I haven’t met you yet…

but I glow inside knowing you’re thinking of me right now.

Planning what we’ll do after work tonight and what you’ll make for dinner

because you’ll probably beat me home and you’re a great cook and

even better at surprises.

I haven’t met you yet…

but while my birthday is months away, you’re already making secret plans.

I haven’t peeked but I’ve noticed the little list you keep of things I like and

how it’s been a long time since I’ve been on an airplane.

I haven’t met you yet…

but I smell you sometimes in my clothes and my pillows and way down deep

under my sheets at night where only me and my dog have slept.

And he wouldn’t mind at all sharing  me and my bed with someone like you

at some point.

I haven’t met you yet…

but i’m sure you look incredibly sexy with your mind all caught up in a river

of thoughts running deep and wide and long about everything, everyone, and the kinds of

things that make a difference for you, me, us and the ways of this world.

I haven’t met you yet…

but something about you makes me want to write with words I never use, like “amazing,”

and not really care so much that my grammar is perfect because you’re so ravenous

to read even my first drafts as if they were my final all because

you share my thoughts and you want to make me look perfect.

I haven’t met you yet but…

you make me cry, laugh and care in such extremes that it kind of hurts to stretch myself

that far. But you remind me that things like that are worth it.  And I know they are,

and I can trust you.

And if by chance we never will,

I want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed just dreaming that one day we might have.

And of the memories we would have.

And of the fun we could have

made together

since that one day we first saw each other and stared just for a moment,

wondering if it was really, finally,

You.

LMSM,

Don

When you lose someone, the remnant of memories can be difficult to reconstruct.

Photo albums, home movies, funny stories and touching recollections are usually the best and only ways of remembering.

But I am the fortunate one.

Growing up, our family lived in many homes.  On average, we never stayed in the same home but for a couple years or so before it was dolled up, decorated, built out and outlived for the ever clever, upwardly mobile and on the move Miller family.  Friday night through Sunday night, weekends were projects to improve, expand and create a home that was truly a piece of art eventually sold to the highest bidder, moving us on to the next residence and a flow of new ideas and projects.  As kids, we didn’t know any different. Weekends were made for maintaining our home and building things together. It was our fun.  Our way of building a family.

Built-ins, barbecues, patio covers, flower beds and a host of uniquely-designed creations usually began as a sketched design on dad’s easel.  His artistry went beyond the hundreds of canvasses to which he’d lay his brush nightly after a long day of work.  He could take any idea and give it life and dimension that inspired us all.  “Hey dad, I have an idea,” usually was a prompt for him to grab a pencil or marker and any writable surface nearby to join you in the adventure of making your own intangible a virtual reality.   It was a thrill that we all had taken for granted back then.  To sit with dad in one of these creative sessions at home or in the office was to learn a unique visual dialect in the language of his art.

School projects, science fair exhibits, scouting merit badge endeavors, homecoming floats…even campaign signs for our school politics…all were more than a few notches above the rest.  We always won and the accolades were commonplace.  Miller kids were the envy of the classroom project.  Everyone wanted to be on our teams.  But when you grow up with someone famous, you don’t know it.  It’s just normal.

Being the son of someone famous has never really sunk in.  Dad had private audiences with Elvis Presley on many an evening after his show to help him visualize some of his personal projects.  Political leaders, superstars and virtually every Las Vegas resort and entertainer has called upon my dad at some point in their careers. His art hangs in galleries and homes worldwide.  But I just knew him as dad and he never attempted to impress anyone.  Funny but only now as he is facing his exit from this world and into a much better place are people realizing how truly accomplished he has been. And that includes me.

He always taught us to bring our ideas to life.  Mine is done in words and prose.  I can only paint my pictures with a pen or keyboard.  My colors and textures are syntax and grammar with shades of wit and humor  meticulously framed in borders of hope and mattes of inspiration.  I create moods and lighting and beauty for others much like my dad did all his life. But even so, I will never be famous like my dad, but I will always be happy because of him and his fine art of being.

