21

Thank you.

For two wonderful parents each raised by one hardscrabble mother that taught them the meaning of love and family..

For those parents that raised me and taught me to love You, So that even when I would later stray from you I would know the way home.

That they taught me with their own actions the American dream. How working hard, making good decisions, and associating with good people were the three keys to having a successful life.

That the three keys to success at any job was to work hard, make God your partner, and making your boss look good.

That no matter how much or how little you have, having a clean life requires having a clean house.

That family is important no matter how large or small.

For a childhood where the small lessons were learned right along with big and painful lessons.

For the scars of a mutilated face that calmed rampant hyperactivity and slowly healing them over the next few years even when I didn’t notice.

For paranoid mom and dad watching me dehydrate got me to the doctors office in record time. For the old doctor picking up extra hours that happened to recognize viral encephalitis in time to treat me before the brain damage paralyzed from the waist down.

For me to be able to dance at my prom. And any other time it suits me.

For a quiet early life all things considered.

For making me decently smart. Enough to handle myself but not enough to get me in trouble.

For the wisdom to come to this beautiful city and campus. And for the dear and wonderful friends I met along the way.

For finding a creative outlet for my free time that didn’t involve frats and parties.

For the pain and depression that I somehow managed to have even I was at one of the happiest times of my life.

For it to drive down my grades and set me up for an impossible comeback.

For my heart getting broken so my tears led me back to you.

For you standing in my Studio apartment and filling it with your presence… and the guarantee you gave me.

For me waking up the next morning without a hangover considering how much I drank.

For every single coincidence that fell into place all the way down to a professor in marketing accidentally quizzing us One extra time and choosing to drop a quiz result.

For the terror in my heart when I learned that thinks to a technicality I missed I wouldn’t be able to graduate without authorization of one of the meanest deans you’d ever put on this earth.

And for that scowling look in her eye after grilling me for what could not have been less than 15 minutes when she said “I don’t know why am doing this. Here” and chose not to put a big dent in my life.

For that beautiful spring day.

For the tears welling in my eyes right now.

For the realization Just two years ago sitting at this spot that none of it was about graduating, accomplishment, or success. That it was all about A lesson I could not have learned any other way – how real you are and how much you love us.

For the opportunity to actually offer some help to mom and dad‘s Business even though because I caused a few headaches as well.

For the arrogance I slipped into after. Because you had another lesson to teach me and it might have had to take just as long.

For being too good to start out at the bottom of a business when I had already been an office financial manager.

For rejection after rejection by potential employers that I didn’t understand.

For the stupidity I’m thinking I deserved to live downtown in $1000 a month one bedroom apartment without a solid anchor of a good job.

For the realization but I was going to lose my independence and have to spend my 30th birthday with my tail tucked between my legs living with my parents, regressing into absolute defeat.

For those two dolphins I saw in the harbor on my last walk around the city before going into exile.

I mean it. Thank you for the damage that has been done to me. That has helped make me who I am.

Thank you for forgiving me and for letting me forgive myself for betraying the lessons I had learned when I helped make and kill who I think would have been my daughter.

For Dave‘s choices that led him to need a roommate at a rate I actually could afford barely working on retainer in Columbia and selling my possessions to establish a toehold back in Charleston.

For a good solid year of that unique combination of stubbornness and humility that kept me going for a year until a new guy at a job firm was closing out old resumes and thought I would be a good fit at Xerox.

For the lesson I am still in the midst of learning based on how you operate that began when I took it. About comfort and stagnation and that life is a treadmill; staying comfortable and not pushing yourself makes you go backwards as the rest of the world goes forwards.

For getting fed up of not having many friends here that followed you And what must’ve been an amusing look on your face as you smiled down to me and gave me the brilliant idea that I might want to go back to church to find some.

For good people at my old job that saw to it I got a chance I had a place when I would learn all kinds of different lessons about life finally having a bad job experience.

For that May 14 four years ago when it once again fell on a Sunday and for the first time in years I dealt with the terror of being unemployed again; the tears in my eyes as the organ blared “A Mighty Fortress” with the congregation in song for the first and only time I had heard it live… and knew that you meant to reassure me in a way I could never explain to anyone else.

For weathering 2020 while recovering from damage all along that stubbornness did to me by not listening to a doctor that happened to annoy me. Because simply saying screw em, i’ll do what I want is not a good strategy when it comes to life and health decisions.

For the stupidity of believing after over a decade of not finding love that I was too old and crusty to be able to fall in love again after I broke heart after heart because I just didn’t care as much as the women did.

For the ecstatic highs and devastating lows of re-learning what being in love was.

For the desire that I admittedly must nurture to take stock of the blessings you have given me and know the obligation of sharing them with others.

For the rest of the lessons I’m still in the midst of learning.

For a good friend in a time of his and his family’s need to ever so coincidentally coincide with my need to find another day career path but one that coincided with what I truly want to do in life despite me not having a clue how to embark upon it.

For this really nice cigar. On a really nice unseasonably cool night in May.

For the gift of good health throughout my first 44 years, and the realization that I won’t always have it.

For so much more than I could ever Hope to remember no matter how long I stay in this beautiful cistern.

For the realization that I am blessed Beyond measure because you have taught me to learn even from my bad experiences… and make them part of turning me into a better person.

For the realization that I never need to let that go to my head. Then making good decisions in life always seems to require a combination of confidence and humility. Knowing that change is best done voluntarily before it is eventually forced upon someone.

For the understanding that the more I want answers the less I will be able to understand them.

For so many things. And especially…

Thanks for the cat.