Paradox

My unease rose steadily with each word read. The little old church ladies of my youth never once shared this information with us in any conservative Sunday School curriculum, or at least none that I could recall. This was a Christian university, was it not? Here I was, a freshman, barely a week or two immersed in the college experience, absorbing from the Old Testament survey textbook the erudite, and seemingly apostate, opinions of a Ph.D. from the rarefied world of Biblical scholarship. It was a new, foreign experience for me, and I uncomfortably felt my faith unmooring.

The space devoted to the argument, laced with meticulous logic, filled barely a page, as if to suggest it required little defense. The plagues of Egypt, he implied, could, in fact, be explained through the lens of naturalism when considering phenomena known to have existed in that region of the globe and at that period in history. With that, he sequenced one cataclysmic event after another, detailing the manner in which each created the natural, physical conditions for all those following that befell the unfortunate citizenry under Pharaoh’s rule. Not once were the terms “God” or “miracle” interspersed within the paragraphs, as I would have expected. It was, admittedly, convincing, and I was dumbstruck. I had run headlong into my first, genuine intellectual challenge to my faith, and I knew not how to respond.

It wouldn’t be the last time I encountered what felt like a rebuke of my beliefs, but I learned, over time, to appreciate such challenges. The value of being raised in a Christian home cannot be overstated, in my opinion, but there comes a time when we can no longer lean upon our parents’ faith. We each have to take a good, honest look at our foundation, which is often revealed, soon after we escape the nest to meet the world face-to-face, to consist not of our own experiences and personal convictions but of those who have lovingly expended the painstaking effort and time to influence us day after day.

As for the successive natural catastrophes that were the bane of the Egyptians’ existence, I began learning to trust a little more, though not exclusively, in the grey-matter God provided me and allowed him to help me begin reasoning my way from solely “either/or” kinds of thinking to “both/and.” Each type of philosophical framework has its place in the proper context, and in this case, I arrived at an acceptable paradox, of sorts. So, what if there were a natural cause and effect relationship between one plague and the next? Does this necessarily preclude God’s involvement or the interpretation provided therein, the author’s exclusion of him from his version notwithstanding? Do you believe God created the natural world and, as such, its natural laws? If so, how could he not be credited with involvement, and, hence, the meaning behind such events? As such, I found my way through, not around, this crisis of belief, able to accept the seeming paradox of both the natural and supernatural perspectives.

Merriam-Webster defines “paradox” as “something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible.” I have found myself recently returning to this word and concept, though I long ago left my cherished college years and the thoughtful debates there encouraged. A couple of eventful decades down the road, I find myself now in middle-age and neck-deep in the travails of parenting — adoptive parenting, to be more precise. And while it is in many ways no different from parenting biological children, there are ways in which it is not. Distinguishing the differences can be difficult if you have not had the experience of both.

Nevertheless, this word — paradox —came to mind of late. More about that later.

Adoptive parents tend to flinch at the question from well-meaning folks when asked, “Do you have any kids of your own?” The children we have taken in, we know, are our own kids, and they always will be. What they mean to say, we understand, is, “Do you have any biological children?” We will usually forgive the unintended offense and may offer a gentle correction. Regardless, I have grown to recognize that there exist differences between the two experiences of parenting, especially from those who have accepted the daunting task of attempting both. Without fail, they share that it is not the same, regardless of how young your children were when brought into their “forever home,” as it’s termed, or how similar their upbringing. The difficulties of either experience are hardly identical across the board. This is ever true for children adopted later than the newborn stage and who had their own, often troubling, history prior to inclusion into the family.

Our kids will always be our kids. There was a time, however, when they were not. Their experiences are something my wife and I will never be able to fully-comprehend; the best we can ever offer for those years we were absent from their lives is the sincerest empathy from hearts bent towards a God who spiritually adopted each of us, as we read, through the work of Christ. Those experiences will, nonetheless, always be a part of them, and remind us at certain times that, as much as they belong to us, there are pieces of them that we will never be able to share with them. As unfortunate as their past may be, it still may feel to them like an irretrievable loss. The adopted child, consequently, may often live with the paradox of wanting both you while at the same time longing for something they have left behind.

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I had, at this point, wished to share an extensive narrative of the known, documented details of their lives before they entered our home, specifically from the perspective of our oldest, but discretion counseled otherwise. This remains their personal history, and this outlet here is, for all intents and purposes, public. My own intent was to convey through this narrative the enormous challenge it is to begin parenting in a foster child’s later life, due in no small part to the many disruptions they tragically endure before they (hopefully) land with a home and with parents who will love them as they should have been from the start.

Maybe someday I will share it, when the kids feel more comfortable with it. There is much of their early history that we have only read about in redacted files and reports. What their lives were before is scarcely ever shared by them in acute detail. Innocent bits and pieces appear occasionally: reminders of pets from their past, a random trip in the car with birth mom and siblings, etc. The grittier memories, however, are almost never revealed. I have expressed to my wife that I hope one day, when they are able to perceive themselves from an adult point-of-view, that they will be able to discuss with us their early experiences, including adoption, openly and freely. Even though we have become a part of their lives, even though we were once children ourselves, we will never be able to fully appreciate or comprehend what they experienced during the same formative years. Although they found themselves ultimately placed with willing, loving parents, time lost will never allow them to know what it is like to be nurtured consistently from conception on and find soothing assurance in the safety of a single set of caregivers.

Instead, I would say, imagine every way in which you nurtured your child until the age of, say, 7 or 8. Your connection with them began, I would argue, from the moment of conception, not when they exited the womb. You spoke to them, and they learned, even then, to identify the gentle timbre of your voice. You were conscientious about your diet, careful not to ingest anything that could harm the development of your child. After birth, you held them frequently; your touch regulated their vitals and fostered their physical development. You were responsive to their fundamental needs of eating, sleeping, changing — simply connecting. They further identified with and were responsive to your face, your voice, your presence, as they grew. They were safe with you and in their home. The stress they dealt with was minimal.

They grew older and matured with you by their side. They learned to talk, to read, to tie their shoes, ride a bike. They developed relationships with grandma, grandpa, cousins, uncles and aunts. They learned to socialize, share, play with siblings. They started school, made friends, learned about the world. You completed homework together, encouraged their progress, celebrated their successes.

Through all of this, the one constant was you — their parents. You had been with them before they even had the capacity to remember. Your loving and calming presence alone settled them, helped them learn to manage their emotions. They develop trust. Home is less a place than persons, though they may perceive it as a place. You are there, and you always have been. This is enough.

Now, the adopted child’s experience.

