According to the ground-breaking research that has been done at the Roedel Institute of  Higher Thinking and Super Evolved Consciousness (otherwise known as RIHTSEC in the scientific community) one of the worst things you can say to someone is the following:

"Get over it."

Even typing that makes my chest hair rise up and try and breakthrough the orange swordfish shirt I am wearing. Yikes, sorry for that visual.  You may have trouble sleeping with the image of my personal matted raccoon that lives under my chin poking it's head out through my white buttons.  If you suffer from three consecutive sleepless nights due to this picture being branded into the theater inside your eyelids I suggest you seek immediate medical help.  I don't want my chest hair to have claimed anymore victims than it already has.  Anyways...

"Get over it" is something that people say to me all of the time.   I probably hear this because I often drone on and on about something that is for other people is a fairly benign issue, but for me is a matter of life and death.  I have a very hard time "Getting over things" and not just because I am a short dude.  Although I freely admit that as a guy of limited verticality I usually am more obliged to "go under" an obstacle than to "get over it".  I will leave it to you armchair psychotherapists out there to figure out if there is a correlation between my height and my emotional immaturity.

For many things there are things that I simply can't or refuse to get over.  Yes, some of the issues that I still lament and rage against are things that I choose to not overcome. Perhaps there will be a point in my life where I will be willing to forgive or "get over" some of these things but I am nowhere close to that moment of spiritual enlightenment yet.

The list of things that I refuse to just "Get Over It" include:

The movie "The Tree Of Life" 

Everyone involved with this production should be arrested and sent to live in an actual tree.  I cannot believe there was not a moment during the making of this "film" that the director didn't just look at everyone and ask "What in the hell are we doing here?"  I feel a class action lawsuit against Brad Pitt for psychological damages could actually win.

McRib hype. 

Come on people, it is not actually made out of anything that resembles a rib.  I have it on good authority that The McRib is actually made out of a blend of Alpo-Jerky, spam, and Fraggle meat.  Just because they put a watery BBQ sauce on it does not make it delicious.  Death-row inmates don't deserve to be served that slabbly greaseball.  I cannot get over how grown adults can transform into a Justin Beiber-watching teenage girl when McDonalds announces that The McBlech is coming back.  It is outrageous and someday I will invent a time machine so I can go back in time (Terminator style) to stop Ronald from unleashing this plague upon our world.


Wasps. 

If you are a freak and you have the fetish of watching a grown man soil himself, banshee shriek, hide behind children, and lather around on the floor like he was on fire then you should put me in the same zip code as a wasp.  Those little stingy bastards bring out the inner-scream queen that lives on the dark side of my heart.  Actually I am emotionally allergic to any wingy bug that packs a small needle on it's back.  If I see anything that resembles a bee, wasp, hornet, or any of it's demonic cousins I will lose control of all of my faculties.  Imagine yourself walking down the street minding your own business when you see a ten foot blood-soaked clown carrying a chainsaw in one hand and a slew of decapitated heads in the other.  Imagine the scream you would let out.  Now amplify that scream by 3000 and increase it by several hundred octaves and you have an idea of what I am like when I see one of these evil bugs.

If I were James Bond and I was carrying state secrets that were of extremely sensitive importance I would offer them up to my captives with the sheer threat of a wasp being brought into my interrogation room.  Want to know the nuke codes?  Sure...youbetcha!
My over-the-top fear of being stung has kept me safe all these years from having my supple skins ravaged by some pollen-sucking monster.  I intend on keeping it that way!

The 1996 NFL Divisional Playoff Game When Jacksonville Upset My Beloved Denver Broncos.

The Broncos were the #1 seed going into the playoffs with the home field advantage, a solid defense and an age-defying John Elway who was having a terrific season.  There was no way this game should have even been close....then God decided that I needed feel what it is like to have my heart ripped from my chest by an opposing quarterback named Mark Burnell.  The Broncos lost in the last few plays and it seemed like once again my dreams of a Orange and Blue Superbowl victory were far away.  Of course the next two years the Broncos did raise the trophy at the end of each of those seasons...but I never got over this loss.  Get off the field Michael Dean Perry!!!!  I am still angry....

The Cancelation of The HBO Show Carnival. 