Many times as a young man I would watch him at his easel or table creating.  I’ve lost track of how many times I silently admired the flow.  His mind conceived an image which traveled down his arm, into his hand and out through his fingertips in one continuous movement of extraordinary creation and I always wondered if I might be blessed with such a gift.

But a painting, a drawing or a sculpture are mediums more powerful than my words could ever describe.  And to a little boy’s heart, an elaborate landscape of molded colored mountains and tunnels and trees and buildings for a toy train set is a prize I have often remembered.

In our family home, the walls would go up first and I always wanted certain pieces in plain view.  Some of his creations were the kinds into which I would stare for hours, scanning the sometimes hidden details he would include like the prize in a Cracker Jack box if you dug deep.  They would transport me to a time and place we once traveled or a stream we once fished or a past American era about which he’d studied and more than once dreamed of living.  During my rougher times even today, I can stare into a favorite piece and lose myself in his thoughts and dreams and again be at his side watching its creation as I did countless times as a boy. Those are moments that satisfy my soul yet have only recently come to fully appreciate.

We often think of fame as something afforded the stage, screen or simply, one who cleverly seeks it at the right time and place in history.  That is not fame, that is celebrity.  Fame’s roots necessarily run deeper with heart, meaning and lasting purpose.  While celebrity shines for a moment, fame, like art,  endures posthumously and forever influences.

So without brush or canvas, I hope to use my words and stories to bring joy, tranquility and light now and long after he is gone until we are reunited as a creative team once again.  Until then, it’s just me and a really tough standard to live up to.

But dad, I promise to try.

I love you so much.

LMSM,

Donnie

Last night, I did and when I woke up today, BAM!

Everything was different.

Fathers, if you have daughters, I recommend staying awake and vigilant at all times.

One day, your pretty little girl may be taken from you by another man right from under your nose.  Trust me, it’s true.  It’s happened to me.

Your baby girl will grow up to be a young woman and other men will find her just as beautiful. And if you doze off for even one night’s sleep, you may find her gone into the arms of someone who sings better lullabies, buys her prettier dresses and plays her favorite games all the time.  She’ll be gone for good and you’ll ask yourself “Where did the time go?” “Who is this thief?” “How do I get her back?”

And you’ll be lost without her.

If this happens to you, know you are not alone.

Many of us dads have experienced this before and after we’re done with that first big cry, realizing that life for you and her will be a lot different from now on, you will recover.  It won’t be easy though.

First, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault for having taken a little nap.  Raising beautiful little girls is hard work.  You’re bound to need a doze now and then.  Those little snoozes however, often become blocks of years. You may wake up and find your baby girl is no longer a baby.  She’s smarter, prettier and a little more independent with each passing nap if you were doing your job right.  You’ll grieve the little losses each time, but that’s normal.

Second, accept your grief.  It’s part of fatherhood. Reframe your loss of your little princess as a graduation. Let her become the Queen she was always meant to become.  It’s what little girls do.  You’ll still be the king in her heart, don’t worry.  Fairy tales are always full of handsome princes and they always end up living happily ever after.  They even come visit your castle again from time to time.

Third, wake up.  Though you were the one who loved her first, if you have done it right, her heart is much bigger and can handle a second.  She will always love you and that will never change.  It’s very natural for her to want to love others. Especially THAT guy you’re calling a thief but who is actually just helping to take over the responsibility of continued care for her.  Face it, you’re old now and you need a little more rest without the worry and that’s perfectly fine and normal.

So fathers, go get some well-deserved sleep now.  Your job is done.

And you’re gonna want to be rested for the celebration to come when you kiss her cheek, hand her off and step out of the way.  You can still dance with her. She’ll be fine.  And who knows, she might even present you with another little prince or princess and you can start over again doing what you did best.

Take my advice.

LMSM,

Don

[Each Father’s Day since Dad’s passing, I add to this story. My new entry is at the end as will be each annual entry until I’m finally fishing again with the big fish who got away October 2, 2014]

My final Father’s Day 2014:

If I could simply make out the words on the paper, I might be able to finally choose one and get out of here. But my eyes are flooded with the reality that this will be the last time I ever shop for a Father’s Day card.

