Eschatology.
I like big words. I like words that cause people look at me with a furrowed brow as if reading my face is going to magically give them the definition. Okay, and since I value intelligence and hold it at a high standard, I may or may not enjoy knowing something that others don't. There I said it.
Anyway, back to the big, gnarly word. Eschatology is the study of 'end times'. The word, broken up, actually means 'last study'.
I have always been fascinated with the final book in the Bible, Revelation. Ok, first off....let me correct all of you - it is Revelation - NOT Revelations. Now that we have that taken care of, let's continue. *ahem* As I said, I have always enjoyed it. My dad was a fanatic with end of times prophecy as well. Perhaps that is where I get my passion for it.
There are many theories as to the end times and Jesus' return, therefore, you may be skeptical on my interpretation. Tough. Ok, that was somewhat harsh but my back kind of hurts, it's late and I may be a tad cranky. What I meant to type was - that's okay, but I am going to give you my take on some of it.
No, I am not going to break down the entire book or even really touch on much of it at all. That would take forever - I am currently breaking down the book for our youth group and it's a 12 week study so you can imagine how long I would have to blog about it. Perhaps someday, but not any time soon.
Anyway, crazy things are going on in the world. More so than ever before. Nothing in society shocks us. We are desensitized to everything and most everything is acceptable. If you aren't accepting you are labeled "judgmental", "critical", "close-minded", "religious nut", and so on. I would prefer to think of myself as wholesome and striving for holiness, but hey, what-ev.
The crazy thing is when Jesus left the disciples and ascended into heaven, He told them to keep an eye out. He said he would return. That very moment...that very second that Jesus was no longer in sight....humanity anticipated his return.
And he gave us signs to watch for.
Christians around the globe have a twitch deep in their spirit. They have a gnawing sensation that something big is coming, something monumental. I keep hearing it everywhere I go.
It's like this - the honey bee is a fascinating creature. It really is. Once the bee finds a patch of flowers it enjoys, it will continue to feed from them for it's entire life span. It is called flower consistency. Now bees can live a surprisingly long time under the right conditions - up to 4 years (mind blown, right?). So, they build their nest and feed off the tasty flowers and then hibernate in the winter. Once Spring lazily approaches, the bees start to stir. They start to move about. They are anticipating something. They know it won't be long before their favorite flower blooms again. They feel it inside their spirit. Their internal instincts know that something is coming but being a bee, they can't rationalize what it is. They just know it's going to be big - monumental. Then *BAM* the flowers bloom and the bees are happy.
If God puts that kind of expectancy in a small honey bee for a flower.....how much more is He going to put in us for the return of our King? That twitch, that feeling that something big is about to happen....it isn't a coincidence.
The signs are there. Whether you believe in God, whether you believe in His coming.....whether you are in denial or think you have all the time in the world...it doesn't change the fact that He is coming back.
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
As God looks down on the earth He created - the complex animals He created from nothing, man He created in His image, woman He created from man, the trees, the fish, the birds, from the largest elephant to the most delicate spider's web - it amazes me how amazing this world, and everything in it, is.....as He looks down, Jesus is whispering - "Just a little more time, Father. Give them just a little more time." But soon, God is going to say enough and gather His bride (us, the church = believers) home.
We may not know the day nor the hour, but He promised us signs....and they are there.
"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people" 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Kind of sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Read the book of Matthew (chapter 24) - Jesus gives us specific things to look for such as "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me." We are lucky to have freedom to worship God here because there are MANY countries you can be put to death for owning merely a few torn out pages of the Bible.
"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Jesus wants everyone to have a chance to be with Him in heaven - the end will not come until the Gospel has reached all nations. He promises that. With television and missionaries, how far are we from this reality?
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Do not wait until it is too late. If we knew the day and hour Jesus was coming, we would be buck wild until the hour before and then we would be on our knees (come on, don't sit there and lie and say you wouldn't!). Just like if a man knows a thief is coming, he is going to keep watch. No, he will come when we least expect it therefore we must ALWAYS be anticipating that this hour is the hour.
There is so much more. I could get lost in it all and get carried away but will leave you with that to chew on. Let me just add.....what comes after Jesus' return is not a pretty picture. Jesus takes up his bride and the holy spirit. Imagine a world where there was no tugging of "Jiminy Cricket" to tell us right from wrong. However, the book of Revelation isn't meant to scare you - it is a warning and a book of God's mercy. How you ask? God is pouring out his mercy after rapturing the church - he is giving humanity a time, a short time, to turn back to Him. A last ditch effort, so to speak. However, it is also showing God's power and wrath on those that refused His name. Let's just say that I will strive and do my best to not be here when that all goes down.
I dunno about you - but water to blood and earthquakes that sink mountains isn't my idea of a good time.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Hear my laughter; see my tears
Isn't it funny how one small thing can trigger a wave of emotions? A smell. A touch. A sound. It is crazy how the mind works.
Today marks the anniversary of my dad's death. He died 19 years ago today. I have blogged about my dad quite often and as you may have read, we didn't have a great relationship while he was on this earth. Once I hit about 11 or 12, he didn't really want anything to do with me. We barely talked and if he did have something to say, it was words of correction or instruction. He may have given me words of encouragement, but had he....I sure don't remember. Again, funny how the mind works. Negativity bullies the positive and shoves it into a dark hole never to be remembered.
So as I was sitting here today, I wanted to post on Face book a song my dad enjoyed, one of many. I just wanted to post it to share a piece of who he was with my friends. I looked on YouTube for some and nothing really stood out or I couldn't find what I was looking for. Then I clicked on a Hank Williams Sr. song and the wave of emotion hit me like a tsunami. It came out of nowhere. I was fine all day, usually am since it has been so long, but hearing that song just caused all sorts of pain, and I wanted nothing more on this earth than to see my dad's face. It doesn't matter how old I am, or what sort of relationship we had or even how long it has been - the ache of the sorrow of missing him never truly disappears.
So instead of dwelling on the sorrow or the pain or even the negativity, I wanted to share what I remember about dad that was positive, memories that bring a smile to my face....so here goes -
He liked fried egg sandwiches and hated tacos. He loved chicken and dumplings and Little Debbie snack cakes (oatmeal pies in particular). He had a sweet tooth but enjoyed an occasional cheese puff now and again. He always wore shoes unless he was in bed and he always wore a white undershirt. Whether it was winter or summer, he always wore the undershirt and a long sleeved flannel - and sometimes his old brown sweater. He always smelled and mint tobacco (he gave up smoking but took to chewing Renegade tobacco). He would always doze in his chair but by some act of God, would always be wide awake when you reached for the remote. Then he would deny he was every asleep in the first place. He always walked down our lane to the mailbox, every day and would pick up the trash and can along side the road about half a mile in either direction. He and my mom never fought in front of me. They raised their voices at each other one day and I swore they were going to get a divorce (haha). He was a genius, I am sure. He read at an unnatural speed and retained everything he read. He loved Jeopardy and I would keep score when we watched it because I wanted nothing more than to beat him, which never happened. I miss hearing the *tick tick tick* of his typewriting coming from the tiny room he called his office. I miss hearing the ball game on the radio as he escaped to go listen to it and keep stats (not sure why he did that but my son does the exact same thing). I still laugh at the fact that whenever I belched at the table, he would get so utterly disgusted and throw down his fork and say "For heaven's sake - unhinge your jaw like a snake why dontcha?". I miss hearing him say "dadburnit". I miss the hot summer days in the garden (that he did entirely by manual labor) and the all day job of butchering chickens (ok, I don't miss that all too much). I miss the sound of the ball game on the TV echoing through the house and dad talking to the players as if they could hear him. I miss how he called my mom "Reet" (her name is Rita) and all us kids he called by a shortened version of our name (Tracy-Trace, Jeffery-Jeff, Robin-Rob, Billie-Bill and Misty-Miss). I miss how he would go outside on toss the baseball with me. I miss his voice.
I miss him.
But God is good. God gave me a son that reminds me so much of my dad, it's scary. His build is the same, his obsession with sports (when I don't ever, or ever have, had a sports game on in my home), his intelligence, his fascination with numbers and stats, his soft voice and gentle spirit and there are times where my son will do a mannerism or an expression that takes my breath away because it is my dad looking back at me.
Then there are times when I just can't grasp the memories. I can't remember what he looked like so I would stare at his pictures for a long time trying to remember, trying to grasp a tiny piece of him. Then God would send him to me in a dream. Granted, I know it isn't my dad in that dream but the dream is so real that I wake up thanking God for sending it to me.
I cannot wait to get to heaven.
Therefore, in light of this day....I am going to post my favorite short story my dad wrote. It is taken from his book "Hear My Laughter; See My Tears". It was hard to choose just one. My dad had written a book of short stories, all based on true incidents of him growing up in the coal mines of Kentucky. Enjoy.
Autumn always comes to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky on cat's feet, setting off silent explosions of brilliant colors that subtly change nature's face to one of breath-taking beauty. As soft as a baby's sigh as it falls into untroubled slumber, autumn paints the hillsides with an artist's palette of vibrant colors and one can almost hear the fading heartbeats of summer. In no other part of the world does autumn take on a more Tinkerbell-ish character of a playful sprite than in the rugged mountains of Eastern Kentucky. It sprinkles wondrous magic dust over a part of the world that often cries so loudly for beauty. It rumps up and down hillsides and deep into valleys so lonesome they cause tears to flood the eyes of sentimentalists.
It was in the midst of God's shower of colors that PeeWee Tallions and I decided to hop a "coal-drag" home from school and save our shoe leather. It wasn't a spur of the moment impulse, mind you. The idea of latching onto the side ladder of a slow moving coal car had been discussed hundreds of times during our evening treks from school to home. Every time we'd almost talk ourselves into giving it a try, however, the fear of having to drag a wooden leg around for the next sixty or seventy years like old "Peg" Walker, and the discouraging images of getting our hides tanned if our folks ever found out always diverted our 12 year old bravados into safer conversations complete with bragging and ludicrous lies.
"Let's do'er today,' PeeWee said as we walked alongside the railroad tracks toward home one mid-October evening.
"Nah, its getting' kinda dark, and we might miss the ladder and fall under the trains wheels," I answered, hoping the last in a long line of excuses would serve to deter him.
"Ya turnin' yella, ain't ya?" he said, accusing me with his flashing brown eyes.
"I ain't yella!" I snapped, hoping to start a conversation about courage instead of having to prove it.
"Then, by dog, let's do'er. If ya don't, ya gotta be yella-dog chicken," he said, sticking out his chin.
"Okay, okay but I'm only gonna do it this one time. If my dad finds out about it, he'll give me a double dose of willer-switch tea," I said.
"Ya think mine won't?"
"Yeah, but my dad's bigger than yours."
"That don't mean nuthin'. Anybody'll tell ya that Italian men are the hardest whuppers inna world," PeeWee countered. He always had to come out on top of every comparative conversation. I guess that was because he was only five feet tall, skinny as a hat pin and needed verbal victories to make him feel bigger.
"Wait!" he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a halt. "Do ya hear it?"
"What?"