Was it weird?  Yes.  Was it often hard to watch?  Yep.  Was it paced slower than an episode of Murder She Wrote?  Yeah.  It had problems...but it was so creative, dark, and had a story that kept me interested to see where it was going.  I loved the characters and the mystery that was the core of the overall plot that was slowly being unraveled over time.  This was a show that was ahead of it's time...and it was just getting to it's peak when HBO (who should know better) canceled it.  Those executives at Home Box Office are on my list - and that is not a list you want to be on.  Being on my list means that if I see you at the store I will shoot you "The Roedel Death Stare Of...Well..Death".  The other people on this list are Fidel Castro, my old eye-doctor who always smelled like dumpster cabbage, the kid who pinned me in the Wyoming State 2A Wrestling Championship Match, and anyone that has ever offered me a Grapefruit.


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Just like shag carpet, my anger toward each of those things will never be out of style.  I will never "get over" any of those things.  Of course I could have listed more things that bother me but I don't want to leave you with the impression that I am a complainer.

Of course another thing I will never "get over" is the effect that Autism is having on my family and the sea of other families out there.  Over the past month I have met parents and caregivers and have heard there stories of the struggles they have on a daily basis.  Many of these stories are so heartbreaking that it puts the obstacles my family faces in perspective.  There are so many children in the spectrum and their family members that are really hurting and feeling hopeless that it is overwhelming to think about.  Every day they are having experiences that lay waste to their being.  Every day there are parents of children who are living with Autism that are forced to make choices that are beyond painful.  There are children who are being forgotten by school systems and the health community.  It makes me furious and so incredibly sad to think about it.  I can't and won't ever get over what is happening to the scores of people who are being caught up in The ASD Epidemic that has a prevalence rate that grows each year.

Right now please just offer up a quick prayer/meditation/thought/smoke signal for these families who are in the thick of the Autism woods right now feeling lost.  For these parents that are charged with watching their precious babies writhe and struggle in a world that has a hard time making space for them.  For these children in the spectrum who are being viewed as "less than" or "broken".  Give a moment of your time and prayer for anyone who has been affected by Autism.  Pray for their peace of heart and for the miracle of hope to be re-introduced into their lives.

Somewhere in the world right now is a family that is being told that there lives will never be the same.  They are being told that their child is living with Autism.  Pray for them.

A couple weeks ago someone emailed me to ask if I could ever "get over" my son's autism diagnosis and blog about something. Obviously not.  However, I can assure you that we here at RIHTSEC are working on it.

Since it's National Prayer day I figured it was time to spiritually Skype The Lord this morn.  It pains me to admit that I am not nearly as prayerful as I need to be.  I'd like to think that my lack of conversation with God is because I am so busy with obligations and business meetings.  That would be a stretch.  The only thing I am busy with these days is trying to watch all five seasons of The Wire in under three weeks and I don't really have any business meetings to attend....well except the ones that take place with  with my lawnboy who is attempting (and I am allowing) to extort me.  But that is a blog topic for another time....

I graced God with my presence this morning.  I am sure he was pretty excited to hear from me. Our discourse began well.  I started with the prayer requests that would make me look good.  I prayed for world peace, the end to hunger, and for the purification and salvation for The Lohan's.  However, like all of my prayer sessions my altruistic beard came off and I started babbling about the junk that I needed...and I needed a lot of junk.

J-Roe has got a serious list of wants...

I prayed for the end to the check engine lights that plague every car I sit behind.  I asked God to help me to find some sort of nose hair trimming device that will finally be able to rid myself of a particular long nostril follicle that I have recently named "Harrison". My prayers consisted of things like a request to inflate my bank account and to deflate my waistline.  I asked for the end of bees and wasps everywhere without regard to how that could start the domino effect of the end of the human race.  I prayed for the gift of quick fingers to finally beat my 12-year old in Mario Party 9...his string of 4,872 victories is starting to erode my gaming confidence.  My list and demands went on and on. I prayed for a better water pressure in my townhome and for somebody to finally recognize my mad skillz. (skill with a "z" indicates I am one seriously talented play-a)  At the time I did not find my intentions as self-centered after all I  was praying for a bunch of people...me, myself, I, and your's truly.

To be fair I have never tried to act like I am not a self-indulgent dude.  This blog is a perfect example of the how narrow my perspective can be at most times.  I fully recognize that most of my life is set on auto-pilot.  It is a character flaw that hopefully in time I will work out...however in the meantime, I'm at least aware of my personal limitations.

I am sure that I am just like most people.  I pray for things that will make my life easier.  I pray for things that I think will bring me peace.  I pray for things that I think will make me happy.  I'm just like you....I want to be happy.

