Backstory

Hero’s humble beginnings.

Coon Whisperer

Well folks… when I’m wrong I say I’m wrong and until you prove it I will simply say I was mistaken.

I need to print a retraction from a previous story. It seems that in my last post when I suggested that Papaw’s little brother ended up in the hospital from getting run over by a tractor, being kicked by a mule, and by swallowing a whole bottle of Tylenol; one of those was not entirely true. Turns out, he didn’t bust his stomach from being kicked by a mule. He ruptured it from falling out of a tree and then Papaw carted him back to humanity on the back of a pony. My memory just adjusted some of the facts. His brother also did not go to the hospital after being run over by a tractor. His parents inspected the wounds made by steel blades that churn the earth and determined they were probably superficial. He did get his cuts treated with “blue medicine”. I will also assume that he got a standard issue “ass whipping”. Whiskey is the only other country treatment known to man that is three times more prescribed and fifty percent as effective as an all-purpose Ass-Whipping.

I’m glad I got that error corrected. While I am at it, I have some new additions. While we were discussing the facts around childhood injuries I got more depth for this already colorful history.

Fun fact: The pony that saved Papaws brother by providing medical transport also saved Papaw at a different time and in much the same way.

Papaw had a little red pony that he rode everywhere. He grew up in the early seventies and loved watching westerns. What is better for a child who loves westerns than his very own trick pony? Papaw regaled us with his agile adventures that border on parkour. For instance, he told us about trying to leap from a galloping pony into an open bedroom window. This was how Papaw learned about Newtons First and Third Laws of Motion.

Newton’s First Law: Object in motion tends to stay in motion…

Newton’s Third Law: Each action (force) has an equal and opposite reaction.

Papaw’s Second Law: If it doesn’t kill you, you’ll be better in a second.

The girls laughed and laughed at that story. He also added, “You know when they ride a horse through a glass window in the movies? That doesn’t work.” We all laughed at that too.

Then he told us about the pony saving his life. Apparently, he wanted a pet squirrel. One day while running around and not breaking his ribs on jumping through windows he rode his pony to the edge of the woods. A squirrel scampered up a tree. Papaw tied the pony to the tree and commenced to climbing the tree. You might ask, “What will he do if he catches the squirrel?”. I would reply, “Wait for the racoon story.” After about forty feet up the tree a limb broke and sent Papaw flailing to the ground. Luckily his head broke his fall and after a few moments of being unconscious he woke up and crawled to his pony. He managed to drape himself across the back of the pony and tied the rope. The pony walked him to the front door of his house where his mother scooped him up and carried him inside. What really speaks volumes to me is the fact that his mother didn’t question how or what or even if he was going to live. This was such a regular occurrence that she would simply lay these boys in the bed until their bodies healed enough for them to go run headlong into another injury.

The racoon story.

Papaw finally got a wild animal pet. A female racoon with a sunny disposition. He said she was tame “most of the time”. I asked how he tamed her and he said, “I just got in the pen with her and let her bite me until she got tired of being so mean.” I verified that his method for befriending a wild racoon was just sitting still and letting it attack until it was exhausted. He nodded. While I understand the reasoning I cannot match the will power and tolerance for pain. What reference do you have to possess for pain to think a raccoon attack is just something to be tolerated for the one-way affection that you will enjoy on the other side?

Sweet Baby Jesus shine your loving light on this leathery soul.

Most rough and tumble boys would have stories about fist fights in the school parking lot. But I can’t imagine the suicidal playground bully who would hear his stories of self-inflicted pain and think, “Hey I’ll fight that kid.”

He sounds like he lived the perfect action hero backstory. The brave tales of Swifty McTwotoes and his trusty coon sidekick. They rode the high plains fighting crime on the back of a blood red steed.

So if you have more time to sit around and share family legends, this post is for you. Tell all the stories and whatever you do, write them down. And for my daughters who are ready this… this is why women live longer. Nothing in a woman makes her yearn to climb trees after squirrels or leap from moving animals into unmovable structures.

Underdaddy to the rescue.

The Normalcy Bias

The normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a belief people hold when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects, because people believe that things will always function the way things normally have functioned.