First, remove the constant, loving caregiver, who would not enter your life until later, if at all. Prior to this, you may have remembered your parents, but instead there are others, maybe many others, during that span who have acted in that role. You are moved more frequently than you’d like. Some caregivers were kind, some were not. It became difficult to trust adults. You still learned to ride a bike, tie your shoes, etc. You still went to school. But the nurturing, consistent presence of a true parent through all of this was conspicuously absent. Home was neither a place nor a person, at least not for long, if at all. You bounced around from one place to the next, and the rules and expectations changed practically every time. If you had siblings — your only other hope of connection to home — they may or may not have remained with you wherever and with whomever you ended up. It’s as if you entered the world on your own a decade too early, unprepared and afraid. You’re in control of nothing.

If or when you finally did land in a “forever home,” as they referred to it, there may have been relief, maybe happiness, but it was difficult at times to believe it. You don’t know who these grown-ups are and never have known them, though they seem kind and loving. The social worker dropped you off, once again, except now there is the expectation to become a family. How you do that is anybody’s guess. The grown-ups that you’re now meant to call “mom” and “dad” seem just as unsure about their role, though they try not to show it. Though this feels different, better, in a way, it also feels just as unsettling as any other placement you’ve experienced so far. There are new rules, new relationships, new expectations. The stress of it, though this is supposed to be the best thing you could have hoped for, is too much sometimes. You may act out, not fully understanding why. You want love, and here it is offered, but you may also feel compelled to recoil from it. You’re in a good place, but this is hard. It’s a fresh start, but the pain of the past arrived along with you.

Now, to put this into perspective, imagine for a moment that this was the experience of your child. Knowing what you know about who they are, how your relationship has shaped them, how you have nurtured them — imagine how such an experience would have had an effect on them.

Take a moment.

In the HBO documentary “Foster,” social worker and foster parent Earcylene Beavers accurately expresses how such a change affects a child, regardless of the circumstances surrounding removal from their home: “Once a kid is taken from their parent, if they didn’t have an issue before, they got one now.”

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They arrived at our doorstep mid-April. Our oldest, 8 years, and one of her younger brothers, 2 years, entered our previously childless home as the social worker covered a few formalities and then made her exit. And that was it. There we were, just the four of us, nervously but expectantly eyeing one another, wondering what happens next, faced with the seemingly simple yet daunting task of becoming a family.

My wife decides we should make a meal together, and spaghetti is about as easy as it gets. While she and our oldest head to the store for the ingredients, I lie on the floor and push a toy school bus back and forth with our youngest. This would be our first bonding moment, and he appears, in spite of his subtle trepidation, to be happy for the interaction. I’m as much a nervous wreck as a parent bringing home a newborn from the hospital.

On their way to the store, my wife and our oldest make conversation. She risks the question and cuts straight to the chase:

“Can I call you ‘mom’?”

And just like that, we became parents. One of their sisters would join us several months later, unbeknownst to us at the time. If life hadn’t changed significantly enough for us with two, it would, most undoubtedly, with a third.

I have no idea what it is like to parent biological children, and it’s likely I never will. It’s just as well. My wife and I tend to believe that the manner in which we pursued a family was destined, perhaps a calling, though, for my part, I frequently sense I’m falling short of the mark as a father. Adoptive parenting is, first and foremost, we have learned, about establishing and nurturing a connection, something that is commonly taken for granted with one’s biological children.

The adoptive parent, by contrast, often must live with the disparity of children who both want your love at the same time they may feel and act upon the impulse to push you away. Their early history and your absence from it will never change. This reality and the way in which it manifests itself in the home can feel as if they are both with you and without you, no matter how much love you share. It is parenting with a kind of paradox, though in hope and prayerful expectation that there will come a day when there are no conflicting realities, that there is only you and the unbreakable connection with your children, forged through years of struggle and patient healing from their past.

Adoptive parenting is hard and heartbreaking. When we share our struggles with a fellow parent and hear the words, “I understand,” it can, admittedly, be difficult to believe, though spoken with the best of intentions. A recent post I read along these lines recommended instead the response, “How can I help?” Many of us would welcome such help, even if only a sincere prayer.

Of course, it is not all struggle. There are plenty of unique rewards and pleasures, as there are for parenting in general. One of our favorite pictures was taken on the very day I mentioned. Upon returning from the store, mom and our oldest got to work together on dinner. I took the opportunity to freeze the moment and have never regretted it. Written on her face is pure delight about where she is, what she is doing, and with whom.

She is, in the photo, at long last, home. These created, captured moments we cherish, where no paradox exists.

Gifted Time

Thick enough to choke a horse by the time it was finally retired in 1993, it had been in print for a century until the internet began to emerge and supplant it. It contained within its innumerable full-color pages practically all of the wants or needs of any American consumer — aside from perishables, that is — and bore enough heft to register on a common bathroom scale. It was my childhood’s Amazon.com, and you didn’t need an electronic device to access its content. When neither stored away nor browsed, its “literal” physical depth allowed it to function as an effective booster seat for a toddler at the dinner table. That being said, my generation should be the last to retain any memory of handling the massive, unwieldy paperbound object known as the general Sears catalog.

Each fall, my siblings and I would haul this beast out of our grandparents’ hall closet in anticipation of Christmas and thumb eagerly through its exhaustive, static, two-dimensional display of wares to assemble our wish lists. For obvious reasons, the pages of the toy section near the back-half received the most copious attention from the three of us. The latest and greatest Star Wars or G.I. Joe playthings, for my part, made the top of my lists nearly every year during the unforgettable decade that was the 80s until I moved on to other, more mature interests. As my childhood faded from view, so did the Sears catalog from the marketplace.

Kids live for Christmas, regardless of the tools they employ to detail their desires as scrupulously as a corporate accountant. My siblings and I were no exception. Even when Santa was ultimately revealed as merely a jolly illusion, I found renewed meaning in my parents’ offer to assist in the secret Christmas morning facade of a visit from St. Nick for my younger sister’s and brother’s benefit. On these occasions, I was permitted to stay up later, given my help assembling gifts dubiously procured from Santa’s sleigh before placing them carefully next to the tree for discovery the following morning.

As a professional adult with a disposable income, I exchanged preferences and found greater delight in giving over receiving. For a spell, I had a knack for pinning down just the right item for certain family members or friends, often nothing that was pointedly requested, making the pleasure of the surprise all the more meaningful. Such gifts are unmatched in my opinion, for they have less to say about the thing itself and more about the poignant satisfaction of being understood by another so well that words stating wishes are wholly unnecessary — I know who you are, and here’s an object to prove it.