"The coal-drag. It's comin'....hear it?"
I did but said I didn't.
"By dog, ya're 'bout as deef as a brick, ya know that? Open ya big ears and listen. Ya hear it now?" he asked, highly annoyed.
I couldn't deny it again. Not far around the bend of the mountain behind us, the "chomp-chomp" chugging of a laboring locomotive grew louder and louder. In a matter of seconds, it's shiny cow-catcher and belching smoke stack came into full view. It was moving toward us at a pace a little faster than a brisk walk.
We stood knee-deep in dusty weeds alongside the tracks and waved at the striped hatted engineer like a couple of morons. The burly man waved back and gave us a grin that split his coal-blackened face.
We stood side by side, counting the loaded cars as they crawled by. When the twentieth car was almost upon us, PeeWee gigged me in the ribs with his elbow and yelled, "Let's do'er!"
It was alot easier than I imagined it would be. PeeWee latched onto the front ladder and I grabbed the rear one. Nothing to it, and it was great fun! We were riding home at a nice, leisurely speed and all we had to do when we neared our homes was jump off and walk the remaining short distance. Nobody'd ever be any the wiser.
As the coal-drag chugged along, however, it seemed to me that we were picking up speed. Hoping it was my imagination, I looked down and discovered that my worst fears were confirmed. The cross ties were slipping by at a much faster clip. We'd sped up considerably. No doubt about it.
"PeeWee, we're pickin' up speed! Let's jump off!" I yelled.
"If ya do, ya're a yella-dog chicken!" He yelled back.
The steel wheels were now clicking with a steady rhythm and the chilly wind whipped my thin jacket like a flag in a gale. I looked down again and noted that the cross ties were now little more than a black blur. The trees alongside the tracks dashed toward us at lightning speed. We were now traveling much too fast to even think about jumping off and our houses were less than a half a mile ahead.
Now PeeWee was looking back at me out of frightened eyes and shaking his head from side to side. I assumed that he was telling me not to jump. He needn't have worried. Jumping wouldn't have left us with enough bones intact to spin a yo-yo. We were stuck to the side of that car until the train slowed...whenever and wherever that might be. Both of us looked longingly as the train sped past our houses down in the bottom below the tracks. I didn't know about PeeWee but I hoped my dad hadn't been looking out the kitchen window and spotted us hanging onto the side of the coal car like a couple of cockroaches stuck to the side of a wedding cake.
A mile or so beyond our houses and heading toward Hazard, I pointed upward indicating to PeeWee that we should climb up and sit atop the loaded car. My hands were growing stiff, making it difficult to hang onto the ladder rung. He nodded agreement and we inched our way up the ladders. Crawling on our hands and knees across the sharp-edged coal, we went to the middle of the car and sat up. After looking into each other's tightly-drawn and frightened faces for a couple of minutes, PeeWee's lower lip began to tremble and tears clouded his eyes.
"Don't ya dare start that PeeWee. It's too late to bawl now," I said, my own voice stiff and choked.
"How we gonna get off'en this thing? It jus' keeps goin' faster an' faster," he whined.
"We ain't 'til it slows down," I said.
"When will that be? Lordy, we might wind up in Mexico or even Louisville."
"Ain't nuthin' we can do about it."
"But I'm cold."
"And what makes you think I ain't?"
It was bitter cold atop that gondola. Darkness had all but fallen, bringing with it colder temperatures. Frigid wind lashed at our thinly clad bodies and numbed our hands and faces. PeeWee slammed both his hands between his legs in an effort to warm them and gave up trying to control his tears. I, on the other hand, figured that the only thing that could possibly save us was a miracle, so I tried my hand at praying.
Seven miles down the line, the lights of Hazard appeared like dancing fireflies off in the distance ahead of us. PeeWee and I were hoping for the same thing.
"Do ya reckon this thing'll stop in Hazard?" he asked, looking at me from behind a coal-blackened face made streaky by his wiping tears away.
"Maybe....let's hope so," I muttered and went back to praying. Sure enough, the train began to slow down just outside of Hazard. Just a little more and we'd be able to hope off.
"Come on. Let's get back down the ladder so we'll be able to jump off if it slows down more," I said.
We scampered down the ladder like squirrels and waited for the train to slow down even more. Very slowly, it did.
"Okay....jump!" I yelled to PeeWee. He released his grip and leaped backwards, turning a complete backward somersault and rolling like a ball when he hit the ground.
Naturally, I followed suit but I didn't jump the way PeeWee had. Instead, I lowered my feet until they hit the cinders along side the tracks and turned loose of the ladder rung. In order to keep my balance, I had to run faster than I thought my legs could ever carry me. As it turned out, they didn't carry me very far. My feet got tangled and I took a tongue-biting belly-whopper upon the white bedrock alongside the tracks. As I skidded forward on my belly, tiny red and white dots exploded before my eyes and I felt sizable portions of my skin covering my knees and elbows being sacrificed to all the gods of stupidity. Finally, after an eternity of skidding across bedrock and razor-sharp cinders, I came to a grinding halt.
With every bone in my body aching, I crawled to my feet. Even though I was able to stand, I was still certain that both my poor kneecaps were shattered. They weren't, or course. There just wasn't enough skin left on them to cover a golf ball. Bleeding kneecaps and hands smarting from the cinder cuts notwithstanding, I made my way back to where PeeWee was sitting on the brown grass a few feet from the tracks. Incredibly, he was laughing his head off!
"What's so funny?" I asked, thinking that maybe he'd hit his head and would be a certified idiot for the rest of his life.
"By dog, we did'er, didn't we? We rode that rascal," he laughed.
"And, by dog, I oughta kill ya for talkin' me into it. What we done was stupid, an' we're gonna get our jackets warmed when we get home," I said, irritated by his goofy laughter.
"It was fun though, wudn't it?"
"Yeah, you'se havin' so much fun, it moved ya to tears," I deliberately badgered.
"I wudn't cryin'. The wind was blowin' in my face and makin' my eyes water," he shrugged.
"And I'm gonna black'em if ya don't stop that lyin'. Get up, we gotta walk back home," I said.
It was after midnight when PeeWee and I finally made it back to our houses. My mother and father were sitting in the living room. Dad in his rocking chair with pipe going and Mama crocheting a mile a minute. Mama's mouth dropped like a trap door when I walked in, her expression a mixture of relief, shock and anger. Dad just looked angry.
"Wouldja look what the cat drug in," he said in his quiet, firm voice.
I guess I did look a sight. I was covered in coal dust, my jacket and pants were shredded at the knees and elbows and blotches of dried blood covered my clothes. Getting hit by a coal truck couldn't have caused much more damage.
Mama laid her crocheting down and walked across the room to get a closer look at me. "Are ya hurtin', son?" she asked.
"Skinned up a mite, an' I'm a little sore," I told her.
"Looks like ya been sortin' wildcats an' didn't get the job done," Dad said. "Now what happened to ya? Let's hear it."
"Me an' PeeWee hopped a coal-drag," I said and proceeded to tell him the whole story. PeeWee had suggested we tell everybody we'd been kidnapped and tortured by gangsters, but I wasn't about to allow him to get me any deeper in trouble than I already was. I decided to tell the truth and take my medicine.
"Good lord, doncha know ya coulda got killed?" Dad said.
"I know it was stupid, Dad. Ya want me to fetch the switch?"
"I don't think so," he answered.
Hope sprang upward inside me. "Ain't ya gonna whup me?"
"Lord knows I oughta, but I ain't. Looks to me like ya've learned a lesson an' been punished enough for your ignorance. I don't suspect a whuppin' would add much to what ya've already been through. I'll tell ya this much, though. If ya ever so much as think about pullin' such a stunt again, ya'd better give ya little heart to Jesus cause ya little behind is gonna belong to me. Now clean ya'self up and go on to bed," he said.
After I'd washed off the coal dust and dried blood and was safely in my bed, I offered up thanks for having been saved twice in one night. I figured God must like me an awful lot.
*Excerpt from Hear My Laughter, See My Tears
-Robert G. Back 1986
Today marks the anniversary of my dad's death. He died 19 years ago today. I have blogged about my dad quite often and as you may have read, we didn't have a great relationship while he was on this earth. Once I hit about 11 or 12, he didn't really want anything to do with me. We barely talked and if he did have something to say, it was words of correction or instruction. He may have given me words of encouragement, but had he....I sure don't remember. Again, funny how the mind works. Negativity bullies the positive and shoves it into a dark hole never to be remembered.
So as I was sitting here today, I wanted to post on Face book a song my dad enjoyed, one of many. I just wanted to post it to share a piece of who he was with my friends. I looked on YouTube for some and nothing really stood out or I couldn't find what I was looking for. Then I clicked on a Hank Williams Sr. song and the wave of emotion hit me like a tsunami. It came out of nowhere. I was fine all day, usually am since it has been so long, but hearing that song just caused all sorts of pain, and I wanted nothing more on this earth than to see my dad's face. It doesn't matter how old I am, or what sort of relationship we had or even how long it has been - the ache of the sorrow of missing him never truly disappears.
So instead of dwelling on the sorrow or the pain or even the negativity, I wanted to share what I remember about dad that was positive, memories that bring a smile to my face....so here goes -
He liked fried egg sandwiches and hated tacos. He loved chicken and dumplings and Little Debbie snack cakes (oatmeal pies in particular). He had a sweet tooth but enjoyed an occasional cheese puff now and again. He always wore shoes unless he was in bed and he always wore a white undershirt. Whether it was winter or summer, he always wore the undershirt and a long sleeved flannel - and sometimes his old brown sweater. He always smelled and mint tobacco (he gave up smoking but took to chewing Renegade tobacco). He would always doze in his chair but by some act of God, would always be wide awake when you reached for the remote. Then he would deny he was every asleep in the first place. He always walked down our lane to the mailbox, every day and would pick up the trash and can along side the road about half a mile in either direction. He and my mom never fought in front of me. They raised their voices at each other one day and I swore they were going to get a divorce (haha). He was a genius, I am sure. He read at an unnatural speed and retained everything he read. He loved Jeopardy and I would keep score when we watched it because I wanted nothing more than to beat him, which never happened. I miss hearing the *tick tick tick* of his typewriting coming from the tiny room he called his office. I miss hearing the ball game on the radio as he escaped to go listen to it and keep stats (not sure why he did that but my son does the exact same thing). I still laugh at the fact that whenever I belched at the table, he would get so utterly disgusted and throw down his fork and say "For heaven's sake - unhinge your jaw like a snake why dontcha?". I miss hearing him say "dadburnit". I miss the hot summer days in the garden (that he did entirely by manual labor) and the all day job of butchering chickens (ok, I don't miss that all too much). I miss the sound of the ball game on the TV echoing through the house and dad talking to the players as if they could hear him. I miss how he called my mom "Reet" (her name is Rita) and all us kids he called by a shortened version of our name (Tracy-Trace, Jeffery-Jeff, Robin-Rob, Billie-Bill and Misty-Miss). I miss how he would go outside on toss the baseball with me. I miss his voice.
I miss him.