My desire for happiness was certainly reflected in my moment of prayer this morn.

Then like most of my prayer sessions my imagination starts to kick in and God responds.  This probably happens because when I was growing up I watched the movie "Oh God" more times than anyone in George Burns family ever did.  In my imagination this time the Lord On High hit me back in a voice that sounded just like Judge Smails from the movie "Caddyshack".  After my litany of "wants" came to an end I heard this:

"You will get nothing and like it!!!"

Of course God doesn't talk to me...and if He did His voice probably wouldn't be identical to Ted Knights.  The voice that chimed in was my dirty monkey-humping ego.  My ego is a little different than most other peoples.  Seemingly everyone else's ego is a delusional lunatic who tells them how awesome they are and how nobody on Earth quite understands their brilliance.  My ego operates in a different manner.  He is like a Marine drill instructor who is intent on breaking me down...but the problem is after he grinds me down into a pile of salt he is not concerned with building me back up.  My ego is the preacher of the church of "John Is A Worthless Schmoop Who Is A Disappointment To Everyone...Even Kittens And Puppies".  Reverend Ego gives testimony every morning from his pulpit of how I deserve scorn and ridicule.  Every sermon ends with a rousing gospel choir rendition of "The 5'3 Scumbag".

As you can tell I have serious issues when it comes to praying.  I am stuck between shallow prayers and the fact that there is a part of me that does not believe that I deserve any of my intentions to be heard.  This is the reason my spiritual garden is a vast wasteland of cracked soil and weeds.  I feel bad that I ask for things that are petty...and on top of that I feel undeserving of whatever it is I think I need.  It is a double whammy.

My prayer time ended with me feeling like I had just been punched in the briar patch by a steel-fisted elf. I concluded my prayer without the standard "Amen".  I ended it with a "Well that just happened".  I thought maybe I would try communicating again with the divine in a couple of years...

As I was driving this morning reflecting on my failed morning prayer experience a song came on my shuffled playlist that stopped my pity party.

This is the song.

This song brought me back to a moment a few days ago to where I had for one brief moment had something important figured out.  This moment happened while I was being backhanded by a tall awkwardly swedish woman and having my neck breathed down by a furry drunken Yeti-like man who smelled like Death's armpit. It was in this unlikely moment that I was given a reminder of a mantra that I used to repeat to myself daily:

"I deserve to be happy"

So do you.

Let your inner voice say it in the halls of your brain as well.

"I deserve to be happy".

No matter of what mistakes you have made, obstacles you have faced, scars you carry, relationships you have broken, money you have lost, jobs you have failed at, diets you have ended or people you have upset the mantra holds true for you.

You deserve to be happy.  We all do.  It's what we all want.

I know this is not some incredible revelation that I am presenting you with - the desire to be happy so very simple...maybe it's so simple that we forget about it.   Maybe your like me and have regulated the idea of being happy as something that will come latter in life.   That is as they may say in the deep south as "Bull-hanky".  Can you tell I have never been in the deep south?

That song was one that was played at the Snow Patrol concert I attended in Denver last Friday.  It was an amazing night!  It can be said that I am a huge (in a short-man kind of way) fan of Snow Patrol.  I am drawn to their music because of the lyrics in all of their songs.  Their lyrics scream to me in a way that no other bands are able to do.  It was a concert that was a very spiritual experience for me.  Each song on their setlist hit me in my heart.  While others danced and drank around me, I shut my eyes and just soaked it in.

I soaked it in while the crazy Swedish lady next to me danced in a manner that required her to smack me in the face every six seconds.  She backhanded me more times than Jack Bauer ever did a suspect in his many seasons on "24".  By the end of the concert I had knuckle marks on my forehead.  Had I any secrets to spill to this lankly Swede I would have told them to her to make her stop the face-slapping.  I realize that most people would have asked her to please be more careful...but I was afraid to say anything because if this is how she acted when she was enjoying a concert I was terrified to see how she might react when angered by a "little American man with unibrow."

Her repeated assaults on my supple face with her manly hands did not keep me from being touched by the music of Snow Patrol.  I was transported while they played.  I was even unfazed by the guy behind me who with each exhale of his rubbing alcohol-like breath on the back of my neck burned away a layer of skin.  It can only liken the experience to what I imagine intimacy with a wine-soaked viking must have been like.  There were points during the concert where this hairy fellow was so close to me that I was unsure where I began and he stopped.  I was his conjoined little sober buddy.