My dad is dying.

The news this early spring was that he’d be gone by the end of summer. I often feel selfish about my thoughts of him not being around any more. But then I’m humbled when I imagine what it must feel like to be him, knowing the same thing. and feeling it happen a little more with the passing of each day.

Thanks to Sonora Dodd who conceived of the holiday in 1910 and President Richard Nixon who signed it into law only as recently as 1972, today is Father’s Day. It’s the official time we thank and think about our dads.

My dad is Mike Miller. I need no holiday.

I’ve not been the kind of number one son he’d hoped. But he would never admit it. And before you start disputing me on this point, know it is one that we’ve already discussed and is water long under the bridge. I failed at many things in my life and only very recently am becoming the kind of man my dad had taught me to be. I’m sure if you asked him, he would probably tell you every reason why he, himself, was no better, albeit for different reasons. We have much more in common than could ever drive us apart. Except cancer.

Mike Miller is a humble man. If you’ve met him, you know this already. Perhaps that’s why, of all humanly virtues, I prize humility most of all. In my life and in my writings, it’s pervasive and my dad is the reason.

An accomplished artist of life in so many ways, as a little boy and young man I watched him fend off compliments and minimize the value of his gifts right and left. Though I didn’t learn the word to describe it until I was much older, he had long modeled the lesson that would eventually save my life. Now it’s his at stake, and I am helpless to return the favor.

Everything important I have learned in life was taught and caught while fishing with my dad. It is the sport of fathers and sons, richly embedded with the virtues that turn a young boy into a young man.

The appreciation of the morning, the art of the water, the craft of the lure, the precision of the cast and the thrill of the catch. And, as with most young men, fishing will always be a first experience with matters of magnificent life, gruesome death and incredible off the hook mercy.

We had the privilege recently to take one final fishing trip together. It was much like old times and many trips before, but on this trip, dad was tired. He’s been fighting his enemy much longer than any of us had ever realized and on our last evening at the campfire he put his arm on my shoulder and told me, “Don, after this trip, I think I just wanna go home.” He meant that with a capital H.

The wait of cancer is ugly. Every tick of the clock is punctuated with grasps at fond memories of times past. They are floods of bright color which wash away more quickly now as the grey moments encircle and encroach on a big fish who’s getting tired of swimming.

We know that someday soon, we will look up and see the hook sinking down into our family waters to reel in the biggest catch of His day. And yet still, we desperately hope he will yet be the one that got away.

So I wrote my inscription, sealed and stamped the envelope and sent it on its way just now to meet my dad in time for Father’s Day. I would give anything to be with him today and I know he knows that.

Dad, you saved me many times over. And in doing so, you taught me that life means so much.

Happy Father’s Day. Keep swimming. Don

——–

One year later, Father’s Day 2015…

People say I look more and more like you every day. Sometimes I scare mom when we’re out and I come around the corner. She acts like she’s seen a ghost.

Maybe so.

A lot has happened since you’ve been gone. Mom’s doing well back in Vegas. The three of us look out for her every day. The grandkids are moving along with their lives and marriages, and nine months since you’ve been gone we’re expecting our newest Miller family member any day. As much joy as it brings us, nothing seems to fill your vacancy. We all find ourselves awash in tears at unpredictable moments and today is a particularly tough one.

I remember when I first wrote this story about “the one who got away,” hoping for a miracle that would keep you around a little longer. It was last Father’s Day and I’d come home from shopping for your card. Mom hadn’t even known I wrote the story last year so I read it to her for the first time this past weekend in small chunks until we could both finally get through it. I decided then and there that every Father’s Day, I’d add a little more to the story as an update on our family happenings and what life is like without you.

After you left us that Thursday evening last October, we had big events on the immediate horizon. Emily and Ryan were married on October 11th and we honored you at a memorial service with all your friends on Todd’s birthday, October 17th followed by Allie’s birthday the next day and what would have been your own on Hallowe’en. It was one of the most beautiful yet difficult months for the family on record.