But God is good. God gave me a son that reminds me so much of my dad, it's scary. His build is the same, his obsession with sports (when I don't ever, or ever have, had a sports game on in my home), his intelligence, his fascination with numbers and stats, his soft voice and gentle spirit and there are times where my son will do a mannerism or an expression that takes my breath away because it is my dad looking back at me.
Then there are times when I just can't grasp the memories. I can't remember what he looked like so I would stare at his pictures for a long time trying to remember, trying to grasp a tiny piece of him. Then God would send him to me in a dream. Granted, I know it isn't my dad in that dream but the dream is so real that I wake up thanking God for sending it to me.
I cannot wait to get to heaven.
Therefore, in light of this day....I am going to post my favorite short story my dad wrote. It is taken from his book "Hear My Laughter; See My Tears". It was hard to choose just one. My dad had written a book of short stories, all based on true incidents of him growing up in the coal mines of Kentucky. Enjoy.
Autumn always comes to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky on cat's feet, setting off silent explosions of brilliant colors that subtly change nature's face to one of breath-taking beauty. As soft as a baby's sigh as it falls into untroubled slumber, autumn paints the hillsides with an artist's palette of vibrant colors and one can almost hear the fading heartbeats of summer. In no other part of the world does autumn take on a more Tinkerbell-ish character of a playful sprite than in the rugged mountains of Eastern Kentucky. It sprinkles wondrous magic dust over a part of the world that often cries so loudly for beauty. It rumps up and down hillsides and deep into valleys so lonesome they cause tears to flood the eyes of sentimentalists.
It was in the midst of God's shower of colors that PeeWee Tallions and I decided to hop a "coal-drag" home from school and save our shoe leather. It wasn't a spur of the moment impulse, mind you. The idea of latching onto the side ladder of a slow moving coal car had been discussed hundreds of times during our evening treks from school to home. Every time we'd almost talk ourselves into giving it a try, however, the fear of having to drag a wooden leg around for the next sixty or seventy years like old "Peg" Walker, and the discouraging images of getting our hides tanned if our folks ever found out always diverted our 12 year old bravados into safer conversations complete with bragging and ludicrous lies.
"Let's do'er today,' PeeWee said as we walked alongside the railroad tracks toward home one mid-October evening.
"Nah, its getting' kinda dark, and we might miss the ladder and fall under the trains wheels," I answered, hoping the last in a long line of excuses would serve to deter him.
"Ya turnin' yella, ain't ya?" he said, accusing me with his flashing brown eyes.
"I ain't yella!" I snapped, hoping to start a conversation about courage instead of having to prove it.
"Then, by dog, let's do'er. If ya don't, ya gotta be yella-dog chicken," he said, sticking out his chin.
"Okay, okay but I'm only gonna do it this one time. If my dad finds out about it, he'll give me a double dose of willer-switch tea," I said.
"Ya think mine won't?"
"Yeah, but my dad's bigger than yours."
"That don't mean nuthin'. Anybody'll tell ya that Italian men are the hardest whuppers inna world," PeeWee countered. He always had to come out on top of every comparative conversation. I guess that was because he was only five feet tall, skinny as a hat pin and needed verbal victories to make him feel bigger.
"Wait!" he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a halt. "Do ya hear it?"
"What?"
"The coal-drag. It's comin'....hear it?"
I did but said I didn't.
"By dog, ya're 'bout as deef as a brick, ya know that? Open ya big ears and listen. Ya hear it now?" he asked, highly annoyed.
I couldn't deny it again. Not far around the bend of the mountain behind us, the "chomp-chomp" chugging of a laboring locomotive grew louder and louder. In a matter of seconds, it's shiny cow-catcher and belching smoke stack came into full view. It was moving toward us at a pace a little faster than a brisk walk.
We stood knee-deep in dusty weeds alongside the tracks and waved at the striped hatted engineer like a couple of morons. The burly man waved back and gave us a grin that split his coal-blackened face.
We stood side by side, counting the loaded cars as they crawled by. When the twentieth car was almost upon us, PeeWee gigged me in the ribs with his elbow and yelled, "Let's do'er!"
It was alot easier than I imagined it would be. PeeWee latched onto the front ladder and I grabbed the rear one. Nothing to it, and it was great fun! We were riding home at a nice, leisurely speed and all we had to do when we neared our homes was jump off and walk the remaining short distance. Nobody'd ever be any the wiser.
As the coal-drag chugged along, however, it seemed to me that we were picking up speed. Hoping it was my imagination, I looked down and discovered that my worst fears were confirmed. The cross ties were slipping by at a much faster clip. We'd sped up considerably. No doubt about it.
"PeeWee, we're pickin' up speed! Let's jump off!" I yelled.
"If ya do, ya're a yella-dog chicken!" He yelled back.
The steel wheels were now clicking with a steady rhythm and the chilly wind whipped my thin jacket like a flag in a gale. I looked down again and noted that the cross ties were now little more than a black blur. The trees alongside the tracks dashed toward us at lightning speed. We were now traveling much too fast to even think about jumping off and our houses were less than a half a mile ahead.
Now PeeWee was looking back at me out of frightened eyes and shaking his head from side to side. I assumed that he was telling me not to jump. He needn't have worried. Jumping wouldn't have left us with enough bones intact to spin a yo-yo. We were stuck to the side of that car until the train slowed...whenever and wherever that might be. Both of us looked longingly as the train sped past our houses down in the bottom below the tracks. I didn't know about PeeWee but I hoped my dad hadn't been looking out the kitchen window and spotted us hanging onto the side of the coal car like a couple of cockroaches stuck to the side of a wedding cake.
A mile or so beyond our houses and heading toward Hazard, I pointed upward indicating to PeeWee that we should climb up and sit atop the loaded car. My hands were growing stiff, making it difficult to hang onto the ladder rung. He nodded agreement and we inched our way up the ladders. Crawling on our hands and knees across the sharp-edged coal, we went to the middle of the car and sat up. After looking into each other's tightly-drawn and frightened faces for a couple of minutes, PeeWee's lower lip began to tremble and tears clouded his eyes.
"Don't ya dare start that PeeWee. It's too late to bawl now," I said, my own voice stiff and choked.
"How we gonna get off'en this thing? It jus' keeps goin' faster an' faster," he whined.
"We ain't 'til it slows down," I said.
"When will that be? Lordy, we might wind up in Mexico or even Louisville."
"Ain't nuthin' we can do about it."
"But I'm cold."
"And what makes you think I ain't?"
It was bitter cold atop that gondola. Darkness had all but fallen, bringing with it colder temperatures. Frigid wind lashed at our thinly clad bodies and numbed our hands and faces. PeeWee slammed both his hands between his legs in an effort to warm them and gave up trying to control his tears. I, on the other hand, figured that the only thing that could possibly save us was a miracle, so I tried my hand at praying.
Seven miles down the line, the lights of Hazard appeared like dancing fireflies off in the distance ahead of us. PeeWee and I were hoping for the same thing.
"Do ya reckon this thing'll stop in Hazard?" he asked, looking at me from behind a coal-blackened face made streaky by his wiping tears away.
"Maybe....let's hope so," I muttered and went back to praying. Sure enough, the train began to slow down just outside of Hazard. Just a little more and we'd be able to hope off.
"Come on. Let's get back down the ladder so we'll be able to jump off if it slows down more," I said.
We scampered down the ladder like squirrels and waited for the train to slow down even more. Very slowly, it did.
"Okay....jump!" I yelled to PeeWee. He released his grip and leaped backwards, turning a complete backward somersault and rolling like a ball when he hit the ground.
Naturally, I followed suit but I didn't jump the way PeeWee had. Instead, I lowered my feet until they hit the cinders along side the tracks and turned loose of the ladder rung. In order to keep my balance, I had to run faster than I thought my legs could ever carry me. As it turned out, they didn't carry me very far. My feet got tangled and I took a tongue-biting belly-whopper upon the white bedrock alongside the tracks. As I skidded forward on my belly, tiny red and white dots exploded before my eyes and I felt sizable portions of my skin covering my knees and elbows being sacrificed to all the gods of stupidity. Finally, after an eternity of skidding across bedrock and razor-sharp cinders, I came to a grinding halt.
With every bone in my body aching, I crawled to my feet. Even though I was able to stand, I was still certain that both my poor kneecaps were shattered. They weren't, or course. There just wasn't enough skin left on them to cover a golf ball. Bleeding kneecaps and hands smarting from the cinder cuts notwithstanding, I made my way back to where PeeWee was sitting on the brown grass a few feet from the tracks. Incredibly, he was laughing his head off!
"What's so funny?" I asked, thinking that maybe he'd hit his head and would be a certified idiot for the rest of his life.
"By dog, we did'er, didn't we? We rode that rascal," he laughed.
"And, by dog, I oughta kill ya for talkin' me into it. What we done was stupid, an' we're gonna get our jackets warmed when we get home," I said, irritated by his goofy laughter.
"It was fun though, wudn't it?"
"Yeah, you'se havin' so much fun, it moved ya to tears," I deliberately badgered.
"I wudn't cryin'. The wind was blowin' in my face and makin' my eyes water," he shrugged.
"And I'm gonna black'em if ya don't stop that lyin'. Get up, we gotta walk back home," I said.
It was after midnight when PeeWee and I finally made it back to our houses. My mother and father were sitting in the living room. Dad in his rocking chair with pipe going and Mama crocheting a mile a minute. Mama's mouth dropped like a trap door when I walked in, her expression a mixture of relief, shock and anger. Dad just looked angry.
"Wouldja look what the cat drug in," he said in his quiet, firm voice.
I guess I did look a sight. I was covered in coal dust, my jacket and pants were shredded at the knees and elbows and blotches of dried blood covered my clothes. Getting hit by a coal truck couldn't have caused much more damage.
Mama laid her crocheting down and walked across the room to get a closer look at me. "Are ya hurtin', son?" she asked.
"Skinned up a mite, an' I'm a little sore," I told her.
"Looks like ya been sortin' wildcats an' didn't get the job done," Dad said. "Now what happened to ya? Let's hear it."
"Me an' PeeWee hopped a coal-drag," I said and proceeded to tell him the whole story. PeeWee had suggested we tell everybody we'd been kidnapped and tortured by gangsters, but I wasn't about to allow him to get me any deeper in trouble than I already was. I decided to tell the truth and take my medicine.
"Good lord, doncha know ya coulda got killed?" Dad said.
"I know it was stupid, Dad. Ya want me to fetch the switch?"
"I don't think so," he answered.
Hope sprang upward inside me. "Ain't ya gonna whup me?"
"Lord knows I oughta, but I ain't. Looks to me like ya've learned a lesson an' been punished enough for your ignorance. I don't suspect a whuppin' would add much to what ya've already been through. I'll tell ya this much, though. If ya ever so much as think about pullin' such a stunt again, ya'd better give ya little heart to Jesus cause ya little behind is gonna belong to me. Now clean ya'self up and go on to bed," he said.
After I'd washed off the coal dust and dried blood and was safely in my bed, I offered up thanks for having been saved twice in one night. I figured God must like me an awful lot.
