I’ve been doing some thinking the last few days, thinking
that I suppose will occur this time of year every year. I’m coming up on the
second anniversary of my father’s death, and I never thought the journey over
the last two years would lead me to where I am today. In reflecting on the
things that have occurred in my life during my undergraduate career, I find
myself extremely blessed to have met the wonderful people who helped me tap
into my own potential and realize dreams I never thought possible. I’m blessed
to have gone through the difficulties that I have gone through because my own
past has helped me help others. I will never be able to truly express how
thankful I am to those who helped me make sense of the chaos that is/was my
life over the last few years, but I believe I’ve expressed my thanks enough so
that they know who they are. Out of all the lectures I’ve received, the books I’ve
read, the essay’s I’ve written, and the tests I’ve taken, the most important
lessons of my undergraduate career did not come from a classroom; they came
from the battlefield, the minefield, the place we all find ourselves in at one
time or another in life. For me, that time was during my last year and a half
of college.
I was
blessed in my second semester of college to have a professor who saw something
in me that I didn’t see in myself: potential. The foundation that she created
in me that semester was a stepping-stone to the rest of my college career. I
believe God knows the things that are just around the corner, and I believe He
places people in our lives to prepare us for things to come. You see, for me,
that professor recognized my ability to write. And because of her
encouragement, I began writing outside of school. I sent her never-ending
diatribes on what I was thinking and feeling. I wrote stories about the trauma
I had witnessed, about the things that haunted me. And she read it all. In a
way, she was my diary: words on the page that needed to be read by someone who
had no personal stake in the matter, someone who would just let me talk without
interruption, someone who never ridiculed or questioned how I felt and why I
felt the way I did. I poured my heart out on the page, sometimes not even
understanding what I wrote, just knowing that I felt I had to write it. I had
to write it all. My emotions bombarded me, and she let me write. Slowly, I
began to realize that the writing allowed the wall I had built around myself to
begin crumbling. I started to trust more. I started to love more. I started to
be thankful more. I started to feel blessed more.
I’ll never
understand why she allowed me to write the things I did, what it was about her
that made me trust her the moment she read my first draft, what it was that
made me feel like I’d known her my whole life and could tell her anything and
not fear rejection the way I had most of my life. The only thing I know is that
she had such a positive influence on my life that I began to see the beauty
within myself. She laughs when I thank her for saving my life, as if what she
did was just her job. But she did save my life. She saved me from myself. The
writing helped me deal with things: it helped me see my past through different
lenses; it helped me decipher the coded images in my brain. The writing made me
pliable for what was to come, a future that only God knew was in store.
I once read
an interview by Vietnam Veteran poet Yusef Komunyakaa. In the interview, he
stated that writing was not a means to escape his past; it was a way in which
he could confront his past so that he could remain a peaceful person. When I
read that, I knew he was right because I, too, had felt the same way. Writing
saved me from the person I used to be. It kept me from turning back to the
bottle as way to drown out my past, the memories that haunted me.
When my
father died, it was my writing and the way it had changed that made my
professor realize something was wrong. It was my writing that worried her. It
was my writing that caused her to plead with me to seek counseling. The thing
of it is, if we would have never forged the relationship we had the prior year,
she probably wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong, just like everyone else.
She knew me, but that was only because I allowed her to do so, because I
trusted her, because I respected her, because I loved her. And regardless as to
how uncomfortable that may make her, I’m so thankful and blessed to feel the
way I do.
When I
finally sought counseling, it was only because I trusted and respected her
enough to take her advice. If someone else would have suggested it, I don’t
think I would have been receptive. My plan was to go once and that was it.
Almost two years later, I’ve formed a tight bond with my counselor that will
never be broken either. I had never really had counseling for everything I had
been through, for the trauma I suffered as a child and while in the military.
My counseling was in the bottle, in a new assignment, a deployment. Each
assignment, each deployment, and each drink were ways for me to run from my
past, ways for me to reinvent myself. On my first counseling session, I told
my counselor how I run when things get difficult, but I promised her, for the
first time in my life, I wasn’t going to run. And I didn’t. I told her things I
had never even admitted to myself, things I tried to bury so deep so that they
wouldn’t affect my future, things I was ashamed of, things most people will
NEVER know.