And then all the holidays drove home your absence and I think we would have all rathered just let them pass if we could. But the New Year brought Mom back to Vegas to a new home you both had seen and loved on a former visit. She’s all settled in now and much happier. Shelly’s getting a well-deserved break but still fills in all the gaps that Todd and I miss in caring for her every week. We set up the den at her new place as “Dad’s Studio” filled with things and walls of all your memories about which we can easily touch and not so easily hold back the tears. It’s a comfortable place to cry.

At work, we pulled of that February event I told you last July was in the works to posthumously honor you. Lots of your friends came and even Oscar and Carolyn gave you a little roast to remember.

Spring has come and gone and summer is gonna be a hot one for sure. We’ve made plans to spread your ashes over the course of this year in the places you asked.

But today is Father’s Day, again.

It seems each passing day has been Father’s Day since you’ve been gone.

And while things may change over the year, we will always remember you and how you taught us how life means so much, every day.

Happy Father’s Day, Pop.

Love, Don

——-

It’s Father’s Day again, 2016:

Well, I lost 20 pounds, gained a beautiful niece and your wife has a new lease on life since my last entry, but the world is a different place since you left, Dad. The family is doing fine but the events of the past year and recent weeks point to a coming civil war, if it’s not already begun.

I spent this morning to escape into all your paintings on my wall because they are soft and peaceful and offer solace at these times. Who’d have thought that just two entries later, this planet would be so much uglier? Sure, there are bright spots, but we’re all getting a little older, creaking a little more and life remains uncertain.

As you know, Mom made it through the heart surgery okay. She might last forever. It seems when we talk and reflect, we cry less and stay closer. You’d be proud of me. I keep her laughing just like you did, call her every morning and evening, spend every weekend with her bitching about something new, and honored each time she says “You’re just like your Dad!” Shelly and Todd and I make a pretty good safety net together. We have grown a lot closer as a result.

But as the grandkids grow up, they’re moving on. We got little Addison a couple weeks after last year’s entry and she said “I love you” for the first time ever this very week. I wish she had known you, Dad. We keep your memory alive whenever we’re together, and we learn the urgency of making each day matter, and how life means so much.

Here we are, Father’s Day 2017:

Those 20 pounds I lost? They found me again. Another year and more ways people find me your doppelganger. A first time grandpa this year, I tend to agree. Makenna is a wonderful bundle who’s being packaged off and shipped with Allison and Alan to their new home in Florida next week. Glad for the kids, sad for the rest of us who will miss them so much but will visit often. I’m sorry you never got the chance to meet her. She’s beautiful.

As for your wife, this past February, she got the same news you did the February before you left us. Doctor gave her a while longer though. While heaven can wait, she certainly cannot. She’s gone off some meds, declined treatments that might keep her around here any longer, and we’re trying to make the best of the time she will give us on her fast track to eternity. No more curtailing symptoms yet, but we know they’re just around the corner. We will care for her up until the last moment she’s back in your arms.

While most of the family is buying houses, graduating, moving away and changing jobs, surprisingly I’ve become the most static of them all. I do need a break though, and I smell fish.
Four long days at work helping seniors followed by each weekending three with your darling dinosaur is taking its toll. It’s back to Panguitch this fall where we made our last casts together just a few years ago.

This world is a different place from when you left, and that’s not a good thing. Optimism is harder to come by and what were once distant fears of what might have been seem to be arriving daily. But because of you, your family is well equipped with wisdom, faith and love to be good influences on this bad world. I’m grateful for what you taught me and for what I’ve passed on.

This next 12 months are liable to be our most difficult since you left. But we’re holding on for the ride and thinking of you again every day and especially today. Sure miss you, dad, and your reminders that life means so much every day. Happy Father’s day from grandpa to grandpa.

Love Donnie.