My wife did not long have an opportunity to make the acquaintance of this version of myself, however. I don’t know when the change occurred for me, but change it did. She is much more familiar with a husband who requires a detailed list of wants for her and for others each year the season returns and who, conversely, as she observed plainly early into our marriage, “doesn’t like things.” While I wouldn’t put it that way, it is true I have been known to struggle to compose a wish list. This past Christmas, for instance, I admit for the first time in memory I lacked the wherewithal to submit even a vacant sheet of paper with my name alone at the top. There simply wasn’t anything I wanted. Not to worry, though. My wife completed my homework in my stead. She can’t bear exclusion and would make certain the tree would shelter packages for me another year.

I’m not sure it’s possible for any of us to imagine Christmas without gifts; they seem one and the same, each inseparably linked to the other. I know this to be so for our own children, as I’ve observed the last five years with them. In spite of having begun the first few years of their lives in difficult places, mention of the season almost immediately inspires composition of their wish lists, which are hardly modest, as I might have expected, and are just as lengthy and comprehensive as any given kid’s. A glance back toward relatively recent history, however, as I’ve discovered, reveals portions of this tradition were grafted in, at least in America.

It bears no mention that gift giving is a longstanding, historical human practice across all cultures and timeframes. Its association with Christmas here in America, however, notably with children, has its own unique flavor. In a 2015 article in The Atlantic titled “Why Children Get Gifts on Christmas,” Paul Ringel attempts to answer the question, noting that “no broad historical precedent exists for the link” between the Christian faith and Christmas gifts, in spite of occasional references, as I grew up hearing, to the wise men’s offerings to Christ at his birth.

“The practice of buying Christmas gifts for children,” Ringel writes, “began during the first half of the 1800s, particularly in New York City, and was part of a broader transformation of Christmas from a time of public revelry into a home- and child-centered holiday.” Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” also known as “The Night Before Christmas,” was one of several tools utilized at this time by wealthy movers and shakers to migrate the season into the home and out of the streets. This poem was also among the first to promote the idea of Santa visiting the homes of children to distribute gifts under cover of wintery darkness and dream-filled slumber.

I acknowledge I could slothfully allow Ringel to expand my word-count and permit him instead to fill this space, though properly attributed. I’ll leave it to you, however, to determine whether or not to allow him the time to explain fully the finer points; his piece is easy enough to locate. Suffice it to say that Santa’s busy Christmas Eve distribution and the fact of kids as focal recipients of gifts here in the U.S.A. is a tradition that had a beginning not necessarily linked to the “reason for the season,” if you will. It is simply a tradition, nothing more, nothing less — a national, not religious one, it would seem, with curiously few, if any, authentic roots in the Christian faith.

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“I don’t want us to exchange gifts this year.”

My mother voiced it as a request rather than a demand of my brother, sister, and me a few months prior to our plan to meet at my sister’s in San Antonio for Christmas.

“I want us all just to get together and enjoy each other’s time.”

Mom had never heard of Paul Ringel and was likely unfamiliar with his article in The Atlantic. Nonetheless, it would be a first for us. In our adulthood, the gifting portion of my family’s Christmases had always been modest by comparison, but this year, we agreed the kids would have received a wealth of presents from exchanges previous to our gathering post-Christmas Day. So, we went giftless.

In the spirit of glancing backward at “where it all began,” a look back at our own personal family history might suggest this day was destined to arrive. As I’ve mentioned before, nearly 30 years ago, our family left the shores of America for the newly-rebirthed, post-Soviet era land of Ukraine to engage in faith-based humanitarian efforts with the people of Lugansk. As with a newborn, the country found itself in many ways helpless and in need of assistance simply to survive, having recently dissolved its ties with the former U.S.S.R.

Our time there was as much about scarcity as anything. While we wanted for nothing, we lived in many ways like the people, and we learned to live as well without complaint. We stood patiently in the same lines for bread and milk, walked or rode uncomfortably in crammed public trams, and lived as a family of five in spaces smaller than many ample single-person dwellings here in the States. You learn contentment, largely due to the fact that the others around you live in much the same manner.

The following year, we were provided a ticket home to furlough for a couple of months. I remember it well since our stay was marked by both the beginning and ending of the fateful and tragic Branch Davidian standoff in Waco. While the round-the-clock coverage kept us riveted to the TV, we found time to reconnect with family and friends, share our experiences, and enjoy a few lost pleasures on home soil. One afternoon in particular still stands out to us all.

Prior to leaving the States, we would occasionally make the drive on a Saturday from our home in Texas City to the Baybrook Mall to shop and stroll. It felt like a trip to Houston proper to a kid like me, though it remains today, as then, on the southeastern outskirts of the big city. Arriving for the better part of the day, mom and dad, without fail, somehow managed each and every visit to select, by chance, the one entrance of a chosen department store designated to warmly welcome us as a family with embarrassingly sultry displays of lingerie and underwear. Making safe passage past the undergarment gauntlet, we ventured into the mall for the day. Requisite apparel purchases aside, my favorite memories revolve around B. Dalton’s or Waldenbooks — neither of which exist any longer as shopping mall staples but nevertheless were all but assured that our parents would allow us to acquire from their modest shelves (by today’s standards) our latest literary interest, be it Garfield or Choose Your Own Adventure. Hours later, threads, books, and last-minute sweet treats in hand, we would pile into the van and head happily for home.

Fast forward to early spring, 1993, on furlough. Whether or not we entered through the same doors showcasing unmentionables, I couldn’t say. What we do recall is feeling unexpectedly and profoundly overwhelmed. Walking past one display window after another, we felt suddenly alienated, out of place, among the mass of fellow shoppers and surplus inventory. There were no lines in which to wait for essentials, no miles of walking in the cold, open air in hopes of purchasing fresh meat, bread, or milk. The meaning of “shopping” had been transformed for us. We felt neither better nor worse than those around us taking advantage of sale prices. We simply felt different, changed. Our values had imperceptibly shifted over the past year, and things no longer would mean what they once did.

Making a single revolution inside the mall, we spent no more than time, and this less than an hour. Pausing, we looked understandingly at one another, and left with nothing.

We would return to Ukraine not long after, feeling a little more at home there than the previous year, when we first arrived. Our stay would not last more than a couple months, however, due to a medical emergency, which is a story for another time. We all sensed, nonetheless, that something inside each of us had shifted due to the experience, many things, in fact, but notably our perception of needs and wants, what it was possible to live contentedly with or without. Re-immersing ourselves in the American way of life, we lost over time a little of the impression we felt that brief hour in the mall that day, but certainly not all of it. I have no doubt a residual shred of that impression prompted my mother to offer her request for our family’s Christmas gathering nearly 30 years later.