Despite The Swede and The Yeti I was fully engrossed in the experience.  It was a perfect night of musical therapy.  One song had me forgiving people who wronged me in my past, and the next had me working through issues of grief I still have with the passing of my mother.

By the encore I was ready for the show to end.  I was emotionally drained, my face hurt, and in some cultures I was possibly married to the man behind me.  I was ready to go home - Snow Patrol had given me all the lessons I needed to receive that night...or at least I thought.

Just when I was closing up shop on the whole evening they played a song I had never heard before.  It was simple and beautiful and it was the number that reminded me that I  deserve happiness.  It was the song that with a moment or two had the entire crowd singing the chorus with the singer. 

Here is the studio version of the song:



Here is the same song but this version was filmed at the same concert I was at.  I was about ten feet behind the person who was operating the camera:




By the end of the song the entire audience was singing along.  We were offering our intent of the things we wanted from life.  We were offering a prayer. Watch the end of this clip...it still gives me goosebumps.

I was praying...without Ted Baxters voice...without the shallowness...without guilt.  Sure the words I was singing weren't specific to me, but my intention was.  I was praying for myself, the people I love, and the folks in life who needed my intentions.

It reminded me that it's ok to want things in your life that will make you happy.  Being happy is what we deserve.  There is nothing wrong with asking for it.  I should add though that it doesn't mean that we just focus on ourselves...because after all how can any of us be truly happy if the people around us in the world are suffering.

I deserve to be happy.

So do you.

So do people who we don't like.

Happiness is not something that only a few people deserve.  It's okay to ask for it and it's okay for other people to ask for it.

As I am reflecting on this song at the Snow Patrol concert and my fruitless attempt at prayer this morning I think I would like to rewrite my prayer from this morning.  It goes like this:

Dear God,

I pray for all the things that you know will make me happy.

Those things probably include my health, my family, and good wine.

I submit that there are probably other things that will make me happy that only you know. I pray for those things as well.

I also pray for everyone else.  Please help them find happiness.

Let me know if I am in standing in their way to being happy.

Help me recognize that I deserve to be happy.

Help me recognize that everyone else deserves to be happy too.

This is all I ever wanted from life.

Amen.





I went on a walk this afternoon around Lions Park and I offered that prayer. 

I am suprisngly thankful of that night I was stuck between The Swede and The Viking....

THIS IS A PIECE I WAS ASKED TO WRITE TO GIVE A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WHAT A LOT OF FATHER’S OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN FEEL LIKE.  THIS IS BASED ON MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS WELL AS MANY OTHER DADS THAT I HAVE MET BEFORE. I FIGURED THAT I WOULD SHARE IT HERE ON MY BLOG-O-RAMA. 

 
THE WALL WALKER

When I wake I am curled up under a somber and overcast sky.  It is the same colored heaven that I lived under yesterday and the countless days that have come before it.  I stretch out on the brown grass for a moment to piece together my reality.  It only takes me a few brief moments to remember my job.  I have to walk the wall…just like I have done the past 11 years. 

I sit up and take a deep breath. I hold it for a moment while I close my eyes. This is one of my favorite moments of the day. I keep my breath inside and pretend it is some sort of medicine.  I imagine that it is an inhaler of courage that once I release it I will be able to begin my day with at least an extra ounce of constitution.  I exhale slowly- pushing every bit of air out of my lungs.  I always do that in hopes that any negative feeling or emotion that I have packed in from the previous day’s walk will get exorcised from my heart. 

Opening my eyes I force myself to stand up.  Every morning my body aches more and more.  As my form cricks and cracks while I push up off of the ground I am reminded of how immensely tired I am.  Even though I sleep I never feel like I rest.  My body never really relaxes during slumber and my mind never turns off.  I am always thinking of my job and the wall that I walk. 

It takes a minute or two but I am finally up and standing.  Now comes the hard part…I have to turn around and look at it.  With both of my hands running through my hair I pivot my feet so I am now facing it. 

