A Defining Moment

An unforgettable moment…

Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey

Flannery O’Connor once wrote of writers that anyone who has survived their childhood has enough material to last a lifetime. I am not sure, but I think Flannery might have agreed that childhood ends at thirteen when adolescence begins. As you will note, I survived.

The tension started early for me. Harold, my father, was not very fond of his first born son (me) almost from the moment of birth. I guess his problem with me started with his over-sensitivity to plucked chickens. He never ate poultry. I suppose he saw my fresh, infant physique in the hospital as something akin to a plucked chicken, a foul fowl.

As a result of his poultry derision, his entrée each Thanksgiving was meatloaf. He saw my younger, favored brother as similar to his Thanksgiving meatloaf.

From about the age of four through twelve, I ingested each dinner as though it was my…

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Loss

“When somebody you love dies,” Mark Twain said, “it is like when your house burns down; it isn’t for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.”

To me, my mother was the most loving human whoever crossed my path. In November of 2006 she died with Alzheimer’s.

There are times I tear up thinking about her. Fifteen years later, it hurts just as much as it did the day we all “said goodbye.”

Let me repeat goodbye as it was spoken in older English. Mom, God be with ye.