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We arrived in San Antonio dressed for summer in late December. The weather was uncharacteristically warm, but, then again, this is Texas. “If you don’t like the weather,” they say about a state bred for overexaggeration, “just wait a few minutes.” It should have felt odd carrying not a single wrapped package into my sister’s home, but, strangely, it didn’t. For a day-and-a-half, we ate together, played together, talked, shared, and reminisced. No gifts were opened or offered, and no one was the worse for it.

Like so many other siblings, adulthood has, regretfully, splintered my brother, sister, and I through physical distance and personal obligations for many years now. While I am by no means advocating for giftless family gatherings at Christmas, ours was exactly what we needed and wanted it to be, the “reason for the season” every bit as present with us as with other families of faith. We are rarely afforded the pleasure of each other’s company any longer and recognized that most precious and fleeting of gifts — time — is the best of anything we could offer one another. No need to spend money on an item destined to be forgotten on a dusty shelf or dark closet.

Prior to leaving, albeit reluctantly, my sister-in-law offered to capture a rare photo of the three of us together once more. The last time a camera caught us assembled was nearly two years previous, so we needed no persuading. Opening the photo forwarded to each of us, I glanced at it and realized — I had received this year many incredibly thoughtful gifts, all of which I appreciate. This simple, easy picture, however, I found myself valuing more than anything else I had received. It was, in essence, the final gift for an eventful year, our posture and posing signifying that at the end of it all, here we are, still standing, still smiling, and memorializing our connection, which is infinitely more important than circumstances or stuff.

While a picture may indeed be worth a thousand words, not all pictures are identical in worth. The heaviest of catalogs, filled merely with pictures of things, scarcely register on the scale against the ponderous value of a single photo reminding us who, not what, is most important. I hope that my own children will find reason to cherish a similar perspective 30 years from now, however technology allows them to preserve their moment. Only time, the most precious of commodities, will tell.

Chapter 2: Dalhart

Carving broad lines into the dirt, he circled the tractor at the edge of the field his father farmed as a hired hand, straightened it out, and started anew. Plowing one endless furrow after another, Joel stole a longing glance at the cars speeding past on the adjacent road, each headed anywhere but here. Family duty held him firmly in the driver’s seat of the tractor’s cabin, though he would gladly relinquish it for a ride in the backseat of even the slowest vehicle escaping this dry and dusty patch of land outside of Dalhart. While he would later appreciate the work ethic instilled in him by his father, who expected him and his brothers to do their part by participating in the family trade as long as they remained under his roof, he derived no pleasure in farming and anticipated after graduation a life outside of such a town that offered few, if any, other means of making a living, even to this day.

Granted, there was nothing to discredit the modest, deliberately-paced community of Dalhart, so named for its establishment between Dallam and Hartley counties in the Texas Panhandle. Then again, there was nothing much to its credit either, in Joel’s opinion. Living in a small agrarian town suited men like his father, who had spent his entire life there, was devoted to his trade, and knew as much about the world outside of it as he wanted to and nothing more. In a way, Dalhart was a refuge from the busy, chaotic world beyond beyond its borders. Even my grandfather’s television, a veritable window in one’s living room opened to the wider world, was, as I recall in his later years, rarely tuned to anything other than golf or the weather; there was little else that captured or required his attention, and this by choice. I once asked him if he had ever considered living anywhere else, myself having recently arrived for a visit from the sprawling, noisy metropolis of Houston. “What?!” he exclaimed. “You’d have to be crazy to want to leave this place!”

My father shared no such sentiment, a fact that did not evade the attention of his own father. It isn’t a stretch to say that the numerous years David Johnson had spent working the land as a matter of necessity had become stitched inseparably into his very identity. To have a son who did not find equal meaning in this respectable form of labor was to suffer a personal affront. He was not an emotionally demonstrative man, however, though his departure from his childhood home as a teenager was contentious, to say the least. He made a rebellious escape of his own from a father with whom he didn’t see eye to eye and never once looked back in regret. Exiting the dust-bowl era, he found a way to make life work for him in spite of an unfinished formal education, eloping with his teenage bride, Zola Faye McBrayer, and focusing his life’s labor on tending the land. Five kids were to follow, Joel the fourth in line, preceded by Peggy, Nancy, and Steve, and trailed by Don.

Zola Faye’s fourth was an unplanned pregnancy. To make matters worse, conception was discovered following a procedure his mother had undergone known obstetrically as a “D and C,” which involves clearing tissue from the uterine lining. No viable pregnancy is biologically equipped to withstand such a procedure under the best of circumstances. Upon learning of the mistake, the doctor counseled abortion, convinced the fetus either would not survive or would be born unhealthy or severely disabled. Zola Faye refused. Defying the odds, the baby would be born to term, alive and healthy. She would give him the prophetic Biblical name “Joel,” meaning declaratively “Yahweh (the Lord) is God.” The improbable birth would be documented in medical literature. I would first hear this story many years later in a sermon delivered by my father, who shared of his mother’s conviction that it presaged a life determined for a special purpose or moment.

Whatever that purpose might be, this story would lend Joel a profound sense of God having miraculously intervened in his life long before he possessed a formed mind to perceive it. The words of Psalm 139 might as well had been penned by him, who, incidentally, was given the middle name “David” by his mother and father.

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Central to this sense of meaning and purpose was the church, and for the Johnson household, attendance was routine and expected for all in the family. His father, David, arrived early every Sunday to open the doors of the First Baptist Church of Dalhart, his deaconly duties extending only insofar as gatekeeper and collector, namely offertory contributions and attendance numbers in Sunday School classes. Aside from this, he characteristically could be relied upon to shutter his eyes during the service not in meditation or prayer but in slumber. Yes, the pastoral message was important; he diligently brought his family each week, after all. It seems, however, he was simply a man who was at his best and most alert when moving, and a sermon afforded little opportunity for that. Zola Faye, by contrast, kept conscious and active attention, teaching the young married’s class, singing in the choir, and occasionally serving as pianist and, for several years, church secretary. As for Joel and his brothers and sisters, they were present and accounted for given the doors were open — Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors, childrens and youth choir, Sunday evening church training, vacation Bible school, etc. Religious or not, one’s best social opportunities in a small town at that time were often provided by an engaged church, and the Johnsons’ extracurricular activities would imply it was practically a second home for them.