I understand this well because I have spent a large percentage of my life with a man that my children call Papaw. He suffers from the normalcy bias condition. He became my step-father when I was about six. It was at that point the stories, or shall I say… legends, began. The man is a walking anomaly. By all accounts he should be dead based on any one of several factors. Something in his genetics has a grit that is heretofore unexplained by science. Now that I think about it, his dad was a rough and grumpy guy and reminded me vaguely of the cockroach villain in the first Men In Black movie. Maybe he inherited the tenacity without the exoskeleton.

He was Carl. In the most Carl way.

Since the primary purpose of this blog is a written record for my children I think it is relevant to recount this wonderful man’s history of calamity. I have learned many valuable lessons from Papaw but safety is not one of them. Or maybe it is the exact lesson I learned in a very round-about way. I’m going to share a series of events in no-particular-order. But I will start where most things begin, in the beginning. And let me preface all of this with the statement that Papaw is as loving and smart and loyal as the day is long. He would sacrifice anything of his own for literally almost anyone else who needed it. I love him very much. And he has a head that is hard as a brick stick and ears that filter anything that doesn’t sound like, “Good idea!” or “I agree!”

Safety Third.

Papaw had a childhood that introduced him to danger early. The first story I remember was the lawn mower incident. It was a warm summer evening near dusk. Papaw’s father, Crapaw, was mowing his overgrown lawn with the most battle-hardened mower to grace the universe, a Snapper. Papaw was a young boy and had been instructed to stay on the porch while his father peeled around the yard in a frantic race with the setting sun. An innocent scene but the allure of adventure would prove to be more than Papaw could resist.

The shadows were growing long. A light dew had settled over the grass as it will often do at the end of a hot southern day. The air smelled of working man’s sweat, motor oil, and leaded gasoline. Papaw kicked a few rocks and a few crushed filters from Marlboro Reds as he paced back and forth. The porch was boring. A confined life of rules. How could he sit in one place and watch his life pass him by while his father taunted him; lap after lap on his powerful steed? Slaying clumps of Fescue and the battling overgrown weeds.

Inside Papaw’s soul, something stirred.

A desire to confront danger head-on and prove that all warnings from family are ill-founded and meant only for mere mortals. Adventure was at his fingertips and he would have it!

He ventured away from the safety of the porch and entered into a game of follow the leader with a late 1960’s riding mower know regionwide for its ability to chop through thickets with blades no sharper than the edge of a dull spoon. It whipped grass into shape and beat Oak saplings into submission. It was behind this icon of lawn maintenance that Papaw left the porch and began his march with destiny.

Papaw stepped double-time along behind his father proudly. Carefully staying out of his father’s view to avoid an “ass whipping” for not listening. Two men on parade. Exerting their will over nature.

Then the unthinkable happened. The ratio of uncut grass to cut grass had shifted and there was no longer a smooth circular route for the mower to follow. All that remained to be mowed was an irregular strip of grass known to lawn mowing husbands everywhere as The Last Pass. It is a perplexing piece of lawn that has to be handled carefully. While an experienced mowest will make sure his machine is properly aligned and finish in one pass, a lesser human will circle the area fifty times to get every errant blade that the turn radius of the standard Snapper mower somehow avoids.

When it came to lawn maintenance Crapaw was no “lesser human”. Sidenote: This may be the only category where that was true.

Crapaw decided to execute a three-point turn and slammed the mower into reverse. It was a sudden decision. Papaw snapped out of his marching day-dream and probably muttered a phrase that rhymed with “Oh shit.” He tried to stop and change direction but the evening dew made the newly cut grass slippery. He tried to turn and run. It was no use. Like an athlete without his cleats, Papaw fell into the oncoming path of the bestselling mower of the Sears and Roebuck lawn maintenance line of 1970.

His three toes never had a chance. Beheaded as easily as Marie Antoinette after mentioning cake.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury. There it is. This is the true tale that was recounted to me in place of simpler instructions to “do not walk behind the lawn mower while I’m mowing the yard.” Trauma is the most effective teacher.

