This short story was inspired by real events, well... sort of.

             Deputy Crawford sat in his cruiser with window open enjoying a ham sandwich and the warm spring night when his radio came to life.

            “Dispatch to Crawdaddy,” sang the radio.

            The diligent Deputy swallowed and picked up the mike. “This is Deputy Crawford. Go ahead.”

            “Your wife called Crawdaddy. She wants you to pick up some milk on the way home tonight.” Laughter echoed over the airwaves as the dispatcher held the microphone button down after making his transmission.

            “I would remind dispatch,” warned Deputy Crawford, “that county regulations do not allow for personal transmissions over official frequencies.”

            “Okay Crawdaddy, forget I told you to pick up some milk on the way home, but don’t ask me to explain to your wife how you came home empty handed when she has hungry mouths to feed.” More laughter.

            “I would also remind you to refer to me by my official title of ‘Deputy Crawford’ when you address me over the radio.”

            “Sure thing Crawdaddy.” Laughter erupted again.

            “Deputy Crawford out,” snarled Raymond Crawford, the newest deputy of Jessamine County.

            He polished off his sandwich and washed it down with his Coke. “I get no respect,” he mumbled to himself as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “They stuck me out here on this country road because of a bogus tip and tease me over the radio.” He spat out the window and shook his head. “No respect.”

            A black Camaro zipped past with the lights off.

            “What the devil!” Deputy Crawford flipped on his lights and brought the cruiser to life. He burned rubber as the tires connected with the asphalt as the black Camaro disappeared around the next bend. Deputy Crawford grinned at himself in the mirror. He loved a good chase. It reminded him of his days on the racetrack before his wife made him quit racing and get a real job. County regulations didn’t prohibit him from modifying his cruiser, and he had taken the liberty of upgrading and improving his machine. He was on the Camaro’s bumper in less than two minutes.

            The black Camaro pulled over and came to a stop. Deputy Crawford shined his spotlight on the license plate and ran a background check – nothing out of the ordinary. He tucked his ticket book under his arm and slipped from his cruiser, adjusted his belt, and kept one hand on his gun as he approached the vehicle. The black Camaro had the windows tinted, but the driver had turned on the dome light and rolled down the window. Deputy Crawford gave a sigh of relief when he saw the driver’s hands on the dashboard, but didn’t take his hand off of his gun.

            “Going a little fast ain’t we?” asked Deputy Crawford as he approached the open window and shined his flashlight at the driver.

            “Sorry officer, I was just trying to get home to my babies.” The woman’s voice was silky smooth and dripping with penance.

            Deputy Crawford gawked at the woman in the front seat. Her hair was blacker than the Camaro and her doe eyes were as brown as the leather seats. Her blouse seemed to be missing a few buttons. “Wh… wh… why such a hurry to get home to your babies?”

            She batted her eyelashes and shifted in her seat. “I’m breastfeeding twins and I’m about to pop.”

            Deputy Crawford swallowed and loosened his collar. “Twins? Uh… license and registration please, uh… ma’am.” He dropped the beam of the flashlight and shifted his focus to the car hoping she couldn’t see how flush his face was. He shined his flashlight along the smooth lines of the machine and tried to stay focused on doing his job. He loved fast cars – the sound of roaring engines, the smell of burning rubber, the feel of pushing the suspension to the limit in a turn. He shined his flashlight at the tires and wrinkled his brow.

            “Here you go officer,” said the woman as she handed him the requested papers. Her hands were reddish and rougher than he expected.

            He looked over the papers. “It says here you live in Madison County.”

            “Yes sir, out in the country all by myself, with my twin babies.”

            “Then what are you doing in Jessamine County going away from Madison County at a high rate of speed?”

            She sighed and adjusted her blouse. “You got me officer. I don’t have twins.” She smiled a devious smile. “I’m on my way to a little secret rendezvous and the excitement of it all made me drive a little too fast.” She winked. “You do know what its like to get… excited, don’t ya?”

