And there was so much to live for

Rain is so very welcome this afternoon. Because it is raining I just “can’t” get in my car to go buy a binder or print out all 50 something reports I’ve been working on for my paper. I mean, driving in this weather? Are you crazy? That’s dangerous. A twig could hit my car…. I “can’t” go wash my hair because I might get struck by lightning or something.  
 

I guess, with it raining and all, I should listen to my Bon Iver playlist, and write something. That’s what the rain wants me to do, and do it I will. 

In all seriousness (maybe, I’ve been in such a childish mood lately), I’ve been reading “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis. He wrote the piece soon after his wife, H.,  passed away.

“They say an unhappy man wants distractions- something to take him out of himself.” 

Rabbit trail: There are a lot of metaphors here…Best of luck to you. 

I took a class almost three years ago that was something like that Robert Frost poem,  

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.” 

I think it started off something like the curiosity of an uncertain and quiet child to take the road less traveled. Being the shy type, it was certainly slow going. I wanted to continue on, but I hesitated often wondering if going back would be better, because the old road was safe and comfortable. Walking down new roads is terrifying: In the movies, they’re misty, and owls do that weird thing with their heads, and dead, brown leaves rustle down abandoned paths.

Choosing a new road, whether I knew it or not, was not simply choosing new things to observe and look at and wonder over, it meant becoming a new person in so many ways.  Maybe, if you take a road that looks nothing like the one you’ve always walked on, you can become a new person altogether. I don’t recommend those roads though; I don’t think becoming a new person all together is ever beneficial.

That’s like reading a book written in parts, and ripping out part I and part II so that the poor reader only has part III to read. What can someone do with only one part of the story, the most recently written part? People, and you, need the whole story, especially if you really want to understand the character change, the plot, the lesson learned, and to gain some understanding of what’s going on. You need many of the old things of who you were to keep you grounded in who you are, or in who you’re becoming.
 

 Leave the embarrassing, mistakes, scary, painful, crazy, and ugly things in the story. They’ll make the beautiful, sweet, kind, redeemed, and wonderful things make more sense, and better. Hold on to the old roads, as you might want to take a long, quiet walk down one of them someday.

Sometimes, I think I set out on a new road because I wanted to be braver, in fact, I know I did. I wanted to be a wild at heart. I wanted to find out if I had wings, and if I did, I wanted to know where they could take me. But being braver means fighting something capable of swallowing you whole or leave you in a heap of ashes. It means finding cold and abandoned stone buildings along the way, and fighting off wolves and dragons, and going without much in between (these descriptors sounds like something from a Disney movie don’t they?). 

It means getting cut and bruised, possibly broken if you fall down some ravine or something that never existed on the older and kinder road. And sometimes, it means getting lost. Really , really lost.

And that brings us back to C.S. Lewis.

He was forced- more than he chose- to go down a new road after the death of H. But, the feelings, the motions, the routines are so much the same. That’s something I’m starting to realize though, that maybe “ lost” is a universally understood word because we do feel it so much the same. I’m also starting to  realize that C.S. Lewis is so much better at articulating how he feels than I am, and he makes feeling something that could be “crazy” completely rational.  

I haven’t finished reading it yet, but as he has already found so much out in what I’ve read, I hope he knows more by the end of his road. I hope he becomes a more complete person with the understanding and wisdom of what it means to be a complete person.  

I have memories that tell good stories; old roads that lead to really wonderful and beautiful places. Sometimes, “memory is hunger” as Hemmingway said, and I so badly want to go back to those places. I’ve held on to those words for a while now because I’ve wanted to go back so many times. 

But, three years ago, I started a new road: A road that, didn’t just already exist, but sometimes, a road that I’ve built with my own hands, and words, and wants, and hope, and heart. A road where I came to those cold, empty buildings but built a fire there, and found warmth there, and despite getting there empty, I left there full.  And I’ve fought dragons and wolves. Several times, I was afraid that I might have been the wolf or the dragon, but stories from old roads reminded me I was not, and I left them where I defeated them to find new ones (I don’t look forward to finding new ones, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess the monster in Scooby Doo, or to know that there are always dragons to fight.)

I got lost a bunch of times. I wandered around out “there” a bunch of times, but that is to be expected. It's not favorable, but it is expected. The heart will always take you home, though. So, I’ve learned it’s important to keep a good home. Maybe that’s Jesus, or a good friend, or the best memory you have, or the best of yourself. For me, home is a lot of those things. Home is where I get to rest, and eat, and be warm, and know things can be better than they are; when you’re tired, and alone, and sleepy, home is going to be your bread and water and pillow. So find a good one.  
 

