I just returned from taking Collin and Finn back to their mother, and I’m more than a little wiped out. I’ll try to write a fairly detailed entry tomorrow to share some of the best moments of the trip with those of you who are interested. We had a great time, and as usual, they rejuvenated me. I’m trying to watch the Lions-Saints game before crashing myself, but my eyes are pretty heavy.
Hope everyone is having a great new year so far.
I’ll be with my sons for the next week, so I probably won’t be writing many entries while they’re here. I haven’t seen them since August, and even though we talk four to five nights a week, there’s nothing like holding them, hearing their laughter in person, and playing for hours on end. My creative energy needs the rejuvenation they give me. Anyone who knows me knows how much my boys mean to me and how difficult this time of year is without them.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions; in my experience, they rarely work and often solidify bad habits even more than before the attempt to change for the sake of a new year. Instead, I prefer to reflect on what was positive in the previous year that I can build upon and what was negative that I can eliminate. This year, I have a lot of positive, the most notable of which is my affiliation with Seventh Star Press. 2012 is going to be a great year for The Brotherhood of Dwarves series. I also made great progress on the farm, and even though that project has had to be put on hold for now, I still have a lot of confidence that we can get it off the ground.
The negative I’ll keep personal, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons this past year. I will take from those lessons and grow as a person. I’ll learn to appreciate and be more grateful for my blessings, and I’ll try harder to let go of the past and move forward into a better, healthier tomorrow.
Happy early New Year’s to all my family, friends, and readers. May 2012 be a great year for you and yours.
I was about 12 or 13 when the following incident occurred. I can’t remember the specifics of what we were doing, but I was helping my papaw with something, cutting wood or sorting through junk or something. I do remember it was in his shed that was attached to the house, and he was unhappy with how sloppily I was doing the work and chastised me for the effort. Being young and arrogant, believing myself much stronger and tougher than I actually was, I mouthed off back to him. I can’t remember what I said, probably something like, “Do it yourself, then.” But I do remember the response.
Papaw was about 6’4″ and at that point probably 260-270 pounds. He was one of the strongest men I’ve ever known, even though he was well beyond his prime by the time I came along. He had also served in the Korean War, where he had suffered a nearly fatal wound from a mortar shell. He lived the majority of his life with shrapnel in his neck because it was too close to his spinal cord to risk removing it. He was tougher than I can even dream of being.
Calmly, he set down whatever he had in his hands and walked to where I was working. He leaned down to me, put his index finger in my face, and spoke clearly, “Son, if you ever talk to me like that again, I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.” I stared at the thick finger, gnarled and scarred from a lifetime of hard labor, and then glanced into his eyes. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so cocky. In fact, I believed him more than I’ve believed anyone before or since. It’s hard to explain what I saw in his eyes. It wasn’t anger, more like disappointment that his oldest grandson could be so disrespectful. There was also sternness, a glimmer that dared me to test him. But more importantly, even in that moment, there was love. Not the touchy-feely sunshine and rainbows love that nurtures tender emotions, but genuine love, tough love, that told me he would not allow his oldest grandson to be a punk. He expected and demanded that I be someone worth knowing.
At some point, kids need this kind of tough love, this kind of sternness to teach them their place in society. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we’ve lost that. We’ve forgotten that discipline and respect for authority must be ingrained into a kid, especially a teenager, and especially a teenager like me. I’m grateful for that moment when my grandfather put the fear of death in me because it’s part of what made me the man I am, and while I’m far from perfect, I am a fairly respectable, productive member of society. Love sometimes has to be tough because this world and this life are difficult rides.
Big Owl's Tree 