*Excerpt from Hear My Laughter, See My Tears
-Robert G. Back 1986
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Scaredy cats are only cute on Halloween....
We live a life of fear.
It's true.
Fear is not something that is instilled in us. God did not create us with a spirit of fear. It is a learned emotion. If you don't believe me, watch a baby that has learned to crawl. They will pull themselves up onto a couch and jump off as if they expect themselves to magically float to the floor with the greatest of ease. No, instead they crash hard with a resounding thud followed my a mouth locked in a silent cry before the wails of the banshee escape into the air. They then know that falling equals pain, therefore they will not try that again (usually). They grow fearful of the pain that comes as a consequence to the jump.
Children also learn fear, not only from actions, but from their influential people - namely their parents. A baby sits and plays with his blocks and once a spider slowly creeps up his leg, you don't see him screaming for someone to kill it until it is nothing more than a black speck (ok, that may or may not be referring to me). No, they look at it with wonder and amusement. Their little brows furrow in a questionable gaze at this weird thing that doesn't inflict any harm on them but tickles their skin. It isn't until the mother comes in and screeches like a howler monkey before jerking the baby up and running from the room as if the spider is going to attack and kill in one swift motion. The baby then learns that the strange little creature is something to be feared. Why....? Well, because mommy fears it. The one that the baby puts all his trust in is fearful and therefore he must be, right?
We fear so many things; some outlandish and some not so much. I will not go into the weird phobias I have because to many they seem ridiculous but to me they are quite real. Fear. Fear that has been instilled inside me at an impressionable age.
Fear is an emotion that effects us in so many ways. Physically it causes our heart to race, causes an outbreak of perspiration, nausea, shaking, immobilization, enlarged pupils, dry mouth, etc. Mentally it causes anxiety, depression, feeling of inadequacy and just an over all feeling that we are controlled by our fear.
The biggest thing that fear does, in my opinion, is keeps us from reaching our fullest potential. The majority of us share one common fear - the fear of rejection.
Whether it be rejection by a family member, an employer, a teacher, a mentor or someone we have romantic feelings for - the fear is the same no matter of race or gender. It creates missed opportunities and crumbled relationships. What God has possibly sent for good will turn sour as our fear consumes us like a poison.
In the NIV version of the Bible there are over 300 verses based on fear. Here are a few of my favorites....
"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline."-2 Timothy 1:7
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." -John 14:27
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." -Joshua 1:9
"In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" -Psalm 56:4
"I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears" -Psalm 34:4
"the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." -Luke 1:73-75
God doesn't say that we will never have fear. We live in a world that is full of some pretty scary stuff. However, He tells us we have no reason to fear because He is watching over us.
Like the old saying, don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. Don't fear taking a step out of your comfortable little box you have created for yourself. Do something daring! You want to go back to school even though you think you are "too old"? Do it! You want to start a new ministry or Bible study? Give it a try! You have wanted to tell someone how you really feel about them for awhile now? Take a deep breath and blurt it out! You want to take on a project that seems impossible? I remember reading somewhere that ALL things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).
If you live in fear, the enemy has a foothold on you. You will constantly be afraid of failing therefore you will never try anything. The enemy will use the fear to keep you from reaching a potential that you never knew you had but was planted in you before you were even born. Don't listen to the "I can't", the "what if", or the "I don't know..." God wants you to prosper and wants the best for you. He wants you to strive farther than you ever thought possible.
It will be frightening, perhaps even down-right terrifying....but all it takes is one step. One step and God promises to meet you there. Peter - he took one step out of the boat when the other disciples were cowering in the corner, freaked out not knowing what they were going to do amidst the storm. Jesus called out to Peter and he took that first step out of the boat. It was when his focus became cloudy and his fear set in that he began to sink and even though the fear consumed him just as the waves threatened to do, Jesus still reached into the darkness and pulled him out. Peter did not cower in the boat. He knew that if he reached out to his King that all would be okay..that he could do anything - even the impossible, walking on water!!
It only takes a few seconds of courage to create a path of greatness. Just take the step and Jesus promises to meet you there.
It's true.
Fear is not something that is instilled in us. God did not create us with a spirit of fear. It is a learned emotion. If you don't believe me, watch a baby that has learned to crawl. They will pull themselves up onto a couch and jump off as if they expect themselves to magically float to the floor with the greatest of ease. No, instead they crash hard with a resounding thud followed my a mouth locked in a silent cry before the wails of the banshee escape into the air. They then know that falling equals pain, therefore they will not try that again (usually). They grow fearful of the pain that comes as a consequence to the jump.
Children also learn fear, not only from actions, but from their influential people - namely their parents. A baby sits and plays with his blocks and once a spider slowly creeps up his leg, you don't see him screaming for someone to kill it until it is nothing more than a black speck (ok, that may or may not be referring to me). No, they look at it with wonder and amusement. Their little brows furrow in a questionable gaze at this weird thing that doesn't inflict any harm on them but tickles their skin. It isn't until the mother comes in and screeches like a howler monkey before jerking the baby up and running from the room as if the spider is going to attack and kill in one swift motion. The baby then learns that the strange little creature is something to be feared. Why....? Well, because mommy fears it. The one that the baby puts all his trust in is fearful and therefore he must be, right?
We fear so many things; some outlandish and some not so much. I will not go into the weird phobias I have because to many they seem ridiculous but to me they are quite real. Fear. Fear that has been instilled inside me at an impressionable age.
Fear is an emotion that effects us in so many ways. Physically it causes our heart to race, causes an outbreak of perspiration, nausea, shaking, immobilization, enlarged pupils, dry mouth, etc. Mentally it causes anxiety, depression, feeling of inadequacy and just an over all feeling that we are controlled by our fear.
The biggest thing that fear does, in my opinion, is keeps us from reaching our fullest potential. The majority of us share one common fear - the fear of rejection.
Whether it be rejection by a family member, an employer, a teacher, a mentor or someone we have romantic feelings for - the fear is the same no matter of race or gender. It creates missed opportunities and crumbled relationships. What God has possibly sent for good will turn sour as our fear consumes us like a poison.
In the NIV version of the Bible there are over 300 verses based on fear. Here are a few of my favorites....
"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline."-2 Timothy 1:7
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." -John 14:27
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." -Joshua 1:9
"In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" -Psalm 56:4
"I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears" -Psalm 34:4
"the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." -Luke 1:73-75
God doesn't say that we will never have fear. We live in a world that is full of some pretty scary stuff. However, He tells us we have no reason to fear because He is watching over us.
Like the old saying, don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. Don't fear taking a step out of your comfortable little box you have created for yourself. Do something daring! You want to go back to school even though you think you are "too old"? Do it! You want to start a new ministry or Bible study? Give it a try! You have wanted to tell someone how you really feel about them for awhile now? Take a deep breath and blurt it out! You want to take on a project that seems impossible? I remember reading somewhere that ALL things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).
If you live in fear, the enemy has a foothold on you. You will constantly be afraid of failing therefore you will never try anything. The enemy will use the fear to keep you from reaching a potential that you never knew you had but was planted in you before you were even born. Don't listen to the "I can't", the "what if", or the "I don't know..." God wants you to prosper and wants the best for you. He wants you to strive farther than you ever thought possible.
It will be frightening, perhaps even down-right terrifying....but all it takes is one step. One step and God promises to meet you there. Peter - he took one step out of the boat when the other disciples were cowering in the corner, freaked out not knowing what they were going to do amidst the storm. Jesus called out to Peter and he took that first step out of the boat. It was when his focus became cloudy and his fear set in that he began to sink and even though the fear consumed him just as the waves threatened to do, Jesus still reached into the darkness and pulled him out. Peter did not cower in the boat. He knew that if he reached out to his King that all would be okay..that he could do anything - even the impossible, walking on water!!
It only takes a few seconds of courage to create a path of greatness. Just take the step and Jesus promises to meet you there.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Inside a father's heart....
Our dad wrote for numerous magazines, newspaper columns and wrote a book that was a 6 week study for a middle school in Florida. I was reading through them and laminating them a couple years ago and came across one that touched me and brought back memories. I felt compelled to post it :)
10/27/1986
"Isn't it remarkable how different things become when your children trot off to begin another school year? They cram all their supplies into tote bags or backpacks, yell "bye" on their way out, and unfailingly slam the door as a symbolic exclamation point that proclaims that summer and all its noises are all but over. It leaves in its wake a stillness that is almost uncomfortable.
After the bus picks them up and rumbles away, you begin your annual re-adjustment phases. You look at the black television screen and realize you'll have to get used to not hearing some yoyo yelling, "Cretina Moroni, come on down!" Well, no sweat here. However, it might take a bit more effort getting used to a telephone that doesn't ring a dozen times a day, youngsters honking their car horns in my driveway or pounding on the door, or spending a great deal of time trying to explain why chickens don't have teeth to my daughter. After all, who wouldn't miss that?
As the first day wears on, you begin to dwell on the changes that transpired over the summer. There were a few at my house. My 16 year old son (Misty note--this would be Jeff), besides discovering that girls are something he shouldn't have spent so much time ignoring, had his first summer job. That allowed him to buy his school clothes and supplies, and provide him with funds which were used to convince girls that his previous lack of interest in them was directly related to partial blindness and temporary insanity.
My daughter (Misty note--this would be me), on the other hand, spent a large portion of the summer mastering the fine art of riding a boys bike and raising 40 frying chickens. Both projects weren't without their problems. When she wasn't dismounting her bike by way of flying headfirst over the handlebars and giving our dog a phobia by running into him so often, she somehow caught a chicken's head in the door of the chicken house and had to nurse another back to health that came up lame. To her credit, though, she accepted her injuries and those of her chickens with equal concern. The abrasions on her elbows and knees were no more important than her chicken's sore head. Somewhere, I suppose, there's a child psychologist who can explain all that.
Eventually, you get up and address your time and energies to projects that were too difficult or impossible to tackle when the kids were home all day. I pulled up to my typewriter and quickly discovered that I was unable to put black on white. I drew a blank. Words, sentences and paragraphs were miles beyond my grasp. All the light bulbs inside my head were turned off.
Then it hit me right between the eyes! Nobody was interrupting me. I was concentrating more on when and how I'd be interrupted than on my planned project. I'd spent all summer being sidetracked by such annoyances as fixing bike tires, putting band aides on scrapes and abrasions, inspecting one chicken with a headache and another with a limp, dispensing postage stamps to my son in order for him to send letters to girls who were once nondescript objects in his life, and settling perfectly silly disputes. Suddenly, I was being forced to adjust again to uninterrupted silence. To be honest, that took awhile.
Finally,. all the summer noises and aggravations notwithstanding, you realize that the house seems terribly lonely. You actually miss your children and their methods of getting in your hair. You know they'll be home again in a few hours, yet things don't seem exactly right without them being around to monopolize your time and attention. The bike stands beside the porch like something disappointed because there's nobody upon whom it can inflict injuries, the "jambox" in my son's room isn't blasting out songs so wild and indecipherable they sound as though they were recorded inside a lunatic asylum, and the telephone hangs limply as though thankful for the rest. What should be perfect peace is an awkward peace. It's almost like weathering one storm and waiting for the next one to hit.