I am standing outside of a giant ashen concrete wall.  It towers over me and stretches to my left and right for as far as my eyes can see.  The surface of the wall is worn and cracked and there are some indications that people have tried their best to chip away at it before they surrendered the effort.  A part of me is convinced that I was the one who left these marks on this part of the wall.  It is hard to tell if this is my work or not.  I eventually make up my mind that I was not the one who tried to get it from here. My attempts are not nearly as organized as this one.  The person who attacked this area worked it with a plan.  When I try and breakthrough the wall I am leave much more random indications.   I have never been able to quite exactly determine how tall the wall is – I eventually guess that it has to be about 40-50 feet tall.  On the top of this hard barrier there appears to be a band of thick barbed wire that I believe serves as a deterrent to any idiot who decided to try and scale its smooth surface. Once a long time ago I tried to climb it.  That was a very bad idea and it cost me days of walking while I recovered from my fall. 

I decide it is time to walk the wall for a bit to try and finally find a break in its divide.  With the sun obscured by the deep gray sky above me I am unable to figure out exactly how long I walked. By my best estimation I must have walked about an hour or two before my feet informed me that it was time for a break.  Throughout all of my strolls along the wall I have never discovered any opening or weakness in its structure.  Today was no different.   There has never been any variation in how it looked.  There are no towers, doorways, windows or anything else that I could use as a reference point. It is steely, grim, and endless.  I convince my legs to keep moving.  This time as I walk with the wall I run my fingers against the concrete.  This is a ritual that I have begun to do more and more often.  Since I cannot tell if I have walked around the entire perimeter of the wall I am always curious if my fingers are tracing over a same part of a wall that they have already visited.

I know what you are thinking.  I know because I think the same thing every day.  You are thinking that it is time for me to quit walking the wall.  It is time to give up trying to get through it.  It’s time to do something else with my life.  I need you to understand something.  I can’t quit.  I have to find a way through this damned wall.  I have to.  My son is trapped on the other side.  He is alone and he needs me.  Now, you’re asking me how I even know he is still over there.  I know because every once in a while I can hear his voice bounce off and over the wall.  He is asking for help!  He is asking me to find him.  To help him!  Granted I can go days and weeks without hearing from him but I know he is in there.  I know it.  He wants out…and I won’t stop walking the wall until I find a way inside. 

There was a time when I did not walk this wall alone.  I used to walk it with my wife. She was just as desperate as I was for trying to get him out of there.  Somewhere along the way she gave up and did not want to walk anymore.  She said she was tired and she just wanted to rest.  I told her we need to find a way in.  She said that there must be another way of looking at this wall.  That perhaps we were doing this all wrong.  I told her that if she was unwilling to walk with me that I was going to go it alone.  She begged me to stay. I didn’t. There must be a way in…and I was not going to be like her and quit.  The day I kept walking and she stayed behind was the most difficult day of this whole damned thing.  I don’t like to think about it much anymore.

A day does not go by where I find myself wishing I was a stronger man.  If I was I could smash my fists against this stone partition causing it to crumble down in a cloud of dust.  Then I would scramble over the rumble to see my boy standing there waiting for me to scoop him up and rush him away from this place.   Believe me I have tried punching through this wall before only to be reminded that the bones in my hands are a helluva lot softer than the rock that binds this wall together.   Every now and then I attempt to dig under the wall.  Once I even spent an entire month working on a tunnel that I was sure would help carry be underneath it.  I worked and toiled only to discover that there was no bottom to the wall.  It just kept going and going…

My days of walking the wall bleed into each other.  It is often very difficult to differentiate one day from the next.  There is a pattern that exists in all of them.  It begins with my morning ritual of scraping myself off of the ground, then I walk for miles and miles looking for a way in, then I collapse as the sun sets in absolute heartache that I have once again failed.   

I am nearing the end of my walk today.  I am exhausted.  I slump down to the ground with my back against the gray wall and I do what I do every day at this time.  I sob.  I am not talking about one of those macho cries that you might see a man do – with one single tear running down his cheek and his jaw clenched tight.  My cry is more of a howl and without any dignity or pride.  It is the cry of absolute helplessness.  All the pain and grief that I bury during the course of the day rolls in like a tide of unstoppable emotion.  I am flooded with despair. 

Tonight this tide of emotion feels a lot more potent.  I am a mess.  The tears that seep from my eyes follow a groove that their watery ancestors have formed before, however there are a lot more of them ever tonight.  There is a new feeling tonight. For the first time ever I doubt.  I doubt that I will ever find a way in, under, or over the wall.  I am too small of a man to find a way around it.  I will never save my son.  I am cursed to be separated from him.  With my body still leaning against the barricade I find myself screaming obscenities and a litany of filth into the ether.  I am so filled with rage.  My anger is exploding from me like unfocused shrapnel!  I am angry at whoever built this never-ending wall!  I am angry at myself for not being able to solve its riddle!  I am angry at God who has determined my purpose in life is to spend it walking this terrible partition!  I am angry at my son for being caught on the other side of it!  I am angry at my heart for still beating!  It would be so much easier if I did not have to wake up in the morning and continue on….