What about Papaw and his toes you ask? Well, there was concern in the local medical community that he would never be able to walk again. Those concerns were unfounded. As the defense will show, telling Papaw he can’t do something is the recipe for having that very something done.

The above story was recounted on several occasions and usually included some neat facts about how hospitals incinerate body parts and how some people experience ghost pains when their toes get cremated. Other childhood cautionary tales included his easily misguided younger brother and a) getting run over by a tractor disking a field, b) getting kicked in the stomach by a mule, and c) eating a bottle of Tylenol while playing doctor and getting a charcoal stomach pump.

Fun times.

Much like Jesus, Papaw’s life went largely undocumented during adolescence. I can only assume he had a string of successes because he emerged as a young adult with a confidence and physical strength that most men don’t possess. I remember being about seven and he was working on my mother’s 1986 Mazda 323. He didn’t like the placement of the jack under the frame so he did what any man would do. He hoisted the front of the car by lifting with his back and not bending his knees. He instructed me to, “scoot under there and move that jack over”. I did. Safety third.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… back to young twenties Papaw.

Fast forward a bit and he met my mother and convinced her he was responsible enough to marry. I think she knew the truth but he had animals and she loves animals so the math worked. She is, after all, a math teacher.

Somewhere in this early time of married bliss. Papaw was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD); a degenerative kidney disease that is long and painful and results in useless kidneys.

[Side story: He got to watch the disease unfold in his mother who might have been the toughest person, in measure of shear grit, to ever walk the earth. This is a woman whose bucket list must have consisted of various forms of pain and suffering. Once she had exhausted all options for new and painful conditions she decided to allow death to take her.]

This sounds ominous so I will put your mind at ease. Papaw’s kidneys indeed failed, he had dialysis twice weekly, and my mother was a match for donation so she gave him a kidney. Papaw added organ failure to the list of obstacles that he persevered. The real pattern to observe here is that once again, when faced with overwhelming odds, things somehow worked out.

Consider this intro the first book in the Gospel of Papaw.

The Second Book would have to be The Tree Story

Papaw had a brief stint of extended medical leave due to a broken leg which was caused by a falling horse which was brought about by the deeply held belief that he was an actual cowboy and not, in-fact, a mechanic with a small family farm that included a horse. Papaw’s penchant for westerns had him believing that driving cattle was not that hard. True enough until the horse slips in some mud and breaks your leg.

Papaw was confined to the living room couch for days on end. That old familiar desire for adventure that had led him into danger began to grow in his brain. After some long afternoons staring through the sliding glass window into the backyard, he decided that a tree in the backyard was positively unbearable. It was a dying threat to anything that ventured near. If allowed to remain, it could very well spark another Cold War with Russia. He owed it to the United States of America to fell this tree. Damn the costs.

He grabbed his crutches and, somehow, a chainsaw and ventured into the backyard. I stood at the sliding glass door and watched him out of morbid curiosity. Would this be the day? Would this be thing challenge that would be too much for Papaw?

With all the skill of a billiard player and a military strategist he plotted his moves. I watched as he skillfully cut a groove into the base of the tree. Like an over-flannelled cripple lumberjack in the Pacific northwest. With the proper angles and careful lines of the chainsaw he had calculated exactly where that tree would fall. Nothing had been left to chance. Risk was minimal. Success was inevitable.

A spray of woodchips poured out of the tree over the roar of the saw and the wihte-blue cloud of chainsaw smoke. It climaxed in a loud pop and the tree began to fall. All the preparations were for naught because the tree did the unthinkable. In a move that no amount of computer modeling or even physics could have predicted… the tree fell backwards.

Papaw snapped out of his day-dream and probably muttered a phrase that rhymed with “Oh shit.” I muttered the same thing.

The world slowed down. Like a scene from a movie where the director wants to show the audience how fast someone is moving by slowing the world to a crawl and allowing the main character to move at a normal speed. He turned briskly, still holding one of his crutches, and he hopped as fast as his one good leg would allow. The towering harbinger of death popped and exploded and twisted on its journey with destiny. That tree chased Papaw like a one-eyed cat chasing a handicapped mouse. A daring game of chase and chance.