Growing up, Joel’s interests inclined toward literature. His oldest sibling, Peggy, unwittingly practicing for her eventual career in education, taught him to read before he ever set foot in a classroom. Once children’s stories were covered, he moved on to the family encyclopedia, an educational staple of many mid-20th century American homes. Further along than most by the time first grade began, he and another student were permitted in their reading class to occupy a corner of the classroom and lose themselves in any available story that seized their interest. He acquired a library card at the earliest opportunity and pored over every book on the shelves detailing the history of World War II and the Civil War. The daring adventures penned by Alistair MacLean were his favorite. When these were exhausted or unavailable, Readers Digest bound and abridged novels that amply lined his mother’s shelves would do. To this day, my father’s preferred posture is seated comfortably in a recliner with an open book. Conscious of it or not, he was building habits and forming values that would extend to his own children years later. My own career choice of librarianship undoubtedly began its formation during those early reading lessons decades ago between my aunt and father. For those of us led to believe we are the masters of our own fate, I would argue that nurture and influence stretch much further back into our familial past than we might imagine.

At 15, a friend loaned him “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. “It’s a dangerous business,” Tolkien writes, “going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Joel would spend hours discussing the volumes with his friend, enthralled not only at the exploits of the nine but, more importantly, moved by the spiritual themes undergirding the patient, expansive story, which, like many others he read, depicted places, real or imagined, dissimilar to the one he inhabited, fueling a desire to tread his own path into the unexplored world once given the opportunity. Something greater and deeper than the adventures he had read about continued to stir within, inspiring him soon to begin taking his first steps into a vocational life of faith.

Whether it was the stress of this call that weighed upon him or simple adolescent immaturity, Joel found himself during his senior year succumbing for a season, due to the influence of friends, to more than a passing interest in alcohol, a developing habit that he managed to conceal from his abstinent parents. Late in the academic year, he would pass evenings several times a week with friends overindulging. He didn’t relish the taste, but it did the job and did it well. Certain evenings passed out of memory entirely; the manner in which he made it home on these occasions were left a mystery.

There are few times in life that bear stronger potential to form both our best and worst habits than adolescence, and at his rate, alcoholism could thereafter have grasped and held him captive with relative ease if left unchecked. Had it succeeded, the story told here would read differently or, perhaps, not be read at all. To our great fortune, however, resourcefulness is one of God’s most enduring though often overlooked qualities. Every tool is at his disposal to shape our circumstances and character as he sees fit. He would recognize in due time what awaited him without an adjustment and would, thankfully, quit cold turkey. He would never touch another drop. The lessons learned would be put to good use, as they should for any seasoned minister. There is no shame in possessing a past, especially if it offers a personal education on the meaning of grace. And who better to comprehend and appreciate the lessons of one’s past in humility than those committed to professional ministry in the service of others, each with their own pasts? Christ saves us all from something.

Joel had spent abundant time pondering these and other spiritual matters for much of his brief life thus far, which led him eventually to consider whether it hinted at a call to a career focused wholly on God’s work. But to what, exactly? The works of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, do not always describe the “call” of God in precisely the way many of us understand it today. Then, the Levites fulfilled the “professional” function, but primarily due to bloodline; it was a “default calling,” if you will. Many of those “called” who we read about were tasked with a very specific job in mind that did not necessarily carry a socially- or culturally-defined title that limited their role and responsibilities: be fruitful, build an ark, father a nation, lead my people, conquer, save my people, be anointed as king, rebuild the city, etc. All were called of God, but to an ordained task, not a defined title. I have met those who pursued a call in seminary who did not belong there, and I have known instructors who shared that observation. While there is no clear fault in following a call in the best way we know with the information we have, it’s wise to consider that we may limit God to think he can work with us only within the confines of professional ministry, though it most certainly has its place.

As best as Joel could surmise, just as many others do, his call should be pursued as a leader and shepherd of a congregation much like the one of which he’d long been a part, so he duly set out to obey prayerfully in the best way he saw fit. Consulting with his church’s pastor as well as select deacons in the body, he was approved and officially licensed into ministry. The duration of his first sermon barely gave listeners time enough to warm their seats after only seven minutes in the pulpit, but the brevity was no discouragement to him. Joel would continue in that direction.

At long last, graduation arrived. He summarily struck out on the road leading from town, blazing past furrowed fields over which he’d once driven. From here, there would be no stolen glances toward the tractors carving the dirt hours on end, though perhaps the metaphorical but fitting words of Christ, to whom he had pledged himself, echoed in his mind as he fixed his gaze forward and forged ahead.

“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Just as the plow prepares the ground for the growth it will foster, Joel was unknowingly headed not yet into a life of career ministry but rather one of patient preparation for a task God had designed for him years later, a task which he would share with another. Her story began many miles southeast of the quiet farmlands spread across the Panhandle, nearer the noisy, steam-pluming refineries stretching along the lengthy coasts of the Gulf. Hers was a different hope for the future they would soon inhabit together.

Peace on Earth

“The truth is out there.”

I wonder if any devoted “X-Files” fans found it curious, during the forgettable year that was 2020, that when the government itself acknowledged in long-awaited declassified reports that they had, in fact, collected and documented evidence for decades of UFOs, the world generally took little notice or interest. Maybe it speaks to the incapacity of many of us to be truly impressed or surprised by anything anymore. It seems the truth was, in fact, out there, as the show once pitched weekly following the opening credits, but we moved on, treating the news no differently than if we had exited the theater, venturing from fiction writ large on a screen only to return to mundane reality. Maybe it’s just as well. It seems the official evidence presents nothing more than harmless, flashing objects evading pursuit and performing bizarre aeronautical feats before vanishing from sight. It’s possible to enjoy similar entertainment at the annual air show. Watching agents Mulder and Scully uncover the mysteries of the paranormal or investigate closely-guarded government secrets of alien existence in the space of an hour is, arguably, much more intriguing.

Many episodes diverged from this overarching storyline and had a bit of fun as stand-alones. While I didn’t spend time with the series from start to finish, one of my personal favorites is a season seven tale titled “Je Souhaite.” Long story short, the agents investigate a centuries-old jinniyah (i.e., genie) in the form of a woman who appears just as human as you or me. Hijinks ensue. A more memorable moment towards the end of the episode finds Agent Mulder chanced with a turn to offer three wishes of his own. Pausing a moment so as not to squander this rare opportunity, he opts for the high-road with his first wish, nobly and altruistically requesting peace on earth. The jinniyah routinely and disinterestedly complies. The wish is answered not with a bang but a whimper as an unsettling silence descends. The white noise of traffic and city bustle is eerily and suddenly absent. Peering out of the window, Mulder observes that all living things, with the exception of him and the jinniyah, have vanished from existence. Her vast years of experience with humankind have afforded her interpretive privilege, and the outcome of the wish clarifies her position: You can’t have both peace on earth and people, whose hearts are what they are. Pick one or pick the other.

If you were to ask me on any given day what I want most out of the forthcoming 24 hours, if I dug deep, I would likely respond with the word “peace” or some version of it. Peace in the schedule, peace at work, and, most of all, peace in relationships. I wasn’t bred well for conflict, but I wouldn’t dare attribute that to a failure on the part of my parents. I’m less critical of parents generally since I’ve been one.