Father’s Day again, 2018 and Mother’s Day was rather empty around here without her. She got what she wanted most in life and afterlife, to be by your side once again and for all eternity. We were with her at her exit from this world and entry to yours and we were more happy than sad because she was back in your arms again where she’s always belonged.  It’s been only 3 months or so and it seems a lot like yesterday. But with both of you gone now, the harsh reality of a generation passed leaves the next in our hands and that’s a huge responsibility.

You have another grandchild on the way, maybe two, and with every passing day I become a little more like you. I survived pancreatitis and three heart attacks last fall and dropped 45 pounds so my eventual arrival to join you may be a little delayed. Next week is our annual boys fishing trip to Panguitch again and we’ll be spreading yours and mom’s ashes there together and have a good cry. By this fall I hope to be fully moved in to your home on earth here that mom left us where I’ll spend the rest of my days gazing at the gorgeous walls of artwork you left behind.

Still hate that my job even exists but thoroughly love the work that I do there. Hungry homeless people continue to be my passion and the reason I sleep well at night, albeit brief at times. I’ll be 58 in November and dad, I’ve never felt more purpose in my life than I do these days. You taught me that and I’m forever grateful.

The rest of the family is thriving too. Siblings, kids, grandkids, cousins, nephews and nieces, all are doing great. You left an incredible legacy and big shoes to fill but we’re hitting it hard and strong every day. Tomorrow is Father’s day and we’ll be celebrating you as we’ve done every day since you left.  Give Mom our love and keep her dancing on the clouds as you both deserve. Love and miss you.

The view of you

through the eyes of another

is something you

may never see.

The spark you make

may set ablaze

a smile or thought

that saves a life

another day.

Your ordinary self

and what you are

to another is extra.

You may never know

but may soon see

the spark of you

in another

by another

through another

for another.

And their smile or thought

may save another life

in yet another moment

in yet another day

and start a fire.

LMSM,

Don

It took me almost seven miles to drive the two back to my office today.

It was lunchtime and I’d just locked up my post at the senior center where I do outreach to needy older people twice a week.  My head just wasn’t in the drive. I almost forgot I had skipped breakfast. I should be hungry.

I was much too busy chewing on a vocabulary of terms that might describe the past few hours like a ravenous midnight scavenger at a refrigerator door.

I made a U turn somewhere on Boulder Highway.  I’d missed my turn about 5 miles back while I had been thinking thirty years into my future.

“How was your morning,” said Cate as I came in with a portable office hanging from both shoulders.  I could have easily missed her greeting in my zeal to get to my office to offload and unpack from my trip.  They all know I’m out of the office Tuesday and Thursday mornings doing outreach. And by the sarcasm in her voice It had obviously been a crazy busy Thursday at the office during my absence.

Getting my leftovers from the fridge to the microwave as staff meandered into the lunchroom for our last togetherness hour of the workweek, I had been trying to figure out how I wanted to respond  to her question. Unprompted, she continued “You know, there are some of those days wherein working here, you say to yourself ‘How did I ever get so lucky to have ever had the privilege of meeting this client?
And then there are days like today.”

She was oblivious to the fact she had just written the lead to my story.

Lucky me.

Lunch was usually a good time of banter, slurping and Facebook jokes but the brakes of the food truck that pulled up out front with a bed full of canned goods and perishables was our cue. Jokes and food aside for the next 20 minutes, the lunch team exited the break room and knew the routine of working at a non-profit.  Our unattended microwave lunches quickly cooled as we unloaded what would be lunch, dinner and breakfast for many hundreds in days to come.  The food pantries at our little non-profit family resource center were getting filled today once again.

But it was Thursday, which in the four-10s world of work, means Friday and a full 84 hours off work. Every weekend is a three day weekend for us after four consecutive  10-12 hour days of work where the average monthly  income of a waiting room client is under $800 and quite often zero.   Most of them are unaware of the day of the week.  They are often unaware of the coming weekend except that it means their urgent needs are put on ice for three more days while their caseworkers go have a drink or two, lie out by the pool or take a few days for a Disneyland visit.   Every  —-day is pretty much the same for them trying to figure out how to keep their hard times from getting worse…how to keep their heads and spirits up as they negotiate the poorly designed flow charts of social services for a meal, a pillow or enough gas at the stove to heat what might be their last can of donated soup.