I stood peering out of our sliding glass door and watched the disaster unfold. The snapping branches, flying leaves, and dust from the ground created a cloud that obscured my view. I saw Papaw throw up his hands and fling his crutch as he lurched into a dive. He was swallowed by the chaos and I could see nothing else. The tree came to a rest and the chainsaw went silent. Dust wafted in the breeze and a few leaves drifted lazily to the ground. A hush fell over the backyard. I digested the fact that I just watched a man die.

Someone who was alive seconds ago was now horribly crushed under the weight of his own decisions and a hundred year old Oak tree.

My mind raced with confusion. What should I do? What will I tell my mother? Could I have done something to prevent this? Is this my fault? Should I just cover his body with leaves and call in a missing persons report? WHY DOES A VCR HAVE A CLOCK IF THE FUCKING THING NEVER WORKS AND JUST BLINKS ZEROES AT YOU ALL THE TIME? HAVENT YOU PEOPLE EVER CONSIDERED A BATTERY BACKUP OR SOMETHING SO WE DON’T HAVE TO RESET IT EVERY TIME THE POWER GOES OUT? WE LIVE IN THE COUNTRY FOR CHRISTS SAKE!

My gaze shifted from the quiet tree to my own reflection in the glass doorway. Panic.

But my panic was short lived.

I had forgotten the fact that death is for mortals and not for men who are condemned to wander the earth and seek the bucket list of pain and suffering that only immortality can bring to bear. I resolved myself to go out and scoop what was left of Papaw into a feed sack like we did for dogs and cats that played in the road. I slowly started across the backyard towards the tree.

Halfway through my green mile Papaw pops up through the broken canopy of the fallen tree.

Papaw: *looking around* “Can you see the saw?”

Me: “Oh my god you are alive! What a miracle!”

Papaw: “Its fine. I knew what I was doing.”

Me: “Are you serious? You just did a one-legged dash for your life.”

Papaw: “It moved on me a little. Grab that saw.”

Me: “Moved a little? It fell 180 degrees the opposite direction. I can’t…I’m going in the house.”

Papaw: “Just hand me that…”

Me: “Nope. I’m out.”

That ending dialogue has been modified. I actually think I handed him the saw and we spent some time cutting up the tree. I remember he was a little pissed at the chainsaw for having a bent shaft because it got pinched by the tree. Because inanimate objects have intentions and are out to make your life difficult.

So that is a snippet of Papaw history. A rambling commentary on a great man.

While he is unique I don’t think he is uncommon in the world of dad’s. The spirit of determination and the doing of things that need done is the hallmark of a good father. If you have a father figure who has provided you with wisdom in any form and ample stories for your children, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

Life is for living. And the best way to know you are alive is to almost die.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Country Fried Childhood

The modern interpretation of “country” is nothing more than a misplaced label. It is a fashion fad that includes shiny trucks, fancy boots, domestic beer, and songs that manage to weave all three themes together with a catchy tune. The term “rural” probably applies better to the contemporary trend. Country is an ethereal way of life that is hard to define but when you see it, you know it.

I recently discovered a treasure trove of old pictures that I would like to submit as evidence towards a country certificate. This can be a game. First, look at the picture and try to spot everything interesting you can see. I will then assist by pointing out the things I see. We can compare notes in the comments.

I do want to offer a caveat or a p.s. to my mother and stepdad for what you are about to endure. I cherish everything about my childhood, it most definitely gave me perspectives and opinions that I would never have gotten. Plus I got lots of awesome pictures for my blog. Also, we are now square on the you-shooting-me-through-the-kitchen-window thing.

Okay disclaimers out of the way. Who is ready to play?

PHOTO 1

Lightning in Buffalo River

This one is easy. I’m riding a horse in a river. Notice anything about my horse?

No? Let me assist…

If your original answer was “Oh, I notice your horse looks like a victim from Jeepers Creepers or maybe the horse from Sleepy Hollow.” then you win. This was Lightning and he was the slowest stallion on the planet. A tumor left him with only one eye and he walked with his head slightly tilted to the left so he could see where he was walking. He was also really tall which is handy for lumbering around with a visual impairment. He was a good horse though. I hope he died of old age and not from wandering into traffic.

