hugging and smiling. There were mountains in the background. I remembered that trip. She taught me how to read maps and road signs on that trip. She taught me to start a fire, what things were edible in the wild, how to pitch a tent… survival skills.

I put the locket around my neck, grabbed a protein bar and her journals and went to sit on the couch. I lit some candles and sat down to read some of her journals. It was comforting to have the necklace and to read her words. Would I ever see her again?

At some point, I dozed off and woke up when her journal fell to the floor. It landed open, turned to page 11, her favorite number. The page was addressed to me and there was an envelope tucked between the pages.

“My Sweet Jilly,

I know you’re scared, but you need to get out of the city as soon as possible. Pack a bag. You know what to bring. Your heart will show you the way. I love you so much. I’ve made a place for us and I know you can make it. I’ve been training you for this your whole life. I wish I could have spared you from this, but I had to let you make your own choices. You can make it. Go! Get out of the city, NOW!”

Love, Mom.”

I opened the envelope to find $200. I grabbed the other journals. Each one had an envelope tucked inside, at page 11. Some had money. Some had pictures of us from that trip. I quickly began to pack a couple of bags, relying on my memories of those camping trips to know what to bring.

I loaded up my car, put my mom’s box on the passenger seat, and headed to the nearest gas station. It was packed! People were fighting at the pumps. I looked at my tank and saw I had a half of a tank. I could make it a while, thanks to her insistence on me getting a fuel efficient car. I decided to head toward the country roads for gas. Other than that, I had no idea where I was going.

I passed several small towns before I felt comfortable enough to pull in for gas. I filled up, bought some water and an extra gas can and went back to my car. I sat there holding the locket around my neck. I opened it, again, to look at the picture. This time, I removed the picture to look at the back. A tiny inscription had been written on the back of the picture.

“A picture paints a thousand words. Summer 2012 - Kirby, Arkansas”

Then it hit me. I gathered all of the pictures from the envelopes. Each of them were from the same trip. Each picture, was of us standing in front of a landmark on the way to that camping trip in the woods. She had written the city and street name, where it was taken, on the back of each picture. Under each location, she had drawn a heart.

“Follow your heart. It will show you the way.”

She was talking about the locket and the pictures!

I wrote down the locations from the backs of the pictures and circled the cities on the three maps she’d left in the box. From Texas, through Louisiana, to Arkansas. Each picture was a point along the way, down the country roads.

She knew. She always knew and had planned for this day… and I was on my way to find her, following my heart along the way.