After some though, you realize that the attention-getting devices employed by your children, be they negative or positive, are vital ingredients that form the bond of love between parents and children. They seek your attention and involvement in their lives in a variety of both pleasant and unpleasant ways, and you strive to consciously and instinctively to meet their needs. Most children will not allow their parents to drift too far away from them. They'll find ways to pull them back. When parents recognize and accept those tactics, a happy relationship is kept intact. Actually, that's what family is really about. Where closeness abounds, there is little room for negatives to invade and destroy.
Having said that, I have but a couple more thing to say.
Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you.
I've missed you."
Most articles my dad wrote were very political and about various government rights. He would throw a few here and there about his family
Reading this let me have a piece of him that I didn't get to see much growing up. The side of him that shows he loved his kids. Don't get me wrong, he was our dad and I know he loved us but as a southern man, he had a hard time showing it. Plus, when you are sick all the time you tend to take it out on those closest to you. I get that now. This article is hanging on my computer room wall as a reminder. A reminder of the love of a father and a reminder of who is waiting for me in heaven.
And as I read this article, I read that last couple lines again and again "Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you. I've missed you." ...and I can't help but believe he is in heaven saying those exact same words.
10/27/1986
"Isn't it remarkable how different things become when your children trot off to begin another school year? They cram all their supplies into tote bags or backpacks, yell "bye" on their way out, and unfailingly slam the door as a symbolic exclamation point that proclaims that summer and all its noises are all but over. It leaves in its wake a stillness that is almost uncomfortable.
After the bus picks them up and rumbles away, you begin your annual re-adjustment phases. You look at the black television screen and realize you'll have to get used to not hearing some yoyo yelling, "Cretina Moroni, come on down!" Well, no sweat here. However, it might take a bit more effort getting used to a telephone that doesn't ring a dozen times a day, youngsters honking their car horns in my driveway or pounding on the door, or spending a great deal of time trying to explain why chickens don't have teeth to my daughter. After all, who wouldn't miss that?
As the first day wears on, you begin to dwell on the changes that transpired over the summer. There were a few at my house. My 16 year old son (Misty note--this would be Jeff), besides discovering that girls are something he shouldn't have spent so much time ignoring, had his first summer job. That allowed him to buy his school clothes and supplies, and provide him with funds which were used to convince girls that his previous lack of interest in them was directly related to partial blindness and temporary insanity.
My daughter (Misty note--this would be me), on the other hand, spent a large portion of the summer mastering the fine art of riding a boys bike and raising 40 frying chickens. Both projects weren't without their problems. When she wasn't dismounting her bike by way of flying headfirst over the handlebars and giving our dog a phobia by running into him so often, she somehow caught a chicken's head in the door of the chicken house and had to nurse another back to health that came up lame. To her credit, though, she accepted her injuries and those of her chickens with equal concern. The abrasions on her elbows and knees were no more important than her chicken's sore head. Somewhere, I suppose, there's a child psychologist who can explain all that.
Eventually, you get up and address your time and energies to projects that were too difficult or impossible to tackle when the kids were home all day. I pulled up to my typewriter and quickly discovered that I was unable to put black on white. I drew a blank. Words, sentences and paragraphs were miles beyond my grasp. All the light bulbs inside my head were turned off.
Then it hit me right between the eyes! Nobody was interrupting me. I was concentrating more on when and how I'd be interrupted than on my planned project. I'd spent all summer being sidetracked by such annoyances as fixing bike tires, putting band aides on scrapes and abrasions, inspecting one chicken with a headache and another with a limp, dispensing postage stamps to my son in order for him to send letters to girls who were once nondescript objects in his life, and settling perfectly silly disputes. Suddenly, I was being forced to adjust again to uninterrupted silence. To be honest, that took awhile.
Finally,. all the summer noises and aggravations notwithstanding, you realize that the house seems terribly lonely. You actually miss your children and their methods of getting in your hair. You know they'll be home again in a few hours, yet things don't seem exactly right without them being around to monopolize your time and attention. The bike stands beside the porch like something disappointed because there's nobody upon whom it can inflict injuries, the "jambox" in my son's room isn't blasting out songs so wild and indecipherable they sound as though they were recorded inside a lunatic asylum, and the telephone hangs limply as though thankful for the rest. What should be perfect peace is an awkward peace. It's almost like weathering one storm and waiting for the next one to hit.
After some though, you realize that the attention-getting devices employed by your children, be they negative or positive, are vital ingredients that form the bond of love between parents and children. They seek your attention and involvement in their lives in a variety of both pleasant and unpleasant ways, and you strive to consciously and instinctively to meet their needs. Most children will not allow their parents to drift too far away from them. They'll find ways to pull them back. When parents recognize and accept those tactics, a happy relationship is kept intact. Actually, that's what family is really about. Where closeness abounds, there is little room for negatives to invade and destroy.
Having said that, I have but a couple more thing to say.
Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you.
I've missed you."
Most articles my dad wrote were very political and about various government rights. He would throw a few here and there about his family
Reading this let me have a piece of him that I didn't get to see much growing up. The side of him that shows he loved his kids. Don't get me wrong, he was our dad and I know he loved us but as a southern man, he had a hard time showing it. Plus, when you are sick all the time you tend to take it out on those closest to you. I get that now. This article is hanging on my computer room wall as a reminder. A reminder of the love of a father and a reminder of who is waiting for me in heaven.
And as I read this article, I read that last couple lines again and again "Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you. I've missed you." ...and I can't help but believe he is in heaven saying those exact same words.
 |
| Dad and I on my first day of 1st grade. |
Sunday, January 1, 2012
In like a lion, out like a lamb....
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That is my confetti for ringing in the new year! Another year has gone and a new year has begun. Many people look at the new year as a new beginning, a fresh start. Many people make resolutions, many people set goals and take on the new year with a vengeance - determined to make it better than the previous year.
I guess I do those things too. I am determined to get in shape this year. I am determined to be healthier. Yes, I have said this before and yes I have succeeded (only to fail again). However, there are some points in your life where you have to look around and ask yourself "what the heck am I doing?" God has given us one life and one life that is precious and in the grand scheme of things, not that long.
So, I reflect on the previous year and take a heavy sigh. A sigh of gratitude that it is over and a sigh of disappointment that it seems wasted. This year has been one of the roughest I have had in awhile. It has been rough emotionally and physically. I have had a roller coaster of "ups" and "downs". I have had hateful slander spewed about me like rancid vomit. I have had relationships that I cherished gone in a moment's snap. I have been hated even though the ones involved claimed to love God and it got to the point that I doubted everything. I doubted my ministry, I doubted my marriage, I doubted my God and life in general.
*gasp*
I am not ashamed to admit my short comings. I am not going to hide behind a mask that I am floating on butterflies and skipping through the meadows with a puppy....that's not reality. This world is a hard world to live in. It began since the fall of man in the Garden. This rock we live on is NOT our home. It was never intended to be once sin corrupted it. At that moment it was destined to die.
If you came to my house and I treated you like royalty. If I gave you the best of what I had and never came against you in controversy or anger. If everything about my house was perfect with no pain or sorrow - you would never want to leave. You would never long for something better. There would be no reason to. However, if you came to my home and I never offered you a meal or water....if I yelled at you or ignored you all together. If I hit you or mistreated you, you would want to go home, right? That is how this world is. We suffer and we go through tribulation so we can long for Home, for something BETTER. If we had a perfect life, we would never desire more.
But this world is not a desolate wasteland. I think we look at this place like there is no hope and we pray for Jesus' return and we see the signs of His coming. In my opinion, that is a selfish mentality. In all reality, when Jesus ascended to be with the Father in the gospels of the New Testament...the moment He was no longer in sight, we have been anticipating His return. Some people get so wrapped up in the fact that Jesus is coming back (and He *is* coming back, FYI), that they miss living. They miss the smell of rain in the air, they miss the newly fallen snow that glistens in the sunlight, they miss the smell of lilac in the air, they miss the child's laughter, they miss the awesome force in a summer's night storm, they miss the colors of a velvet sky, they miss the complexity of the body and how awesome it truly is......they miss IT.
So, while I have had a pretty crappy year (for lack of a better word), I let out a sigh of gratitude. While I am miserable at times while in the moment or am wanting to throw in the towel saying it isn't worth it.....I know that Jesus said these times would come. He told us to remember that when they come against us and hate us to remember that they hated Him first. I then look around and instead of looking back at the hard times of this past year, I look at the times I smiled. The times I got to spend with friends, the times I got to laugh and be stupid with my brother and his family, the times my kids and Matt and I shared, the moments that just made my heart swell with love and gratitude to the point that I thought it would burst from my chest. I look back at my church family that through it all were there for me. I cannot even fathom how I would have made it through without them. I thank God for them often. I reflect back on the youth group. While there are changes constantly taking place, I know that it is all for the Kingdom. Some changes are uncomfortable but with those moments of being in an uncomfortable place, I know that something beautiful will emerge. The group makes me laugh, makes me feel loved, and I know that I have been there when they had no one else and that kind of relationship cannot be devalued.
2012 is going to be the year of change. That isn't my resolution because resolutions are broken. That is my statement - loud and clear. So I am anticipating this year to come in like a lion - the Lion of Judah!
That is my confetti for ringing in the new year! Another year has gone and a new year has begun. Many people look at the new year as a new beginning, a fresh start. Many people make resolutions, many people set goals and take on the new year with a vengeance - determined to make it better than the previous year.
I guess I do those things too. I am determined to get in shape this year. I am determined to be healthier. Yes, I have said this before and yes I have succeeded (only to fail again). However, there are some points in your life where you have to look around and ask yourself "what the heck am I doing?" God has given us one life and one life that is precious and in the grand scheme of things, not that long.
So, I reflect on the previous year and take a heavy sigh. A sigh of gratitude that it is over and a sigh of disappointment that it seems wasted. This year has been one of the roughest I have had in awhile. It has been rough emotionally and physically. I have had a roller coaster of "ups" and "downs". I have had hateful slander spewed about me like rancid vomit. I have had relationships that I cherished gone in a moment's snap. I have been hated even though the ones involved claimed to love God and it got to the point that I doubted everything. I doubted my ministry, I doubted my marriage, I doubted my God and life in general.
*gasp*
I am not ashamed to admit my short comings. I am not going to hide behind a mask that I am floating on butterflies and skipping through the meadows with a puppy....that's not reality. This world is a hard world to live in. It began since the fall of man in the Garden. This rock we live on is NOT our home. It was never intended to be once sin corrupted it. At that moment it was destined to die.
If you came to my house and I treated you like royalty. If I gave you the best of what I had and never came against you in controversy or anger. If everything about my house was perfect with no pain or sorrow - you would never want to leave. You would never long for something better. There would be no reason to. However, if you came to my home and I never offered you a meal or water....if I yelled at you or ignored you all together. If I hit you or mistreated you, you would want to go home, right? That is how this world is. We suffer and we go through tribulation so we can long for Home, for something BETTER. If we had a perfect life, we would never desire more.