It was not only our Friday but also payday.  A mixed blessing.  My small take-home had long since been loaded for an electronic shoot out from my bank account into the coffers of  screaming others as quickly as it would arrive.  If I was lucky, the aftermath of the online massacre might leave a buck fifty to take me through the next couple weeks.

Lucky.

Such a relative term.

But at the moment, it had become one of the words I’d sought just earlier that afternoon.

Is luck just chance? A random draw for the longer matchstick? A disproportionate distribution of goodwill from the gods? Is that really what it all boils down t

Perishables.

Milkcoffeecreamer, baconraspberriesbananas. Mostly coffee though.

I tried to create a short, repeatable rhyme for my 3am grocery run that I was always doomed to forget.

Perishables mostly.

My sleep schedule has always been random at best and an early morning grocery run was normal, especially on paydays and especially when I’m out of coffee…and up writing.

Perishables.

I rarely use that word anymore, but when a lot of your work involves distribution of donated food to hungry people, you soon discover that the inherent sadness of the word is a glorious trumpet sound to the many who regularly survive on over-salted canned goods and family pack sacks of hard dry beans.  A banana, fresh cream, bacon…most are rare exotics in the world of food pantries. Perishable delicacies.

Still searching for the words that had driven me 7 miles out of my way yesterday morning, it was another obvious keyword.

I am lucky.

I am also perishable.

Existentially, these facts of life don’t sit well with me.  They are much too random for this Christian man turned advocate for those who are unlucky and perishing.

At the senior center yesterday, you could have easily called the man I met unlucky and perishing, but if that is true, I will gladly trade my fortunate circumstances to perish along side him in this troubled world.  He may be poor, but he is far from impoverished.

In the earlier words of Cate, “How did I ever get so lucky to have ever had the privilege of meeting this client?”

At 81, he looks every day of 50 with the wit of a 20 year old.  I feel old around him.  He’d popped his head in a couple times prior in the bingo room where I meet the seniors to match them with any help and resources my newbie enthusiasm could find.  Today, he came to our set appointment and greeted me.

“I have some more crap for you, Don,” he said as he handed me a file folder screen printed with those exact words and filled with a $900/month snapshot of his last 30 days income and expenses for us to review.  The “MORE CRAP” folder was the theme for the day as we poured through his documents and poured unexpectedly into the colorful life of this octogenarian I now hope to become over my next 30 years.

His humor and happiness were unperishably captivating.  Like I sat in the front row seat at a comedy club, he picked on me for two hours and I threw barbs right back on stage to him each time.  I couldn’t tell you all the topics we covered in the friendship we were both very obviously interested in creating.  We covered the compulsories I needed to do my job for him but his needs weren’t all the reason why he came that morning.

He had no idea what he was teaching me.  Perhaps he did, and that’s why he came.

What followed was a series of nostalgic one-upsmanships about old Vegas, the rises and falls of an old man’s life and sage recollections of accrued blessings about being 81, alone and incredibly content at being both.  He was genius, but no angel.  I like a man who can use the right expletive at the right moment for the right reason.  I was very quickly realizing the likenesses of our lives despite the differences in the eras we had lived thus far.  And without my consent, I was being mentored in a bingo room.

There’s something about the value of relationship with an older man that is entirely lost on the generation of younger men today.  As parents, we remind our kids, “Wait til you’re my age,” as if some secret epiphany will someday bite them square in the ass and they will understand.  He did more than that.  My ass was being very graciously chewed by a quickly perishing nobody who was becoming somebody to me in the process. Like a schoolgirl with a crush, I could only gaze and listen.  For the experiences and wisdom I thought I’d accrued by 53 were being systematically trumped by the silver words of my newest friend who taught me that while perishing is unavoidable, life is not at all about being lucky.