I scream and rant until my voice becomes raw.  I am now in shadow as the sun has begun to set on the other side of the wall.  Soon I will be surrounded by darkness and I am feeling much more hopeless than I ever have before.  I am at my end of my wits.  I am nearing the breakdown I always knew what coming.  Maybe tomorrow morning I will leave the wall….perhaps tomorrow is the day I give up.  No more walking.  No more searching.

I close my eyes and get ready for the night to drape over me when I hear the first voice I have heard in years…

“Daddy…”

It was like a whisper coming from the wall behind me.  My eyes pop open and I spin around to face the stone.  I am now kneeling in front of the fence waiting for another sound.

Nothing comes.  Just silent stone.

I place my hand on the wall and I break the quiet.  “Hello??  Is there somebody there?”

Silence.

“Hello!!??” I shout.  “Please say something again!  I just heard you!”

Silence.

Now I am frantic and even though my throat feels stabs of pain every time I shout because of my previous temper tantrum I continue to yell out.

“Say something!!  Please!!  Hello?  I am right here!  Daddy is right here!!”

Silence.

My mind must have been playing tricks on me.  I must be losing my mind.  Is this the beginning of my madness?

Still on my knees I bury my face into the side of the cool wall and whisper “Please….somebody say something...”

I feel the hopelessness and the pain welling up again.  The brief moment of joy was now fading because now it appears that the voice I heard was all in my head. 

“Daddy!?”  This time there is no doubt.  It was not a whisper.  It was a strong voice calling out.

“I am here!  I am right here!” I yell.  His voice sounds so close to where I am. Without knowing it right away I am now standing with my ear pressed against the wall.  “Where are you?” I ask.

“Right here!” his voice calls out to the right of me. 

I turn my head to look and I see a small arm shooting out from a small hole the wall.  I see a hand that is reaching out for me desperately.  I run over and clasp his hand in mine.  As our fingers interlock I feel a wave of relief pour over me.  I let go of his hand and look at it.  It is so small and it is covered in dirt and I noticed it is covered is small abrasions.  His nails are chipped and there is dried blood over the tips of his fingers.

“Are you okay?” I ask through hole.

“Yes!” He shouts.  My God his voice sounds so wonderful.  “I just hurt my hand while digging through…I will be okay.”

Digging?  Well, that of course makes sense.  While I have been trying to find a way to break him out he was working on his own way.

My son then tells me he is going to move his arm out of the hole in the wall so he can see my face.  For the first time we look at each other.  He is beautiful.  His eyes and smile are so radiant.  He is joy.  Suddenly my years spent walking the way feel so incredibly well spent.  If I were to die right now I would be content.  Just to see him this one time has made my journey so worth it.

“Well hello there Daddy” He says with a laugh.

“Hello there yourself!”

Then he says something that takes me back a bit. “I am so glad I found you!”

I am not going to spend my first real conversation arguing with him but I was the one who found him.   I will leave this for a conversation later.  So I simply respond with “Me too buddy…now let’s keep working on the hole and get you out of there.”

Silence.  He just stares at me with a confused look on his face.  Then after a moment his smile returns.  “Oh I am not going out there.”

What the hell does that mean?  Of course he is. He must be in shock.

“Daddy.  You are coming in here.” He said with a whisper.  “This is where I belong.”

“What are you talking about?” My voice now rising with incredulousness. “I have been searching for you to save you from that place!”

What he says next changed my life forever:

“This is not about rescuing me.  It’s about rescuing you.  You are coming here.”

The only word that I muster is a very fractured and broken….

“What?”

Then my son moves out of the hole and I finally see what was on the other side of the wall.  It is bright and colorful.  I see my wife and rest of my family standing a few feet back waving at me.  I can feel the warmth of that land coming through the small tunnel in the wall and splashing across my face. My sons face returns to the opening and his smile is as bright as ever.

His mouth opens and delivers the truth:

“You were the one who was lost.  Not me.”

Silence.

And then all at once we both start digging into the wall. 

I am so glad he found me.