            “Uh… yes ma’am,” replied Deputy Crawford as he pushed up the rim of his hat with his flashlight. He shined the light at the car. “You mind telling me why your car is setting so low on its suspension?”

            She leaned out the window letting her blouse open even more. “It looks fine to me.”

            “I’m going to need you to open the trunk,” said Deputy Crawford as he focused on the sleek lines of the Camaro.

            “The trunk? Why?”

            “I suspect that you are transporting beverages from unlicensed producers for sale on the black market.”

            Her face turned sour, and she buttoned up her blouse. “You got a warrant?”

            “Don’t need one. I pulled you over on a legitimate traffic stop and saw evidence of a crime. The law gives me the right to investigate.” Deputy Crawford shined his flashlight in her face and put his hand on his gun. “Now, open the trunk.”

            The driver shook her head, leaned forward, and popped the trunk. “See for yourself.”

            Deputy Crawford grinned when opened the trunk and shined his flashlight – the tip was right. The trunk was full of large mason jars packed in coolers of ice. It was the mother lode. He strode back to the front of the car. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m going to have ask you to step out of the vehicle.”

            “For that?” she said as she pointed her thumb at the rear of the vehicle. “That ain’t hurting nobody.”

            Deputy Crawford straightened himself up to his full height. “Kentucky Administrative Regulation 902 prohibits the transportation, or sale, of raw milk. I can see from your red hands that you do the milking yourself. On your way to Lexington to sell it to some unsuspecting city folks?”

            “Look Deputy, it’s milk for crying out loud. It ain’t like I’m running moonshine. It’s milk! You know, cow juice, moo-moo, crème de la crème – MILK!” She shook her head. “Don’t you have something more important to do, like catch REAL criminals?”

            “A criminal is someone that breaks the law. You are clearly in violation of Kentucky Administrative Regulation 902, and that makes you a criminal.”

            She shook her head. “Do you starch your own underwear or do you make your wife do it for you?”

            “Now just a minute…” Deputy Crawford stopped midsentence. He scratched his chin with butt of his flashlight. He grinned. “I believe that the regulation does allow you to share the milk with friends and family. You wouldn’t happen to be visiting family in Jessamine County would you?”

            The woman’s mouth fell open. “Uh… why yes, I am visiting my aunt Susie. She lives in Jessamine County. She loves my milk.”

            “That looks like a lot of milk for Aunt Susie. Do you think you could spare a little for a friend… in law enforcement?”

            When Deputy Crawford turned his cruiser down the lane to his house at the end of his shift, he had two mason jars full of ice cold cow juice on the back floorboard, each with the a thick layer of cream at the top.

My favorite scene in the movie about the life of country music legend Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line, is the scene when he first auditions for a record deal. The young artist sings an overplayed gospel song for the record manager. I loved the manager’s response.

“If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying... and you had time to sing one song, huh, one song... people would remember before you're dirt... one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth... one song that would sum you up... you telling me that's the song you'd sing?”

When I was growing up, hauling hay was dirty, dusty work. Unlike the modern hay-harvesting machines of today that automate the entire process for one person to do, hauling hay in my day involved driving a truck or wagon into the hay field, picking the bales up off the ground, stacking them on the wagon or truck, and tossing them into the barn. My older brother and I used to run a crew of our own and hired out to local farmers every summer. One summer we kept track, and we hauled over eighty thousand bales that summer. I can promise you that I lifted every one of those bales at least twice. (I have the bad back to prove it.)

Most of the time we hauled alfalfa, or Bermuda grass. Occasionally we hauled clover or fescue. During wheat harvest time we sometimes got a job hauling straw. We loved hauling straw because it was light compared to the hay. You could grab a bale in each hand and toss it around like they were made of air. The only problem with hauling straw is that it tended to be dustier. Unlike the hay, straw was just the stalk of the wheat, or barley, plant after the grain had been harvested. That meant that when you hauled straw, you had a lot of chaff in the air. It was easy on the back, but hard on the lungs.