He has lived quite contently on less than your house payment.  He reads books and finds something of interest in everyone and a clever pun in every experience.  Television is a waste of time, he adds with conviction. The drama of life is a far better sitcom.  And as he leans over the table, he looksinto my eyes with such depth, my already humbled gaze was weakened.  And he said to me, “Don, my new friend, we are all lucky simply because we live.  Shit happens, as they say nowadays. But fortunately, a good attitude can flush it every time.”

I’ve no idea how many more years he will be around but as he got up to leave a meeting that had lasted much longer than either of us had ever expected, I filed his documents in the “MORE CRAP” folder and promised to do what I can to make whatever the time he has remaining a little better if I could.  And as he grunted off the threshold and out the bingo room door, he turned back and said, “I like you, Don.  I think you’ll make a really great eighty-year old one day and maybe you’ll be as lucky as I have been.”

Well, my cup is empty. And so is the pot I made at 3am while you were sleeping. But my eyes are red and wet as they have been most of this morning as I’ve been writing.

I die a little more each day. I feel it.

But indeed, if I should make it another thirty years, I shall be lucky simply to have lived and will have learned from a wise old man to be content with what I’m dealt.

And I promise to flush regularly.

LMSM,

Don

His entire existence
is an utter void of understanding
the comings, goings and absences
of his only love.
To him, no explanation exists.
His only and relentless hope
is in a vague awareness of the
routine of a return.

Someday.
So on that promise, he remains forever
vigilant and alert for that first familiar
sound or sign that affirms his hope
and turns it into a wildly wagging tail.

Hey buddy, I’m coming home.

In this thousand piece puzzle I call my life, it’s clear that what I’m creating bears no resemblance to the image on the box. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so difficult to piece together.  So, I have learned to stop looking at the picture for guidance to my progress.  Nowadays, I just keep my focus on the remains in the pile before me. Through trial and error, some of the most beautiful portions of my life are in the misfitted pieces. I’ve come to realize that it was never God’s intent for me to create someone else’s image of what my life was supposed to look like but rather be the divinely pieced mosaic of my own creation. So, I will continue to enjoy the challenges along the way until I reach the end.  At 999,  the final piece will be an obvious fit and I will finally enter my rest.

And like a proud father,  God will frame it and hang it in the heavens for everyone to marvel at, because he will have a new artist on staff.

But meanwhile, I will be creating a little masterpiece down here outside the box.

Happy Easter everyone.

She walked with a cane.

Almost ten blocks to get here and she didn’t have an appointment.

A lobby full of people in similar predicaments waited for this small Filipino woman, nearing 80, who smiled at me like a 30 year old when I called her back to my office.  She’d sat patiently for over an hour hoping to see someone.    Many years alone since her husband passed, her $901 a month is eaten up mostly by $690 in rent, electricity that powers a fan for the hot summer months and a second hand electric blanket for winter warmth. She’d move to a lower rent apartment but she knows nobody and nobody really knows her. But she knows nothing else. This is her normal.

She reads.  Carries a book in a clean fabric sack she calls a purse. She eats very little and showed no notice of my half-eaten sandwich which out of guilt, I tried to camouflage with a stack of files for our interview.  She is a proud woman.

And that smile.

 After two weeks at work here, I drank the kool-aid and died to myself.

I now work at a very small non-profit family resource center in the worst part of Henderson, Nevada.  After all, if your job is to help those who need it most, you’re planted where they are.  And they are.

There is no right person to help her or all those who are still waiting in the lobby.   Not me. Not you. But there is a peculiar gifting here.  The small staff of 9 served 10,000 just like her last year on only 8% of the entire budget where 92% of all donations went where it was needed most.

This is not one of my longer stories.  But it is important.

I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m not an easy target and I can spot a user looking for another handout at short distance.  The staff here are seasoned business people who work hard and long and who know that our reward is certainly not in the modest paycheck but in the experience that changes lives, including our own.

I could care less… but I can’t anymore.

I said it before.  This ain’t work.  This is life.

I drank the kool aid and there’s no going back now.