Sometimes, I don't like the road I'm on, at least, when it gets weird, and I get more in-between the places, and when my feet are really tired. I don't like not sleeping well or being alone or feeling uncomfortbale when those things happen, but I like that I know what it feels like to be brave, and to talk out loud, and to do things i didn't think I could do. I like the feeling of flying and puttind down a dragaon. I like the fact that I’ve gotten so far down it that it feels like I’m building it, or maybe, if God made it for me, I’m constantly re-discovering it. 

Either way, despite all that I know and C.S. Lewis knew about the unhappy man and distractions, and the hard things, and the scary of new roads, I’m realizing, like H. knew when she passed, “And there was so much to live for.”

There’s so much to live for.

But you have to live to know it, and if you want to live, you can't walk the same road over and over again. You'll have to take the road less traveled...because it really does make all the difference, doesn't it?
 

 

And the Sky Never Ends

Allow me to introduce to you about the most wonderful little girl that I have ever met. Her  name is Martha Lee Anne Ryals and I was first introduced to her on February 14, 1988, which was the day she entered this world. She arrived on a Sunday morning around 8:30 a.m. I was the proudest father of a most beautiful little girl. From the very beginning she was a very quiet and shy little girl. 

As she has grown older she has overcome some of her shyness, at least around family members, to the point that she can talk almost constantly about anything. But still, around people she does not know very well she withdraws into that quiet shell that I recognize so well as being my own way. Also, as a small child she was quite content to spend a considerable amount of time alone, maybe shared with a pet. She has, and hopefully will always be, independent in her ability to be content and satisfied with herself not caring what other people are doing or where they are going. Confident that she go her own way not following the crowd and could care less what they think as she heads off in her own direction. This can serve her well in today’s environment of peer pressure to follow the crowd.

Now that she has become a young lady I see more and more of her precious traits. She loves a animals in a special way. I think that she recognizes that unlike human companions, friends from the animal kingdom love unconditionally and will never betray the friendship that is passed along. She is truly a soft and gentle person with never a harsh word to anyone and a willingness to give of herself to any person who desires a friend. There is no pretense, so overblown ego, only the desire to be a true friend. In that she never allows the harshness of the world to influence her in changing this part of her beauty. 

In closing I will allow that I am somewhat biased in my opinions of Martha, but I believe that anyone who allows her in their heart the way I have cannot help but see all the good things that she represents. You cannot be around her and not lover her simply for the way that she is.

 

 

My dad wrote that for me when I was 12 or 13. I found it last night going through some old letters and journals. My eyes watered up reading it, because he knows me, always has, always will. 

Reading it, I hope you don’t think about me, in fact, I hope you can forget me altogether; instead, I want you to see the person who wrote it. Because the person who wrote it knows me, and I think he knows me so very well because we have the same kind of heart. Quiet and still.  

 

 

There are many important people in your life, but even so, so many of those people can’t fully know you, because they can’t understand. To know you requires you to tell them. You have to narrate your life to them so they can attempt to understand it, and even when spoken out loud, some of it gets lost along the way, and it can get tiring. 

But then, there are people who- without words- know your thoughts, nature, heart. You can find rest with them, and just be. My dad is this kind of person to me. I don’t need words to tell him, because he sees me. When I don't notice, when I don't want him to, he sees me. He has always seen me, for who and how I am. And he loves me. 

“I love you bigger than the sky,” daddy would say, “and how big is the sky?”

“This big,” I would say stretching my skinny arms to the point of risking a shoulder dislocation. 

“I love you bigger than the sky,” daddy says. “How big is the sky?” He smiles, his mustache turning up with his lips.

“It never ends,” I say.

 

 

I don’t know when the tradition started. I don’t know how old I was when he first said it, and I first answered. It’s always been there, like the beauty mark on my cheek or like that quiet and shy nature of mine, or his hand in mine on Sunday mornings.  

He loves my quirks, and fears, and joys, and wants, and thoughts. He loves my flaws, mistakes, and short comings. But in the end, what he really loves, what all of that means, is that he loves me.  

He is my dad, and I am his daughter and I don’t think there’s anything I could do or say that would change his love or thoughts of me, even when nicknamed "the litte terrorist."

I could tell you about flying airplanes, waking the railroad track, swerving all over the road in the car, our mutual love of ice cream, the stories, growing tomatoes and roses in the back yard, Wyoming, and how we can both raise an eyebrow, but those are just filler.

 

 

 

 

 What it comes down to is my dad taught me that it’s okay to be human, it’s okay to mess up, it’s okay to be scared and unsure,  it’s okay to not be okay, it's okay to be silly and weird and to keep trying.

It's okay to be martha lee anne.

Some people would call that acceptance, but I’d like to think that my dad taught me about unconditional love, and not a counterfeit version where there are boundaries or lines I can’t cross or things I’m not allowed to say or a person I shouldn’t/can’t be…it’s the pure, unadulterated thing.  

And that’s why our tradition means everything to me. 

So, happy father’s day daddy,

 I love you bigger than the sky, and the sky never ends