In any event, I have been know to pursue harmony in tense encounters at times the same way an addict will cut corners to sate a craving and settle his mind and body. It’s a fault of mine, I know, but there you have it. I’ve managed to make it in life agreeably with most I encounter, though the character flaw has, ironically, been the cause of tension in a handful of moments in spite of efforts to avoid it. It seems some aren’t afraid of it but actually seek and create opportunities for conflict. My children, or at least one of them, are just such persons, though they are good kids overall. Nonetheless, I find God must have a sense of humor when I consider that he’s paired the three of them with me.

My perspective since having children has broadened significantly as to what is at one’s disposal about which to disagree passionately. Clothes, food, toys or other cherished possessions, you name it, they’ll argue over it. I once listened to a long, anguished, tear-stained altercation develop in the backseat of our van between two of ours over the rightful owner of a common — wait for it — rock. Yes, you read that right. They were both committed to dying on that hill, doubtless made of innumerable figurative stones equally as common. It was at that moment I knew I had now heard it all, and it remains the only time in my life I’ve felt the impulse to throw myself out of a moving vehicle.

Recent battles between our oldest and middle have assumed the form of a blame-game I would refer to as “Who Ate the Last of the _______?!” The winner is typically our oldest, who couldn’t care less about her alleged victories but is forced to play by our middle, who, of late, has taken to labeling items and carefully crafting and depositing notes in various locations around the kitchen and pantry to serve as reminders of what she is convinced is hers. She still hasn’t caught on that she makes no actual food purchases herself and has no rights or claims on what is or isn’t consumed, in spite of our own reminders, though I will admit our teenager, like many adolescents gifted with rapid metabolisms, has a unique talent for disposing of communal food as if it were a sworn duty. Nonetheless, we find notes like the one I discovered on the stovetop after rising early to get myself ready along with the other two (see below), who head to school at least an hour before her. It was the first note in my memory that made an attempt at polite acknowledgement of who owns what, merely, I should say, by virtue of the included words “please” and “thank you.” The rest was a blessing, of sorts, juxtaposed with a subtle, almost hidden warning, signified by a smiley-face and not-so-smiley face each deliberately placed next to two specific names in judgment. Apparently, one does not gracefully forgive and forget the previous month’s ice cream “theft.”

This is relatively mild by comparison. Early interactions overall at the beginning of our adoption journey were exhausting and challenging, to say the least. It’s hard becoming a family formed by adoption, especially if your kids have memories of life before you. Not too long ago, the movie “Instant Family” was released, and while my wife and I rarely take the time alone to go to the theater, we found space for this one. For those unaware, the story tells of a couple who choose to adopt three older siblings, ranging from preschooler to teenager. It fashions itself as a comedy, but the two of us viewed it almost as if someone had been reading our mail. Yes, much is exaggerated, but much also felt uncomfortably close to home. For a span, my 15-second elevator-pitch when someone asked what it was like to foster-to-adopt three children, I would refer them to this movie and tell them to catch up with me later if they had any further questions. While the conflicts depicted there are not as focused on what happens between the siblings, the tension and struggles are just as palpable. “We didn’t train for this!” Mark Wahlberg’s character exclaims during the chaotic dinner table scene. Such a sentiment I’ve felt time and again for the gamut of adoptive family-building, especially when navigating moments of sibling rivalry and conflict. Fortunately, my faith has provided a little transformative help.

If you’re a parent and a believer, you likely witnessed that the way you read Scripture altered significantly after kids came along. The stories in Exodus alone, for example, often read like stubborn, spoiled children who simply can’t quit complaining on a long road trip. They’re pleased to accept the benefits, but they’re also soft and ungrateful, unable to endure discomfort in any form. In the few spaces when Moses steps in to stay God’s hand on the disgruntled Israelites’ behalf, the parent in me is anticipating and hoping for a thorough smiting and wants to shove Moses aside to let Dad take care of it.

Take a step back to the book before it — the very first in Scripture, I might add — and after reading you might find one could make a convincing argument that the narrative of Genesis and, by extension, the purposes of God, were largely driven by sibling rivalry. Maybe you haven’t noticed, parent, but it may provide you a hint of hope to know that it all started right there at the very beginning, and it happened time and again. You’re far from alone in the human experience of bringing up bickering babies. What you deal with, what you referee day in and day out, has been going on since recorded history began, and, it seems, was the impetus for moving many things along.

Of the 1,189 chapters in Scripture, we’re barely getting started when we come across the story of Cain and Abel in the fourth. Like many conflicts, jealousy and the attention and approval of a parent (i.e., God) are at the center. The result of the bitterness, as we know, is the first murder. “Well,” I think to myself, “mine haven’t avenged themselves in such a violent manner; perhaps I have little to complain about, after all.” And I wouldn’t be wrong; but let’s keep reading.

Isaac may have been the promised child of Abraham and Sarah, but it’s easy to forget about Ishmael, his literal brother from another mother. If we believe Sarah and our translators, Ishmael, the older of the two, saw fit to “mock” the younger half-sibling on the day he was weaned. Sarah was none too pleased, and when mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, as the saying goes. The first parent in known history to establish an anti-bullying campaign, she coldly issued Abraham orders to cast mother and son out of his household, to which he assented only after assurance from God that they would be taken care of. The Ishmaelites would later become the early tribes of the Muslim faith and would quietly live out their days to the present in relative peace and harmony with the rest of the world . . . except that they haven’t. It’s as if the youthful fraternal animosity that served as cause to be cast out would thereafter characterize a people and faith in their relations with their cultural brothers and neighbors.

Then we meet Jacob and Esau. Now, this is a classic rivalry for the ages. These twins exited their mother’s womb veritably as discord defined, though, to be fair, Jacob duly bore much of the credit for that, especially throughout their early relational history. For those of us who blame our lack or misapplication of nurture as parents for the negative traits our kids exhibit, here is an example of nature trumping nurture. Jacob was granted the name “supplanter” or “deceiver” as soon as the curtain rolled up by virtue of the odd obstetric fact that he “grasped the heel” of his brother on the way out, as if to presage his methods would hereafter involve the unwilling and forced assistance of others in order to get his way. We know the story of Jacob stealing both his brother’s birthright and later “pulling the wool” over his own father’s eyes to swipe his brother’s blessing. This guy later had the gall to wrestle with God himself and stubbornly refuse to let go after they encountered a stalemate until he got what he wanted. I wonder that clinicians today might diagnose that as a penultimate case of oppositional defiant disorder, which, nonetheless, was the spark that resulted in the birth of Israel itself.

