Thanksgiving

I want to tell you about a little boy who was born in 1931. He was born to a poor 15 yr old girl who was married to an older man in the rural south. As you might imagine, it was not an easy childhood. Having a young unsure mother and a overbearing mean father along with no money brought feelings of anger out in the little boy often. When that happened his father would beat him. His mother would cry, but there wasn't much she could do.

Finally his father left them, divorced his mother and remarried. This was uncommon in the 40's and humiliated his mother and left the little boy feeling even more feelings of anger and abandonment. The small glow of rage that had been smoldering for many years, began to grow.

Luckily for his mother, she found a sweet man to marry and they began a family. By this time the little boy, growing into a teenager was rebellious and uncontrollable. Feeling it for the best, His mother and stepfather sent him to a boarding school. His mother had 2 more babies. Feeling left out and alone, the boy turned his anger outward. He started fights. He found enjoyed fights. They let a little bit of his rage out.

When he graduated high school he returned home and spent his weekends going to bars, getting drunk and getting into fights. He enjoyed the feeling of rage and anger as he pounded at someone. He enjoyed the taunting, the final insult that led to the fight, but most of all he enjoyed the fight. It didn't take a psychologist to figure out that the fight gave him an outlet for his resentment and rage.

This went on for almost 2 years, until one night everything changed. Sometimes people actually do have one specific moment in their lives when life grabs them and shakes them and nothing is ever the same.

The boy (he was called Sonny) ,was now a man of 19. He was doing his usual drinking in a favorite bar. He started his usual fight with some other redneck over the usual nothing. The fighting began, then Sonny knocked the other man into the bar. As the man fell his head hit the corner of the bar. The man fell to the floor, blood was everywhere. People rushed over. A man knelt down by him and then looked up at Sonny and said "he's dead."

In that moment, Sonny saw what the rest of his life was to be. Prison. He saw the bars and the cot and the cold hard floor. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the frozen fear that washed over him. He wasn't sure how long he stood there with his eyes closed. But someone shook him and he looked up. They said, "He's not dead, just a a bad gash to the back of the head."

Sonny didn't remember the rest of the evening. Back then no one called cops over some honkey tonk fight. He didn't remember getting home. He only remembers laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. He remembers thinking and thinking. He remembers that he understood how close he came to having no life at all. And that is when he made a decision.

He decided that not only was he going to have a life, he was going to have a damn good one.

That week he joined the Army. He made sergeant quickly. He worked hard and was focused. After his stint in the Army. He took his G.I. bill and enrolled in college. He studied hard and graduated. He wanted to go to law school, but he needed to work to save some money. He sold insurance. During this time he met a beautiful young girl, appropriately named Joy. He knew within a week that she was the kind of girl he wanted to love and to be the mother of his much wanted children. A week later they were married. This guy had gotten real good at making decisions by now.

He got into Law School. He worked all day as a security guard at a train station, where he could easily study, and he went to law school at night. He and Joy had 2 sons. He became a lawyer. Then they had a daughter. He had many other successes in his life. But the personal ones are the most significant. He forgave his father and even had a relationship with him. His mother had become widowed at an early age, and he took care of her and became very close to her. He also loved his little brother and sister very much. But even more than all that, he became a remarkable person. He made a lot of money and he gave it to anyone who needed it.

Because of his childhood,he felt little boys needed an outlet for their aggressiveness, so he became a Golden Gloves boxing coach. He sponsored his son's little league teams and any other team that couldn't afford one. He gave money and land to The Boys Club. He headed up fundraisers for the Crippled Childrens charity through his civic clubs. His generosity was unlimited. He was never famous or held high office. But when he died too young, at the age of 53 ,the funeral home did not have enough rooms to hold the flowers, despite his wife asking for donations to other charitable funds. There were 11 police cars and 11 police motorcycles leading the hearst to the cemetery.

He was not perfect. But he was a loving and wonderful husband and father. I know. Because he was my father.

When I was 17 I had a boyfriend who came from a poor family. Keith stole some engine parts from the gas station where he worked to sell for extra money. Instead of forbidding me to ever see him again, Daddy got Keith out of jail. He got the arrest off his record. He managed to find him a scholarship to the local Jr. College and gave him money to get started. I began college farther away and my Daddy waited patiently for the relationship to end, and it did.

What my father taught me most of all is that life is a decision you make. Every day you decide whether you will be happy or not. My dad had nothing but rage fueling him growing up. He could have let that rage ruin it all and he almost did. But that fateful night he decided to turn it all around. He decided to be a wonderful husband, father, friend, and public servant.

He chose love over hate.

He was a senator in the state legislature and then ran for Circuit Clerk of Hinds County. After the first time, no one ever ran against him again. He always ran uncontested. He was asked many times to run for Governor, but I would hear him discussing it with my mom. He didn't like the meanness of politics and he didn't want to spend time away from his kids. So he never did.

He was not a religious man. When we were young he took us to church, but when I was 12 and joined the Baptist church because of the youth group, he and mom stopped going. When I questioned him about it later. He told me, "I am Christian, but I don't like how churches focus on things that I don't see Christ focusing on. When I read the Bible I saw Christ asking us to do 2 things, love God, and help one another. So that is what I did."

My father died before I finished my spiritual journey (which is never finished, I suppose) and I wish that I could have shared with him how fufilling I have found my Church and how much it has taught me about Christ. But I figure, because of the love he gave me, because of the childhood of security and affection that I had, I started from a whole different place than he did. He climbed the mountain from the bottom, digging in and sweating his way up. I was placed gently toward the top. My climb was so much easier by all that he gave me.

He has been gone for 20 years now, but I am still thankful for him. Still thankful that somewhere out there is a man with a big scar on the back of his head. Still thankful for the decision my daddy made all those many years ago.