But this world is not a desolate wasteland. I think we look at this place like there is no hope and we pray for Jesus' return and we see the signs of His coming. In my opinion, that is a selfish mentality. In all reality, when Jesus ascended to be with the Father in the gospels of the New Testament...the moment He was no longer in sight, we have been anticipating His return. Some people get so wrapped up in the fact that Jesus is coming back (and He *is* coming back, FYI), that they miss living. They miss the smell of rain in the air, they miss the newly fallen snow that glistens in the sunlight, they miss the smell of lilac in the air, they miss the child's laughter, they miss the awesome force in a summer's night storm, they miss the colors of a velvet sky, they miss the complexity of the body and how awesome it truly is......they miss IT.
So, while I have had a pretty crappy year (for lack of a better word), I let out a sigh of gratitude. While I am miserable at times while in the moment or am wanting to throw in the towel saying it isn't worth it.....I know that Jesus said these times would come. He told us to remember that when they come against us and hate us to remember that they hated Him first. I then look around and instead of looking back at the hard times of this past year, I look at the times I smiled. The times I got to spend with friends, the times I got to laugh and be stupid with my brother and his family, the times my kids and Matt and I shared, the moments that just made my heart swell with love and gratitude to the point that I thought it would burst from my chest. I look back at my church family that through it all were there for me. I cannot even fathom how I would have made it through without them. I thank God for them often. I reflect back on the youth group. While there are changes constantly taking place, I know that it is all for the Kingdom. Some changes are uncomfortable but with those moments of being in an uncomfortable place, I know that something beautiful will emerge. The group makes me laugh, makes me feel loved, and I know that I have been there when they had no one else and that kind of relationship cannot be devalued.
2012 is going to be the year of change. That isn't my resolution because resolutions are broken. That is my statement - loud and clear. So I am anticipating this year to come in like a lion - the Lion of Judah!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Sorrow takes vacations but never truly leaves....
I have been thinking about my dad lately, a lot. I am unsure if it is because of the holidays, because his birthday is Sunday, or just because I miss him, truly miss him. Regardless of the reasoning, my heart aches. I have very few pictures of him and I find myself staring at them for quite a long time. Soaking in every detail as my soul longs for his wisdom.
So, this blog may seem depressing to read but to me it is necessary.
I am the youngest of 5 and I was told I was my dad's buddy. I would work outside with him, I would sit with him and watch TV and every night I would fall asleep in his arms. I remember none of that. Isn't it funny how negative influences cast the positive ones out to sea?
I am unsure when all that changed. I cannot pinpoint an exact time but I would say it was when I was around the age of 11. My dad was an avid smoker and when he was 50, he awoke one winter morning unable to catch his breath. He couldn't draw a breath no matter how hard he struggled. An ambulance ride later, he was in the ER getting operated on. Both his lungs had collapsed. They opened him up, scraped his lungs and took out a large chunk of them. He returned home numerous days later only to have them collapse again a week after his arrival home. More surgeries and scraping and he was home again. He quit smoking right then and there.
From that point on, I never remembered my dad 'well'. He was always ill. He took various medications, always had pneumonia or bronchitis and couldn't go out in extreme cold or heat. He withdrew and we grew apart. I went from being his little sidekick to being a stranger in his home.
The distance continued to grow to the point that we barely spoke to one another. He kept a tight hold on me and I wasn't allowed to do much of anything. I couldn't go to friends' homes, I couldn't have friends over and I was never allowed to use the phone. I couldn't watch any movies over PG and the TV was his domain. If he was up, it was his. No questions, no compromise.
However, I never saw him and my mother argue...never saw them fight. He rarely raised his voice and was soft spoken. He was very, VERY smart. We would watch Jeopardy and he rarely didn't know an answer. He read constantly and could read at an alarming speed. He would read dozens of books a week. He was a phenomenal author. He wrote a column for a nearby town's newspaper. He wrote short stories for a Kentucky magazine and a Florida school did a 6 week study on the book of short stories my dad published. He loved God and was obsessed with end of times prophecy. He was a great man, although I would never have said that back then. Back then, I despised him. However, back then I didn't understand the pain he was going through due to illness or the stress he was going through not having money to provide for his family. I get it now....
The summer of '92 things went from bad to worse. My dad wasn't feeling well at all and soon his stomach swelled to the size of a 6 month pregnant woman. Something wasn't right. In December of the same year, he went in to the doctor to discover the cause of the swelling was blockage. However, when they went in to rectify it, it was worse - much worse.
The doctor came in while my mom and my brothers waited for dad to get out of recovery and my mom knew the moment they stepped into the room that the news was as she feared. Cancer. The doctor proceeded to tell my mom the clinical information but she merely kept repeating the same sentence - "How long does he have." Finally after the third time insisting, the doctor gave us an answer we were not prepared for - 2 months, at most.
My dad came home and had given up. There was no fight left in him. He was bed-ridden and details as to his condition are not important. My mom didn't want to leave him alone, however with her working 3-11's and me in school...she didn't have a choice but to leave him alone for an hour until I got home.
Every day at school, as I watched the clock, I would wonder if I was going to go home to find my dad gone. Thankfully, that was not the case. I would get home and tend to his needs. Milkshakes were his favorite so I would make them whenever he asked for them. I would clean up after him. Unfortunately, while this should build a bond stronger with most, to me I despised him even more. Now, he only talked to me to ask me what I wanted of his when he was gone. He only spoke to me to tell me how worthless I was or how stupid I could be. He only made eye contact with me to make me well aware that I would never amount to anything. Yeah, I did what I had to then basically lived in my bedroom.
He did radiation and chemo. I had made the statement - it is good his hair isn't falling out. In return he replied - "That only happens when the medicine works."
My mom. Wow. She is pretty amazing. She was a nurse's aide by profession but to take care of her husband with such unconditional love was amazing. She loved him and he loved her. I have no doubt.
It was a Sunday, February 21st....a day shy of being 2 months from when he was diagnosed. We weren't a family that went to church on Sunday. However, I believe my dad was a Christian now that I look back on it. Yes, he was mean and bitter towards the end but he was sick and dying. That can make anyone mean and bitter, I think.
Anyway, mom and I ran to do some quick shopping. She would take me occasionally to give me a break from the Lysol smelling house (to this day, I cannot stand the smell of Lysol). We stopped by and bought dad a strawberry milkshake - his favorite. We got home around lunch and gave dad his shake but he didn't touch it. He hadn't eaten in weeks and so we pushed milkshakes and protein drinks but now those were left untouched. Mom reluctantly left for work.
My mom had given me a tiny black and white TV for my room and I can remember watching Wayne's World on TV and my little dog at the time (a yorkie named Barko) kept coming to my door and I would open it and he would run down the hallway to the living room where dad's bed was and look back at me. I would ignore him and shut the door. I turned the TV up because my dad was throwing up so much and violently that I tried to drown him out. My dog kept coming to my door, scratching and then run down the hall as if to say - follow me. I didn't. Instead, I scolded the dog and told him to get away.
My dad then started to yell for my mom. I went down the hallway and asked him what he wanted and he talked gibberish. He was making no distinct words, only sounds. I ignored it and went back to my room. He yelled again for my mom. Angrily I stomped down the hallway and asked what he wanted. Again, no coherent reply. A second time, I went back to my room, determined to just let him yell until he passed out. He started to yell for my mom over and over and then started to hit the wall with his fist. Finally, I was at my boiling point. I stormed down the hallway and went to the kitchen right on the edge of where the tile met the carpet. "WHAT?!" I yelled only to have him say something about the nurse and his medicine. "No, dad...you go to the doctor tomorrow. It's Sunday." I replied in a tone as if I were talking impatiently to a toddler. "I want Rita Faye." He said in a voice that made my heart drop. Something was not right.
I grabbed the phone and pulled it as far as the cord would allow into the hallway and called my mom. I told her he was scary me and wanted her. She said she would be right there. The next few moments I will never forget......
I went back to my bedroom, shut the door and turned the TV up a little more. Mom was coming. Everything was going to be okay. She would handle him, he would go to the doctor tomorrow and I would go to school. I heard mom come in and I snuggled down in my bed, watching the final few moments of my movie. I then heard my mom wail - a sound like no other I had ever heard. I bolted upright and stared at my closed door. I knew what was on the other side. I knew what to expect without even stepping past the threshold. I opened the door and ran down the hallway.
My mom was holding my dad's body, cradled in her arms. She demanded he let her change his shirt and take him to the hospital. In his sweet, soft tone he merely said - "No, no hospitals." Mom yelled at me to call my cousin who lived nearby but my mind went blank. I shook violently as my eyes fixed on the scene before me. She screamed at me and I snapped out of it, grabbed the phone and couldn't remember the number. Mom yelled the number and I called and told her it's bad. She told me she would be there and was calling the ambulance and my brothers. Mom yelled that my brothers needed to hurry.
I watched as my mom held my dad. She didn't shed much tears but firmly said, "You don't leave me, Bob. You hear me. Do not leave me. You can't leave me here alone." I was suddenly overcome with emotions that I had no idea how to handle. I felt as if I was rooted to the floor and my eyes unable to pull away. As my mom held my dad to her chest, she began to recite the Lord's Prayer over and over again. I took a few steps closer and she laid him back on his pillow....he rolled his head and lifted his eyes up to me and a smile lifted on the corners of his mouth. He then turned his head and looked at my mom - his wife of over 30 years. He then lifted his eyes to the picture of Jesus hanging above his bed and a wider smile danced on his lips as he took one huge inhale.....and was gone. The rest is a blur of emotions and heartache. I was 17 years old and my dad was 56 years old.
When loved ones pass away, I hear many people say how they wished they could have been there. My brothers arrived moments after the ambulance pulled away and they even said they wished they had been sooner.
No. You. Don't.
We sit around and remember dad, 18 years later and they have such good memories of when he was well and full of life. I remember him deteriorating into a shell of a man and him lying lifeless on the bed.
Is this a dramatic blog. Yes. Is it depressing. Sure. Did I make it through without crying? Not a chance.
But I miss him - a lot. I find it interesting that when I went back and proof-read what I had just typed and when I had gotten to the part of the event of the evening, I went from past tense verb usage to present tense. As if it was happening now and not then. I fixed it to past tense but it goes to prove the pain is still real. The wound is still open and the memory still fresh.
I miss the smell of coffee and Renegade (his chewing tobacco). I miss him standing on the porch and throwing the baseball back and forth with me. I miss hearing the typewriter clack clack clack in his small tiny office. I miss how when I belched at the table, he would get disgusted and throw his fork down and say "for the love of Pete" so I would do it just to irritate him. I miss how he said "dad-burn-it" when he got irritated. I miss how he would sit and talk for hours with my older brother and his wife. I miss how he loved egg sandwiches. I love how on Christmas, he acted like a kid again. And yes, I even miss watching him wring chickens necks and try to chase the flopping chicken around the yard.