I realize
that I could have never told her any of that without the writing. Writing had
become such an influence in my life that I was beginning to write non-stop. Writing
it made it easier to say aloud. And when I couldn’t tell her how I felt or what
her question triggered, I wrote it to her. At times, I avoided answering
certain questions because I really needed to think about my response. And, when
I had thought about it, I wrote to tell her my answer. And we would pick up from
there the next week. I don’t think I would have accomplished the amount that I
accomplished in counseling had I only had the hourly plus session each week. I
don’t think I would have progressed the way I did.
As I
learned to cope with the notion that I would never really know who my father
was, why it seemed he didn’t love me enough to understand who I was, and why
his drinking was a problem for me and our relationship, I began to realize that
the more I tried to understand those things, the more upset I became. I began
to realize that dead men don’t talk, and I would never really know the truth
about many things. The only truth’s I know for sure are this: even though he
never really showed it, I think he loved me and was sorry for it all. The look
on his face on his deathbed told me so. The other truth that I know is that I
know more about him in death than I ever knew about him in life, all of which I
found out about him eleven months after he died when family I had never met or
knew anything about finally found me. Understanding the boy he was helped me
understand the man and father he became. That understanding helped me find some
closure to that chapter of my life; however, there is a part of me that wishes
he was here to tell me those things himself, to answer the questions he would
never answer, to love me for a lifetime the way he did in that moment on his
deathbed.
You may be
asking yourself, what does any of this have to do with lessons I’ve learned.
Well, here they are. During everything that was going on, I found myself
struggling with keeping up with school and regular church attendance. But God,
He is ever faithful, even when we falter. He blessed me with three amazing, Christian
women during that time. And from them, I learned some valuable things. First, I
learned that I’m worthy. So many times in life I’ve been so far down in the
gutter that I’ve not felt worthy of anything. Even now, every time I start to
question myself, I hear the small, shy voice of my professor saying, “You’re
worthy. You’re worth it.” She’ll never know just how important that was in
building my self-esteem, in helping me understand my true value despite what
others believe. Secondly, I’ve learned that in order to function, sometimes we
have to shift the feelings of the heart to the thoughts of the mind. Once we
take emotion out of the equation, we are able to think rationally about a
situation before shifting it back to the emotional side of things. Our emotions
typically cause us to make rash decisions or say and do stupid things that we
can’t take back. Lastly, there is nothing that I went through or will go
through that God does not already know the outcome. Even when I feel like the
world is crashing in on me, when I’m smothered by the naysayers, when I feel
like I’m at the end of my rope, I can always ask God for a bigger knot to hold
onto, and He will provide.
I’m
so thankful to God for the blessings He placed in my life during that time of
my life. I don’t think I’d be where I am today, about to attend Graduate School
at a school I never thought I had a chance to get into, with a Graduate
Assistant position that pays my tuition and then some. Graduate school starts tomorrow,
and I’m a bit nervous about that. It's funny how I used to crave change, how I used to try to
reinvent myself for each assignment or deployment, trying to run from the
demons that inevitably followed me. For the first time in my life, I don't want
to reinvent myself. I don't want to be someone different. I suppose that is
because I'm finally happy with my life and who I am. Granted, my life is by no
means perfect, but, for the first time, my life at LSUA allowed me the
opportunity to be surrounded by so many positive people. I felt like I found a
place where I fit without trying. It just was. And now, I have to find that
balance all over again. Whereas I used to crave change, I'm not looking forward
to that change. A part of me is nervous about not having these
women in my life to guide me. But, at the same time, I realize the memories and
lessons they taught me will always be a part of who I am so long as I never
forget. And even now, hundreds of miles apart, I know I’ll cherish these
lessons for a lifetime. As a child, I always wondered where God was when
everything bad touched my life. Looking back, I now understand He was with me
every step of the way, and it is because of Him and the people He has placed in
my life that I am right where I’m supposed to be.