Bonus: I think I’m wearing one of my parent’s T-shirts.

PHOTO 2

You might be a redneck if entertainment was rolling down the hill in front of the house and letting the dogs chase you. It was good during snow but a little bumpy on grass. Also, I am wearing rubber boots which is the official childhood boot on a farm. Cowboy boots are for riding.

PHOTO 3

This is awards day at my elementary school being held in the parking lot. The only parking lot. Where did everyone park? We had a gymnasium. Why?

I don’t suppose this picture really goes towards the whole country theme but check out how deliciously 1980’s this day truly was…

Is that Michelle Duggar? What is she wearing? They still own this camera.

PHOTO 4

This photo.

Family vacation to Fall Creek Falls. What the hell were we wearing? Did we share a new pack of tube socks? This photo counts towards country because I showed it to my mother yesterday and she said, and I quote, “This looks so suburban.” On what planet under the almightly Lord’s sweet creation is this style any measure of “suburban”? Good lord.

A) I don’t think my sister has pants. Mom swears she does but I’m unconvinced. I do remember her Pizza Hut shirt was from a Land Before Time themed birthday party.

B) My stepdad looks like he escaped from the law and robbed the first elderly man checking the mail that he happened upon.

C) My cousin has rainbow short shorts. God bless the eighties. This might have been early nineties but those clothes are a hold-over. And we shared a haircut style too.

Who thought, Hell yeah, this is a moment. Y’all squeeze in close for a picture. They were right. This is awesome.

I may frame this one.

PHOTO 5

We built this barn like the Amish. Except the Amish get lots of people and do it in one day. I remember building the skeleton of the barn and then adding to it every season by recycling some nearby building. Maybe a neighbor had a chicken coupe that they no longer wanted. Piece by piece we sculpted a masterpiece. There were these eight inch nails that were forged by the devil himself and intended to drive you insane because they would bend in a slight breeze. If you didn’t hit the nail perfectly it would bend in half. The nails were ribbed so they were impossible to pull out once they got started. I hated those nails.

Thirty years later and I think this barn is almost done. In multiple ways. I love sitting in the barn while it rains on the tin roof. It is very soothing.

PHOTO 6

This is a picture of my mom with a newborn foal but the item of interest to me is the livestock trailer in the background. The infamous “red trailer”. The yellow top is a recycled chunk of school bus and the sides and front were welded onto a regular flat bed trailer. Everything was then spray painted red. A few years of UV damage and some miscellaneous rusting created an awe inspiring symbol of country perseverance.

The foal was a girl and named Grace. She is an ornery old lady now. Also, that stall in the barn now has a solid back wall. When did that happen? Who knows. Barn gnomes.

PHOTO 7

We put a lot of effort into super fancy dog beds. This is Alicia, patron saint of our farm. She lived to 123 in dog years and in her final months of life she appeared to be a solar powered skeleton. She once fell off of a spiral staircase onto a concrete floor. Smacked like a bowling ball. Any mortal dog would have died from a brain bleed but not her. Nine feet down and she walked it off like a zombie that got shot anywhere besides directly-in-the-head. She was a really good squirrel dog and loved hunting down rats that lived under the dog houses.

All this stuff counts right?

PHOTO 8

This photo has lots of options; the wooden cows, the gun by the backdoor, the outdoor plant hanging inside, the playhouse in the backyard that was crammed full of junk or chickens (I can’t remember which), the curtains, and the pet bird (Spike) that was later eaten by a cat.

This is the cat, Patches. She avoided a brutal broomstick beating and lived to be an old lady. Its a miracle mom didn’t take her out with a shotgun after Spike got eaten.

PHOTO 9

This one is self sustaining. House trailer, trucks, dogs, a spare tire, gravel road. A song in a picture.

We had some farm animals that were dangerous and we kept a stick with us for self defense. We had a turkey and a goat that were both mean and immune to physical assault. I watched my mom loose her shit on the turkey when it tried to spur her. She grabbed a stick and whooped that dude like a dirty rug. He lived but not much longer after that incident. I couldn’t find any pictures for those.