Then there’s Leah and Rachel, lest we forget it’s not only about the boys. Prior to his wrestling match, Jacob fled the wrath of his brother, decided to settle down, and was forced to toil a number of years for these two sister wives as a result of duplicitous tables turned upon him for a change. And in case we needed a demonstration as to why polygamy is a terrible idea, here we’re treated to a vigorous birthing competition between the sisters. When they ran out of steam, so to speak, they threw other women in their charge at him, and this all for the sake of “winning.” Throughout this narrative, Jacob/Israel becomes less the progenitor of a nation and more of a prop for the sisters’ bitter rivalry. Such a twisted tale nevertheless produced the nation’s twelve tribes, which would serve as the basis for Israel’s multi-faceted identity throughout the rest of its history.

Finally, we have Joseph and his brothers, whose story is given the greater share of space in Genesis. Our children accuse us of having favorites, though the truth, or at least what I tell myself, is that we relate to them differently based on their personalities. These siblings, however, knew full well the little runt was dad’s favorite. Consumed but united by their jealousy and incense at his arrogant dreams, they went so far as to throw him down a well and then sell him into slavery to strangers, though their original plan involved ending him once and for all. Unbeknownst to dad, they brought back false evidence of an animal attack and let him believe the lie that cruel nature had claimed his life.

One of my cherished observations about Scripture is that it doesn’t whitewash human shortcomings and failures. It’s ugly, unpleasant, and heartbreaking, and in my opinion, serves as strong and persuasive testimony that it’s telling the truth. It doesn’t over-employ the best qualities of its characters to convince you. To the contrary, we see the best and and the worst together, much like our own lives, and we find we can relate. My kids and yours may not have committed quite so atrocious acts against one another, but we’ve personally witnessed the same feelings motivating them to do whatever it is they do to or for each other.

I want my kids to do well, but I more often pray that they choose to be kind. If such things start at home, frankly, it’s difficult to tell where we might be in the process. Just last night there were bitter, vicious words exchanged over simple drinks spills, whereas days before they were happily sharing their devices because they “love each other.” I’ll happily take the latter, but more often than I’d like, I see the former. On the other hand, they haven’t stooped to murder in the first, mocked each other to the point of forced exile from the home, fled the house in fear because of deception, birthed a bunch of babies to earn a man’s favor, or conspired to sell one of the others off to strangers but tell us and God that he/she died. So, I guess we’ve dodged a bullet. So far.

We still worry, though, each time we see less than what we hope for in their characters. But here’s the beautiful thing about this first book and the reason Joseph’s story was deliberately reserved for the end, I think. After all that — and I don’t mean his story alone — after all that was endured in almost 50 chapters prior, after every instance of siblings threatening not only each other but the plans of God himself and, I would argue, their parents’ deepest hopes for them, we hear Joseph’s refreshing words: “. . . you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing,” said Marcus Aurelius. I don’t know if the esteemed Roman emperor was familiar with the story of Esau’s brother, but, perhaps, despite all his character flaws, Jacob was unwittingly onto something as he stubbornly struggled and strained against God himself that evening on his way to reconcile with his twin. If so, maybe I shouldn’t fret too much about the backseat bickering, as tame or terrible as it might be. God is aware of what he’s doing with my kids, even if I don’t. I’ll still strive to encourage peace between them in our modest corner of the earth, but if Genesis has anything to teach us, it’s that even the the most vengeful of sibling rivalries can’t thwart the purposes of God. He’s got it in hand; there’s no need for a genie with a handful of wishes.

Choosing Well

“He chose . . . poorly.”

You know the scene. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” — arguably, the last great Indy movie that rounded out a fine, adventurous trilogy, and should have, in the opinion of the masses, marked the end of the franchise. In any event, our hero’s foil, Walter Donovan, forces at gunpoint Indy and his former love interest, the duplicitous Elsa, to choose for him in a dank cavern from innumerable chalices which of them is the Holy Grail — the storied sacred cup of Christ. Elsa randomly selects one of ornate design, foretelling in her subtle expression to the viewer and to Indy alone what the Templar knight standing by would declare above after Donovan, slaking a selfish thirst for immortality, drinks from the false cup and shrivels to dust in a matter of seconds.

His enemy vanquished in dramatic and grotesque fashion, Indy returns to the task at hand, scans the collection and reaches for an unadorned artifact of common appearance, concealed in plain sight amongst the glitter and gold. “That’s the cup of a carpenter,” he says to himself. He dips it into the basin, swallows the contents, and apprehensively looks to the knight, anticipating his patient pronouncement: “You chose . . . wisely.”

Driving our second to her first day of middle school, this scene came to mind. It might not have if the previous evening’s eager excitement had not given way to tearful anxiety that morning due to insurmountable worries she felt. The plan was to ride the bus, but it had come and gone and here we were, mom and dad tag-teaming to settle frazzled nerves and work the problem. All was well, for the most part, by the time she and I hopped in the van, and off we went.

I found myself on the way with the rare opportunity to offer first-day fatherly advice. It was an honest attempt to perpetuate calm, though my wife informed me after I shared later with her what I had to say that I probably could have skipped a few pressure-laced points. No matter; she took it well, I remarked. As to her concern about a close friend or two with an entirely different schedule, I shared that, though she’d still see them, here was a fresh opportunity to make new friends. “But choose them well,” I left her with as she hopped out, recalling the scene and observing that I hadn’t always followed this advice.

It’s a dilemma as a parent. We want them to have friends; we all need them. But age and experience have taught us about the pitfalls associated with the wrong associations, so to speak, and there comes a time when we simply can’t control or be present for every interaction or connection they make at school or elsewhere. We can either monitor them mercilessly, compelling them to pull away as we fearfully attempt to keep them safe, or let them go and hope and pray our messages have sunk deep into their brains, ready to recall and act upon when the most critical moments arrive.

My own parents knew this, and, from my perspective, granted my siblings and me just enough space to socialize with those we picked. They trusted us, or believed we would approach them when we made mistakes. I don’t know how the added layer of social media and technology might have changed their approach, but I had friends, though I hadn’t always chosen them well.

In hindsight, I don’t know that I actively made friends in public school as much as others made friends of me. A close, observant college friend of mine once described me as neither leader nor follower. This seemed to hold true in middle school/junior high, one of the few times I’ve harbored a bit of regret for drifting into the circle that I did.