He was smart, fearless (he would grab snakes and crack them like a whip to kill them), inquisitive ("Dad, there are these crazy looking birds in the woods!" "Well let's see what they are." *grabs gun* "BOOM!"), soft spoken, loved God and loved his family and friends, would help out anyone who asked (he had a blind friend that always wanted him to cut his hair and he grumbled the whole time before he showed up, then did it without a word of complaint)......
I don't have many pictures of him, but the ones I do have sometimes I find myself staring at them for quite some time, trying to absorb every detail. I listen to the tiny snippet of audio I have over and over again. And when I fear I have lost all memory of him, God sends him to me in a dream and it is as if he never left.
18 years later and the hurt is still there. There is still sorrow and there is still sadness in my heart. I wish I had listened to him more. I wish I held onto his wisdom and respected his authority. I wish he was here to have a relationship with my kids. He would have loved Cheyenne and her quirkiness. And Caleb and he would have been buddies, I am positive of that - they are a lot alike. I wish he was around to meet Matt. I know he and Matt would have gotten along quite well - both like to talk religion and theologies and both have the same soft spirit.
When people lose someone, I never tell them it gets easier. There are times it is easier....then there are times you just miss them and relive the sorrow all over again. As much as it pains me, it is not over. I will see him again. He will be whole and healthy and I will run into heaven and say "DAD! (not sure if I will call him that in heaven but for now, we will go with it).....I made it!" And he would smile and say "I knew you would."
So, this blog may seem depressing to read but to me it is necessary.
I am the youngest of 5 and I was told I was my dad's buddy. I would work outside with him, I would sit with him and watch TV and every night I would fall asleep in his arms. I remember none of that. Isn't it funny how negative influences cast the positive ones out to sea?
I am unsure when all that changed. I cannot pinpoint an exact time but I would say it was when I was around the age of 11. My dad was an avid smoker and when he was 50, he awoke one winter morning unable to catch his breath. He couldn't draw a breath no matter how hard he struggled. An ambulance ride later, he was in the ER getting operated on. Both his lungs had collapsed. They opened him up, scraped his lungs and took out a large chunk of them. He returned home numerous days later only to have them collapse again a week after his arrival home. More surgeries and scraping and he was home again. He quit smoking right then and there.
From that point on, I never remembered my dad 'well'. He was always ill. He took various medications, always had pneumonia or bronchitis and couldn't go out in extreme cold or heat. He withdrew and we grew apart. I went from being his little sidekick to being a stranger in his home.
The distance continued to grow to the point that we barely spoke to one another. He kept a tight hold on me and I wasn't allowed to do much of anything. I couldn't go to friends' homes, I couldn't have friends over and I was never allowed to use the phone. I couldn't watch any movies over PG and the TV was his domain. If he was up, it was his. No questions, no compromise.
However, I never saw him and my mother argue...never saw them fight. He rarely raised his voice and was soft spoken. He was very, VERY smart. We would watch Jeopardy and he rarely didn't know an answer. He read constantly and could read at an alarming speed. He would read dozens of books a week. He was a phenomenal author. He wrote a column for a nearby town's newspaper. He wrote short stories for a Kentucky magazine and a Florida school did a 6 week study on the book of short stories my dad published. He loved God and was obsessed with end of times prophecy. He was a great man, although I would never have said that back then. Back then, I despised him. However, back then I didn't understand the pain he was going through due to illness or the stress he was going through not having money to provide for his family. I get it now....
The summer of '92 things went from bad to worse. My dad wasn't feeling well at all and soon his stomach swelled to the size of a 6 month pregnant woman. Something wasn't right. In December of the same year, he went in to the doctor to discover the cause of the swelling was blockage. However, when they went in to rectify it, it was worse - much worse.
The doctor came in while my mom and my brothers waited for dad to get out of recovery and my mom knew the moment they stepped into the room that the news was as she feared. Cancer. The doctor proceeded to tell my mom the clinical information but she merely kept repeating the same sentence - "How long does he have." Finally after the third time insisting, the doctor gave us an answer we were not prepared for - 2 months, at most.
My dad came home and had given up. There was no fight left in him. He was bed-ridden and details as to his condition are not important. My mom didn't want to leave him alone, however with her working 3-11's and me in school...she didn't have a choice but to leave him alone for an hour until I got home.
Every day at school, as I watched the clock, I would wonder if I was going to go home to find my dad gone. Thankfully, that was not the case. I would get home and tend to his needs. Milkshakes were his favorite so I would make them whenever he asked for them. I would clean up after him. Unfortunately, while this should build a bond stronger with most, to me I despised him even more. Now, he only talked to me to ask me what I wanted of his when he was gone. He only spoke to me to tell me how worthless I was or how stupid I could be. He only made eye contact with me to make me well aware that I would never amount to anything. Yeah, I did what I had to then basically lived in my bedroom.
He did radiation and chemo. I had made the statement - it is good his hair isn't falling out. In return he replied - "That only happens when the medicine works."
My mom. Wow. She is pretty amazing. She was a nurse's aide by profession but to take care of her husband with such unconditional love was amazing. She loved him and he loved her. I have no doubt.
It was a Sunday, February 21st....a day shy of being 2 months from when he was diagnosed. We weren't a family that went to church on Sunday. However, I believe my dad was a Christian now that I look back on it. Yes, he was mean and bitter towards the end but he was sick and dying. That can make anyone mean and bitter, I think.
Anyway, mom and I ran to do some quick shopping. She would take me occasionally to give me a break from the Lysol smelling house (to this day, I cannot stand the smell of Lysol). We stopped by and bought dad a strawberry milkshake - his favorite. We got home around lunch and gave dad his shake but he didn't touch it. He hadn't eaten in weeks and so we pushed milkshakes and protein drinks but now those were left untouched. Mom reluctantly left for work.
My mom had given me a tiny black and white TV for my room and I can remember watching Wayne's World on TV and my little dog at the time (a yorkie named Barko) kept coming to my door and I would open it and he would run down the hallway to the living room where dad's bed was and look back at me. I would ignore him and shut the door. I turned the TV up because my dad was throwing up so much and violently that I tried to drown him out. My dog kept coming to my door, scratching and then run down the hall as if to say - follow me. I didn't. Instead, I scolded the dog and told him to get away.
My dad then started to yell for my mom. I went down the hallway and asked him what he wanted and he talked gibberish. He was making no distinct words, only sounds. I ignored it and went back to my room. He yelled again for my mom. Angrily I stomped down the hallway and asked what he wanted. Again, no coherent reply. A second time, I went back to my room, determined to just let him yell until he passed out. He started to yell for my mom over and over and then started to hit the wall with his fist. Finally, I was at my boiling point. I stormed down the hallway and went to the kitchen right on the edge of where the tile met the carpet. "WHAT?!" I yelled only to have him say something about the nurse and his medicine. "No, dad...you go to the doctor tomorrow. It's Sunday." I replied in a tone as if I were talking impatiently to a toddler. "I want Rita Faye." He said in a voice that made my heart drop. Something was not right.
I grabbed the phone and pulled it as far as the cord would allow into the hallway and called my mom. I told her he was scary me and wanted her. She said she would be right there. The next few moments I will never forget......
I went back to my bedroom, shut the door and turned the TV up a little more. Mom was coming. Everything was going to be okay. She would handle him, he would go to the doctor tomorrow and I would go to school. I heard mom come in and I snuggled down in my bed, watching the final few moments of my movie. I then heard my mom wail - a sound like no other I had ever heard. I bolted upright and stared at my closed door. I knew what was on the other side. I knew what to expect without even stepping past the threshold. I opened the door and ran down the hallway.
My mom was holding my dad's body, cradled in her arms. She demanded he let her change his shirt and take him to the hospital. In his sweet, soft tone he merely said - "No, no hospitals." Mom yelled at me to call my cousin who lived nearby but my mind went blank. I shook violently as my eyes fixed on the scene before me. She screamed at me and I snapped out of it, grabbed the phone and couldn't remember the number. Mom yelled the number and I called and told her it's bad. She told me she would be there and was calling the ambulance and my brothers. Mom yelled that my brothers needed to hurry.
I watched as my mom held my dad. She didn't shed much tears but firmly said, "You don't leave me, Bob. You hear me. Do not leave me. You can't leave me here alone." I was suddenly overcome with emotions that I had no idea how to handle. I felt as if I was rooted to the floor and my eyes unable to pull away. As my mom held my dad to her chest, she began to recite the Lord's Prayer over and over again. I took a few steps closer and she laid him back on his pillow....he rolled his head and lifted his eyes up to me and a smile lifted on the corners of his mouth. He then turned his head and looked at my mom - his wife of over 30 years. He then lifted his eyes to the picture of Jesus hanging above his bed and a wider smile danced on his lips as he took one huge inhale.....and was gone. The rest is a blur of emotions and heartache. I was 17 years old and my dad was 56 years old.
When loved ones pass away, I hear many people say how they wished they could have been there. My brothers arrived moments after the ambulance pulled away and they even said they wished they had been sooner.
No. You. Don't.
We sit around and remember dad, 18 years later and they have such good memories of when he was well and full of life. I remember him deteriorating into a shell of a man and him lying lifeless on the bed.
Is this a dramatic blog. Yes. Is it depressing. Sure. Did I make it through without crying? Not a chance.
But I miss him - a lot. I find it interesting that when I went back and proof-read what I had just typed and when I had gotten to the part of the event of the evening, I went from past tense verb usage to present tense. As if it was happening now and not then. I fixed it to past tense but it goes to prove the pain is still real. The wound is still open and the memory still fresh.
I miss the smell of coffee and Renegade (his chewing tobacco). I miss him standing on the porch and throwing the baseball back and forth with me. I miss hearing the typewriter clack clack clack in his small tiny office. I miss how when I belched at the table, he would get disgusted and throw his fork down and say "for the love of Pete" so I would do it just to irritate him. I miss how he said "dad-burn-it" when he got irritated. I miss how he would sit and talk for hours with my older brother and his wife. I miss how he loved egg sandwiches. I love how on Christmas, he acted like a kid again. And yes, I even miss watching him wring chickens necks and try to chase the flopping chicken around the yard.
He was smart, fearless (he would grab snakes and crack them like a whip to kill them), inquisitive ("Dad, there are these crazy looking birds in the woods!" "Well let's see what they are." *grabs gun* "BOOM!"), soft spoken, loved God and loved his family and friends, would help out anyone who asked (he had a blind friend that always wanted him to cut his hair and he grumbled the whole time before he showed up, then did it without a word of complaint)......
I don't have many pictures of him, but the ones I do have sometimes I find myself staring at them for quite some time, trying to absorb every detail. I listen to the tiny snippet of audio I have over and over again. And when I fear I have lost all memory of him, God sends him to me in a dream and it is as if he never left.
18 years later and the hurt is still there. There is still sorrow and there is still sadness in my heart. I wish I had listened to him more. I wish I held onto his wisdom and respected his authority. I wish he was here to have a relationship with my kids. He would have loved Cheyenne and her quirkiness. And Caleb and he would have been buddies, I am positive of that - they are a lot alike. I wish he was around to meet Matt. I know he and Matt would have gotten along quite well - both like to talk religion and theologies and both have the same soft spirit.