If you enjoy pictures that capture an era frozen in time, this post is for you. You’re welcome. To my Dad and Stepmom, don’t think you got off easy. I just haven’t gone through photos on your side in a while. Soon. soon….

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Total Eclipse of the Part

The Perseid Meteor showers are gracing our skies this weekend. YouTube conspiracists promise the brightest showing in modern history sprinkled with end-of-all-humanity. I haven’t bothered to Google the event because it is partly cloudy here and I probably won’t get to see the action. Plus, we are only on Episode 9 of Season 3 in The Flash. The binge watch is real. I have become addicted to the characters more so than the plot lines but it is a fun show with some good complexity so I will keep watching. My dishes may lie dirty in the sink. My laundry may live in limbo between the floor and the dryer. My friends and family may report me missing and fear I have died but I know one thing… I will find out if Barry and Iris are really meant to be. This means that I probably will fail to notice the setting sun and I will wake up in the recliner, having completely missed the world’s most impressive meteor shower. Thank you Netflix.

That will be okay because on August 21^st there will be a full solar eclipse. I plan on watching that event with my family. Our only decision to make regarding the solar eclipse is where we are going to watch and how we can avoid being part of an Interstate National Disaster. Experts expect millions of people to flock to the “Totality” zone where the eclipse will be an absolute darkening of the sun instead of 90% in the 100 miles adjacent. The ensuing traffic jam promises to become a disaster urban legend. I must decide if we will brave the migration of sky-watchers or settle for something less than amazing. My track record suggests the latter. I buy generic coffee for my Keurig because it is “good enough”. We clean out our van when we become unsure of “that crunching sound”. We are, generally, terrible at self-motivation and superstars at procrastination. (I’ll write a blog on that topic tomorrow.)

Not this year. We are cramming in some quality family memories. We are going to Disney in October. That should be amazing and exhausting. We will take pictures with every character that we encounter. We will buy the fifty-dollar, plastic and felt Mickey Ears Hat. We will be the best parents that selective photo posts on Facebook will allow.

As a warm-up, we are going to watch the solar eclipse in nine days. We might even try for a dinner together as a family afterwards. Anything is possible. No pain no gains.

I’m excited about the solar eclipse. I hope it makes a special memory for the girls and they aren’t preoccupied with having to go pee or wanting to listen to silly songs on XM radio. That is expecting a lot from a demographic group that mistreats toys but insist on playing for hours with empty Tupperware. Maybe the memory will be more powerful in their future adult brains.

I remember the first time that celestial objects seemed like real things. Not just bright spots in the sky. My sister and I went with our Grandmother on a road trip to Indiana to visit family. My Aunt and Uncle had a really cool house with a heated pool and a next-door neighbor who played football for the Colts. One night we were in the backyard laying on the trampoline, staring at the stars. My uncle pointed out a star that was moving faster than the other stars across the sky. “That’s a satellite”, he told me. It was a cool moment. It moved space and satellites from something imaginary to something I could observe and understand. We watched at least ten more objects coast across the sky over the next couple of hours. I hope the eclipse will do something similar for my girls. Of course, I will probably leave out all the dirty jokes my uncle was telling while we stared up at the heavens. I doubt the girls would appreciate tales of frogs who perform sexual favors or dogs who lick themselves and the old men who say, “You better pet him first.” I thought the jokes were hilarious. They were a hit at school later that fall. Thanks Uncle J.

If you enjoy the wonders of the cosmos and dirty jokes, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Thanks For Mom

In a movie every character is important. Every line has meaning towards developing a character or moving the story forward. If one character doesn’t play the part correctly then the story will fall apart. Next weekend is Mother’s Day.

Mothers are the main characters in most life stories.

Since I was little I knew different aspects of my mother. Everyone always let me know how smart she was in school. I could see myself her being beautiful and compassionate. The one thing I have never really known is her backstory or the difficulties she faced before I was born. I’ve pressed her to tell me histories and fill in the blanks but she has always been hesitant to share. Last week she sent me an email with a personal story from her past. I found it interesting, emotional, and reflective. She made me think about how our stories are woven with other people. How endings are beginnings in disguise. And of course, I wanted to share it.