I can still remember stepping into my new friend’s house. It was a revelation into the parenting practices of others, or lack thereof, if we’re honest. On the spectrum of liberality in parenting, there is “turning a blind eye” to your kids, and then there is blatant permissiveness. With the former, they may at least make an effort to hide their misdeeds. I got a literal eyeful of the latter, however, when I visited his home. His interests as a young teen boy were on full display, from the “art” adorning the walls to the “literature” scattered about. His bedroom did not even remotely resemble mine, and unless mom routinely entered blindfolded, it was clear she was the permissive type, who either relinquished her duties as a parent or believed in little or no boundaries.

I don’t know how long our friendship transpired, but there were further visits and even sleepovers. I never shared with my own parents about the “education” I was receiving until there came a moment after a visit when guilt overwhelmed me to the point that I confessed tearfully to them about all I had willingly viewed and participated in. I don’t remember being punished, but I do believe there was consensus that the visits were at an end.

30 years since, and I still believe this relationship did more lasting harm than good. I can’t blame my parents, who did their best. I was trusted to make my own choices, and I chose to be influenced rather than an influencer. Fortunately, their lessons ultimately won the day, and they supportively forgave me and helped me move on a little wiser. Though they couldn’t be present for every moment I might be tested, their influence and modeling plugged in the gaps.

Unless your child is a complete recluse or is clinically anti-social, they’re going to make friends. That they will have friends is seldom the worry of most parents. Rather, it’s the quality of their friendships that can either set our minds at ease or our teeth on edge. In just five-years of jump-started (i.e., adoptive) parenting, we’ve dealt with both and have had to respond accordingly.

It didn’t take long, though, to discover that the trouble doesn’t always stem with friends, per se, but, as we discovered, with the overly-permissive parents of chosen friends, especially in the area of media. My wife and I have found ourselves astounded at the lack of almost every restriction our kids inform us is on this or that friend’s personal device. The content available at their fingertips amazes me, and we find we’re fighting a battle not with our kids, who confuse “mature” content with actual maturity in their eagerness to be treated like a grown-up, but with the allowances of other parents.

We each make our own decisions about our kids. What I will or will not allow may differ from the standards for yours. But having no standards whatsoever where there should be, as much as our kids may think is the measure of a “cool” parent, won’t help them in the long-run learn the virtue of discernment and will leave them guessing about how to make a critical decision on basic rights and wrongs in a world that often seems to leave those topics up to personal preference. Entertainment is not merely entertainment in a young mind that hasn’t yet learned to discern.

The friend I mentioned grew up like the rest of us, and I lost touch. I’ve gleaned what I could about his life now in the present. From my limited vantage point, he’s certainly alive and kicking and appears to be moving along in life, but he’s had his share of problems, some mental, and it’s difficult not to take a cursory glance and observe that he isn’t a strong candidate exemplifying the phrase “living your best life.” Rather, from my admittedly incomplete perspective, his is a lonely and self-centered life. It’s not for me to judge whether or not the parenting he did/did not receive contributed to his current state, but you’d have a tough time defending any benefits.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

Hopefully we learn as we mature that it’s friends who not merely lighten our mood but who improve us, as this verse notes, who ought to be chosen and cherished. I pray our kids learn this, though they’ll make their share of missteps. Moreover, I hope they can learn to be this kind of friend.

At the end of the day, stepping off the bus after the return trip, she replied to my question as to how it all went with the terse but acceptable judgement of “good.” From a kid that is sometimes bent more like Eeyore than Tigger (our youngest), it was a win. No word on new friends yet, but the best things take time. Until then, we hope and pray they all follow the wisdom of my father-in-law, whose advice for a long and happy marriage applies no less to long and happy friendships: “Choose well.”

Gone Too Soon

Randy died on Tuesday. Head-on collision on a two-lane road, just outside of Channing. They say he drifted out of his lane, though why is a mystery. He had just dropped off his wife at the airport in Amarillo. He wouldn’t make it back home.

Randy finished his life at 45.

Moments such as this, especially those unwelcome or unexpected, are one of the reasons I believe we capture and preserve pictures. The fact that we’re able to look back when we wish and, with a little visual help, remember happier times is an authentic privilege never felt more pronounced than after we’ve lost someone, notably someone lost too soon. The picture never lies, reliably tells us the same story every time, and returns us to a single moment when that person we love was still with us and the world felt right.

An old, grainy photo from nearly 40 years ago in Dalhart, our grandparents’ home, suggests the grown-ups successfully managed to keep all eleven Johnson cousins together and still for the brief time it takes the shutter to click. We’re all there, from the bottom left and moving counterclockwise, Rusty, Robert, Ashley, Jimmy, Stacy, Amber, Chad, Trey, David, Michaelene, and, finally, Randy. Allison, Stephanie, and Jeremy are absent but would join us a few short years later.

Each of us sitting stationary in the shot, looking ahead, have no idea what actually lies ahead, and I doubt any of us concerned ourselves at the time with that or anything other than moving on to play or to get into trouble, or both, for that matter. None of us know what we’ll grow up to be, who we’ll be with, or how many kids we’ll have ourselves to force into sitting still for group photos. Concerns such as that were for the adults; we just had to be kids.

Back here in the future, we’ve all made it to adulthood, to our chosen professions, and have picked our significant others. We each have our kids and take more photos of them than necessary thanks to the ubiquity of cameras and abundant storage. Our busy, full lives have taken us all in different directions. Consequently, it’s rare that we ever have moments for all of us to be together again, even if only for an afternoon. And that’s what makes me sad — with Randy now gone, the opportunity to reconnect, to make up for lost time, to take just one more picture of all of us together, is gone as well, and it isn’t going to return.

Randy and I didn’t know each other well, and I can’t recall the last time we spoke to one another. Regardless, there came a moment when it hit me that he is gone, that there wouldn’t be another chance to change that. He was family, after all, and that was enough to feel the loss as acutely as if it were a close friend.

He didn’t come to my mind that morning, but I nonetheless wonder what he imagined that day would bring. There was plenty, I’m sure that felt routine and uneventful. Even driving from one place to the next shouldn’t have given him a second thought. He couldn’t have known, waking up to the day, that there wouldn’t be another. In a way, I wish he had known, if only for closure. No time to say goodbye.

No, we all expected years further into the future when old age and its associated setbacks would naturally claim each of us Johnson cousins gradually, one at a time, long after we had laid our parents to rest. Only then would we later attend each other’s funerals after nature had taken its course. That’s the plan. But that’s not the story, it would seem, and it feels unfair. We’ve lost something — rather, someone — that we can’t replace.

John Donne famously wrote, “each man’s death diminishes me.” I can’t help but notice in the poem that he doesn’t specify more about the “man” or the nature or depth of the relationship. It doesn’t matter. We all are less for the loss, regardless; yet the bell tolls all the more profoundly for family.

Randy Johnson, 1975-2021. R.I.P.