I quit my job as a janitor yesterday.

Monday morning, I’m back in the saddle, riding a more familiar horse.

My last post, “Why    it rolls downhill” was written and posted less than a week ago.  In it, I’d expressed how my six months cleaning up other people’s messes had taught me quite a lot about humility, thankfulness, finding contentment and how to bloom where you’re planted, even if it’s in manure.

God’s timing is pretty close to perfect.

My roommate of 7 years had the courage to take the step he’s wanted to for a long time and we moved him into his new digs a couple of days ago.  He deserved it.  Not that I was a horrible person to live with, mind you, nor was he. It was just time and I couldn’t be more happy for him.

However, his moving out meant I wouldn’t be able to continue living where I have these seven years on a part time janitor’s salary.  Concurrent with moving him into his apartment, I began making plans for my own move somewhere else.  Where? I didn’t know, but I had begun making a list of my possessions to sell or donate by the end of the month and to began looking for a room to rent somewhere that I could afford.

My sister, Shelly, was and always has been my sounding board. I whined and cried to her about my predicament on the phone a couple times about how I really needed a break in life after all the bad karma.  I’d changed my ways long ago and made a complete about-face in my life and my perspective on it.  Surely, God wouldn’t permit another humiliating blow and had a slightly better plan he could orchestrate.

Well, of course He did.

My boss’ friend, Aaron,  had contacted him about a position that had just come available at his work. Scott, my boss, pumped out an email that morning to the list of members at church.  Intercepting this email as it arrived in my inbox moments before leaving for work, I caught up with him there to inquire about it. He knows  my background as a therapist and teacher. His wife, who also works with him, came alongside and in hearing our conversation, gave me encouragement to look into it.  They both knew the dilemma created by my roommate’s move out.  I made the phone call and was called in for an interview that afternoon.

The position was a custom fit for me and the wage would keep me put in my condo if I was awarded the job.  The second interview two days later also went well.

The morning I received the email offer entitled “Can you start on Monday?” came to me not 30 minutes after my boss had asked if I’d heard anything on the job yet because he had interviews set up with a couple guys within the hour to interview for a new janitor position to help me out with my work since our facility had doubled in size.

“I haven’t heard anything yet, Scott,” I said.

A little frustrated, he explained how much it would help him if he knew whether to hire just one person, a helper for me, or two people–a helper and a replacement for me if I was gonna get this new job.

As I’d begun my day on campus there at work and the email arrived, my text to Scott read:

“HIRE TWO PEOPLE!!!”

He had just concluded an interview with a qualified candidate he wanted to hire and as my text went out to him across campus, a radio call from across campus had arrived on my hip: “Scott wants to see you in his office, Don.”

God’s timing is pretty cool as I was able to give my notice and take the qualified candidate directly from my boss’ interview on a training run through the campus. He starts Sunday and Sunday is my last day.  Synchronicity.  Seamless synchronicity.

I never imagined that the writing and posting of my last story less than a week prior about being content where you are, had been one of the steps in which God would answer my urgent need, land me an interview and job back in my desired line of work and meet the corresponding needs of every party involved in the process.

The writing of my last story…

My roommate moving out…

My urgent need to find a cheaper place…

The conversation between Aaron, who will be my new boss, and Scott, who will be my old boss as of Monday…

Scott’s presence of mind to blindly shoot off an email…

My interception of it moments before leaving…

An interview that day…

Scott’s interviewing dilemmas…

The timing of the “you got the job email” and the radio call to me…

The on-the-spot training of the guy who will now replace me…

All synchronized by God in perfect timing.

If you’ve ever found yourself way overdue for a blessing, a break in life or some evidence that your future is, indeed, in the hands of someone much bigger than yourself, keep calm.  Bloom where you are planted at the time and rejoice in the manure.

He knows exactly what everyone needs and can craft a pretty remarkable chain of events to meet them.  It wasn’t just about my need, but those of 7 people in all.

Perhaps countless others up and down the line.

That fact is very clear to me now.

LMSM,

Don