Here is what she wrote:

“For every damn thing I went through in my youth and as a young adult, I’m talking stressful or traumatic events, I just had to suck it up. Truthfully, I never realized there was an option. That’s why I have a difficult time relating to the younger generation who feel the need to cuddle and drink hot chocolate when things don’t go their way. I don’t think cuddling and hot cocoa are necessarily bad things. As a matter of fact, had I been able to cuddle and drink cocoa I’m sure my behavior would have been much better. That’s all I have to say about that.

There are things that have been erased from my memory. I’m sure that is a self-preservation quality of my brain. Other things I have absolute clarity about. Moments I can replay in my head in slow motion; smell scents, see sights, and experience emotions. These moments are often turning points. One in particular is an event that put me on a path to hope. You may not have realized it had you been around then, it took some time for hope to grow into something more. This is the event I wish to share today.

A series of events led up to this moment. There were incidences that made it impossible for me to continue to live in the circumstances I found myself in. I knew something had to change, I could no longer cope. I was smart enough to know if I simply left home, I would be retrieved and returned. I was a minor, the law would be on the side of the adults. So, I turned myself in to DCS (Department of Children Services). I was picked up shortly after I made my call by two men in suits who transported me to a juvenile facility. I don’t remember the name of it, but I recall some of the residents. I remember the facility’s van taking me to school, quite an embarrassing circumstance for a 15 year old. I stayed in this facility while my situation was being investigated. I waited for the court date that would determine my fate.

I can’t remember how long it took for the day to arrive. Memory block. I do recall several people testifying including my case worker who recommended I not be sent home. When my turn came I was, thankfully, escorted to judge’s chambers to testify in private. I didn’t have to speak in front of dissenting adults. The judge started by commending me for my good grades and positive teacher recommendations. We talked a minute about plans for the future, etc. Then he asked the question “What do you think will happen if I send you home?”

The.Entire.World.Stopped.Turning.

I have no idea how my face appeared or what my heart looked like as it lay there on the floor. I do remember turning my head to look out the window. It seemed to turn very, very slowly. The view was not great, merely a red brick wall. Looking back now it seems symbolic.

I couldn’t find my words. My mind was trying to focus but all I could think about was how sure I was I would take my own life before I went back. The only time I was seriously, dangerously, considering suicide. I’ve never told anyone about my thoughts. I can’t explain it but for that moment I was absolutely sure of the answer. However, the only words I could squeeze out were “I don’t know.” The conversation basically ended there.

I was returned to the courtroom to hear my fate along with everyone else involved. Judge WBH saved my life that day. In truth, he and my brother and sister-in-law saved my life. You see, my brother had offered me a home and the judge saw fit to accept his offer on my behalf. The rest of the day was a blur but I was thankful not to have to return to the unnamed facility. Some of those residents were certifiable!

I’m sorry to say, even though this was a life altering day, it didn’t change the bad behavior I had indulged in for some time. I’ve never asked my brother if, not having told him this story, he regrets bringing me into his home. It cost him something. At times, it cost him lots. I was too young to appreciate him. There is no way to repay someone for saving your life. You pay it forward and hope that is enough.

There have been a series of wonderful people in my life. People willing to help with no consideration for the cost to themselves. I shall tell their stories one day. There would be no other stories to tell had my slow motion panic gone unnoticed by a judge who cared and who had an alternative. The one day I didn’t have the ability to suck it up, I didn’t have to.”

All I could think as I teared up at the thought of the whole story was this… It is hard to thank someone for saving you. For being a link in your safety chain. There is usually a thread of guilt or shame woven into the situation. Nothing you say seems to be enough. That is okay. Love is an investment and it doesn’t always pay back right away.

On Easter weekend we went with my mother to my uncle’s house for our annual hunting of the eggs. My cousins and their children were there. Together, with my wrecking crew, there was a yard full of laughter and fun. We played whiffle ball and hunted eggs that were stuffed exclusively with loose change. We sat around telling funny stories and relating to each other’s parenting woes. As always, it was a beautiful time with people we love. Now I know the story could have been completely different.

So, to who it may concern, thank you for my mother.

Oh and Happy Mother’s Day!

-Underdaddy to the rescue.