When people lose someone, I never tell them it gets easier. There are times it is easier....then there are times you just miss them and relive the sorrow all over again. As much as it pains me, it is not over. I will see him again. He will be whole and healthy and I will run into heaven and say "DAD! (not sure if I will call him that in heaven but for now, we will go with it).....I made it!" And he would smile and say "I knew you would."
 |
| Look at that handsome devil....my dad with my oldest brother and sister |
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| My dad and me....I think this is the only picture I have of me and him |
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| My dad and mom - I love, LOVE this picture |
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| My dad and my niece....Dad loved Christmas best of all |
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Exactly 2 weeks from today I will have been married to my best friend for 14 years.
Wow.
14....
Time has flown by.
I cannot imagine my life with any other person than Matt. Our beginning was a sketchy one. In all honesty, he had just gotten out of jail and I was trying to get out of an ugly relationship. It was doomed to fail.
It was in 1996, Caleb was almost a year old and Cheyenne wasn't even a thought. Even though I had a baby, I hadn't sowed my wild oats, in my opinion. I was stupid, naive and had no connection with God - nor wanted one. Therefore, I did as I pleased and let others take care of my son while I partied. It was a Saturday night and a bunch of us had went to a festival in a small town near where we lived. Matt was one that was invited along. I never looked twice at him really. In fact, I had a strong distaste for him. He had a cocky attitude, gave off an air of arrogance and was involved in gang activity. Nope, couldn't stand the guy.
Fast forward and we all are "socializing" back at a friend's apartment (aka getting wasted) and my current husband decided to attack me and threaten my life. I was fearful and cowered against the bedroom wall when I realized it had grown quiet in the other room where the festivities were in full swing. He continued to bully me and details are not important however, once he had finished, he left me to my own demise as thoughts of what he was going to do danced in my head.
After several moments of not hearing a peep come from the other room, I tentatively stepped out of the bedroom to see the party had decided to leave once they heard my husband at the time throw his fit. It was common that he would do this and they all would just leave - not wanting to get involved in my beating I suppose. However, there was one still there....one guy sitting in the kitchen chair with his elbows on his knees. He asked me if I was alright. I merely nodded. He noticed me looking around the room and the look of abandonment cloud my face. He merely shook his head, disapproval clearly evident on his features. He didn't have to say a word but by his posture I knew he wasn't going to leave me alone. We talked and he never brought up the subject of what just happened, knowing it was embarrassing for me and not any of his business. Eventually all my "friends" had filtered back in and Matt looked at me and said - "He isn't going to bother you again if I have anything to do with it."
That moment was the beginning of it all. We had a rough start. Drugs and alcohol were are constant companion. Yes, I divorced my husband and he tried a few times to puff his chest out around me but Matt was sure to set him straight. True to his word - he never bothered me again.
I would say the first 7 years were rough. We fought a lot. We bickered. We even came close to divorcing. We nit-picked. We screamed, yelled, broke things and cried. Amidst it all, he never laid a hand on me. I had kicked him in the head, threw things at him, slapped him....and he never raised a finger to me. I think I pushed him and wanted him to hit me just so I could say he was like all the rest. I couldn't trust him in my mind. But he wasn't like all the rest. Even though we had a rough beginning, he always had such a gentle spirit.
In 2005, we both accepted Christ. Matt had a tugging on him for a few years and constantly asked me to go to church and I refused, angrily. He would never go but he often asked me or suggested we go. Church, to me, was associated with negative emotions. I wanted nothing to do with it. However, God had other plans. It is amazing looking back at how God had his hand in every aspect of my life. I should be dead. But God's gracious hand was upon me. I wish I could post my testimony on here in its entirety but I feel that now is not the time for it. Let me just say - God is amazing. Period. God had it pre-destined that Matt and I would be together. As I look back, Matt and I went to school for a brief time together. We were even in a class together for a year and never said one word to one another. Isn't God such a jokester? *grin*
Now, I look at him and sometimes my heart cannot contain my adoration for him. It is about to get mushy real quick. So if mushy-lovey stuff makes you vomit a little - scroll to the end.
Matt is an amazing man. He works 7 days a week (do the math, no days off) and still makes time for me and the kids. He makes time for his ministry. He has huge goals and dreams that I have no doubt he will succeed at. He is a man of integrity. He treats women like they should be treated. He is a gentleman. He is slow to anger. He is loyal and loving. He is passionate in what he believes in. He loves me despite my flaws and I am a better person just knowing him. He never intentionally hurts anyone's feelings and he loves God more than me.
So Matt, if you are reading this, I want to say I love you. I love the way you laugh at your own jokes when no one else does. I love how you pet and kiss the cat and when I call you out you act like you didn't. I love that you work so hard even when you are so tired. I love that you love my son as if he were your own. I love how you do your best to make your daughter happy. I love how angry you get when someone says something (or treats) hateful about me or the kids. I love how you let me lay on you when I am sick. I love that when I don't feel well and you think I am sleeping, you place your hand on my forehead. I love that even though you despise tattoos, you pay for them for me because you know I love them. I love how when you get your food first, you wait until I have mine before you start eating. I love how you always ask if I need anything while you are out. I love how you dance around the store and sing to music when you are overly tired (haha). I love how you respect women. I love how you always hold the door for me. I love how you act like a 5 year old whenever you see a crane machine. I love how you wink at me across a crowded room. I love how you carry all the groceries in for me. I love how protective you are of me. I love how you support me in everything I do. I love how you help me with VBS even though you hate it (haha). I love how you try to push me into being more than I think I am. I love how you can make me feel beautiful when I feel less than worthy.
I love you and I love who I am when I am with you.
So, now that I have made this blog disgustingly sweet. I just want to end with saying that God knew what he was doing when he brought me you. We make a good team. I cannot wait to see where time leads us. It's going to be a great adventure....and it's merely just begun....
I love you, love monkey. ;-)
Wow.
14....
Time has flown by.
I cannot imagine my life with any other person than Matt. Our beginning was a sketchy one. In all honesty, he had just gotten out of jail and I was trying to get out of an ugly relationship. It was doomed to fail.
It was in 1996, Caleb was almost a year old and Cheyenne wasn't even a thought. Even though I had a baby, I hadn't sowed my wild oats, in my opinion. I was stupid, naive and had no connection with God - nor wanted one. Therefore, I did as I pleased and let others take care of my son while I partied. It was a Saturday night and a bunch of us had went to a festival in a small town near where we lived. Matt was one that was invited along. I never looked twice at him really. In fact, I had a strong distaste for him. He had a cocky attitude, gave off an air of arrogance and was involved in gang activity. Nope, couldn't stand the guy.
Fast forward and we all are "socializing" back at a friend's apartment (aka getting wasted) and my current husband decided to attack me and threaten my life. I was fearful and cowered against the bedroom wall when I realized it had grown quiet in the other room where the festivities were in full swing. He continued to bully me and details are not important however, once he had finished, he left me to my own demise as thoughts of what he was going to do danced in my head.
After several moments of not hearing a peep come from the other room, I tentatively stepped out of the bedroom to see the party had decided to leave once they heard my husband at the time throw his fit. It was common that he would do this and they all would just leave - not wanting to get involved in my beating I suppose. However, there was one still there....one guy sitting in the kitchen chair with his elbows on his knees. He asked me if I was alright. I merely nodded. He noticed me looking around the room and the look of abandonment cloud my face. He merely shook his head, disapproval clearly evident on his features. He didn't have to say a word but by his posture I knew he wasn't going to leave me alone. We talked and he never brought up the subject of what just happened, knowing it was embarrassing for me and not any of his business. Eventually all my "friends" had filtered back in and Matt looked at me and said - "He isn't going to bother you again if I have anything to do with it."
That moment was the beginning of it all. We had a rough start. Drugs and alcohol were are constant companion. Yes, I divorced my husband and he tried a few times to puff his chest out around me but Matt was sure to set him straight. True to his word - he never bothered me again.
I would say the first 7 years were rough. We fought a lot. We bickered. We even came close to divorcing. We nit-picked. We screamed, yelled, broke things and cried. Amidst it all, he never laid a hand on me. I had kicked him in the head, threw things at him, slapped him....and he never raised a finger to me. I think I pushed him and wanted him to hit me just so I could say he was like all the rest. I couldn't trust him in my mind. But he wasn't like all the rest. Even though we had a rough beginning, he always had such a gentle spirit.
In 2005, we both accepted Christ. Matt had a tugging on him for a few years and constantly asked me to go to church and I refused, angrily. He would never go but he often asked me or suggested we go. Church, to me, was associated with negative emotions. I wanted nothing to do with it. However, God had other plans. It is amazing looking back at how God had his hand in every aspect of my life. I should be dead. But God's gracious hand was upon me. I wish I could post my testimony on here in its entirety but I feel that now is not the time for it. Let me just say - God is amazing. Period. God had it pre-destined that Matt and I would be together. As I look back, Matt and I went to school for a brief time together. We were even in a class together for a year and never said one word to one another. Isn't God such a jokester? *grin*
Now, I look at him and sometimes my heart cannot contain my adoration for him. It is about to get mushy real quick. So if mushy-lovey stuff makes you vomit a little - scroll to the end.
Matt is an amazing man. He works 7 days a week (do the math, no days off) and still makes time for me and the kids. He makes time for his ministry. He has huge goals and dreams that I have no doubt he will succeed at. He is a man of integrity. He treats women like they should be treated. He is a gentleman. He is slow to anger. He is loyal and loving. He is passionate in what he believes in. He loves me despite my flaws and I am a better person just knowing him. He never intentionally hurts anyone's feelings and he loves God more than me.
So Matt, if you are reading this, I want to say I love you. I love the way you laugh at your own jokes when no one else does. I love how you pet and kiss the cat and when I call you out you act like you didn't. I love that you work so hard even when you are so tired. I love that you love my son as if he were your own. I love how you do your best to make your daughter happy. I love how angry you get when someone says something (or treats) hateful about me or the kids. I love how you let me lay on you when I am sick. I love that when I don't feel well and you think I am sleeping, you place your hand on my forehead. I love that even though you despise tattoos, you pay for them for me because you know I love them. I love how when you get your food first, you wait until I have mine before you start eating. I love how you always ask if I need anything while you are out. I love how you dance around the store and sing to music when you are overly tired (haha). I love how you respect women. I love how you always hold the door for me. I love how you act like a 5 year old whenever you see a crane machine. I love how you wink at me across a crowded room. I love how you carry all the groceries in for me. I love how protective you are of me. I love how you support me in everything I do. I love how you help me with VBS even though you hate it (haha). I love how you try to push me into being more than I think I am. I love how you can make me feel beautiful when I feel less than worthy.
I love you and I love who I am when I am with you.
So, now that I have made this blog disgustingly sweet. I just want to end with saying that God knew what he was doing when he brought me you. We make a good team. I cannot wait to see where time leads us. It's going to be a great adventure....and it's merely just begun....
I love you, love monkey. ;-)
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| We are two halves of the same person. |
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| VBS! |
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