In addition to being lighter and dustier, straw has little nutritional value. The nutrient-rich grain has been stripped from the stalk leaving only the chaff. Livestock can’t live off of chaff. They need the nutrients of the grain, or the hay. Farmers use straw as bedding for livestock in the barn. It’s great for soaking up bull excrement.

I was recently reading a book about developing a marketing platform. The book encouraged you to get involved in all the various social media outlets. It said that you should post or tweet as much as you can. It encouraged you to find a niche topic that you could post, tweet, or talk about on social media every day. Of course that left me baffled since I might have enough knowledge to post or tweet daily for about a month before I reach the limit of my expertise, particularly if I am limited to my own original thought. (That might get me through a week, but I doubt it.)

So I added a twitter account to my social media bag of tricks. It was pretty cool to get a tweet from some celebrities, or a tip of the day from an expert. But I noticed that just like most social media, it offered me little of substance and was abundant with chaff. Most of what I read consisted of retweeted or reposted news articles, most were interesting, but certainly not original. I read promotions for new books, movies, or products – helpful, but not life-changing knowledge. Then of course I found myself wading through endless selfies, pictures of food, or comments about how people felt on any given day. Each of these is important in their own perspective. They are each a piece of the personal mosaic painted by the producer and gave me a window into the personal life of the person who put it out there on social media. They connected me, in a small way, to someone else’s life. However, I certainly wouldn’t classify selfies and pictures of food as platform-worthy. What difference does it make if you can reach out and touch a million followers and all you have to offer them is a picture of the burrito you just ate - #myfavoriteburrito?

Don’t get me wrong. I love social media. It keeps me connected to friends and family across the miles. I enjoy learning of important family events and seeing pictures of family and friends during good times, and bad. I’m thankful that people post news about newborn babies, birthdays, graduations, and deaths in the family. However, like the levity of straw, social media consists mostly of chaff, and often lacks any nutritional value. It offers little value, except perhaps entertainment, but works well as filler. (And soaking up excrement.)

Chaff is cheap.

A writer’s job is to sift through the chaff and find the grains of truth for the reader. The really good writers not only sift out the chaff, but they mill the grain and bake it into something palatable for the reader, even when the truth is distasteful. That isn’t something you can often do in 140 characters.

Here’s what the radio manager told Johnny Cash.

“Or would you sing something different? Something real, something you felt? Because I'm telling you right now... that's the kind of song people want to hear. That's the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain't got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believing in yourself.”

The scene ends with Johnny Cash singing “Folsom Prison Blues,” and the rest is history.

Chaff is cheap, but when we can find a way to connect to others; when we can share something real we have learned during this human existence; when we can offer a grain of truth to the world ground up and baked into something palatable, then we should shout it out on the rooftops of social media. The grain of truth might be heavy to carry, but it will fill the soul.

Most children think that their parents want to run their lives forever. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most parents want children that are capable of taking care of themselves, but the pathway to that independence can take a while, and is fraught with setbacks and dangers.

The air was cool at five thousand feet when they opened the side door of the Cessna Caravan and the wind gusted through the cramped cabin. I straddled a bench with my tandem instructor crammed in behind me, and two more tandem pairs ahead of me. Through the puffy white clouds, I could see the surf breaking below and the rows of white foamy water rushing to shore. We were circling above a hole in the clouds hoping that it would move over our drop zone so we could tumble out of the open door and into the mirth. The scenery was spectacular, but my heart was pounding. The turboprop hummed along and in spite of the swirling winds, the smell of the engine exhaust lingered in the cabin. My stomach did flips while we waited for the right conditions.

Early that day my son, Rian, had graduated from BYU Hawaii – my first college graduate. The speakers were succinct and spoke of character over academic performance, and integrity over income. Before they began to read the names of the graduate (not an easy task at the most diverse university on the planet), a choir sang a beautiful rendition of the song “Homeward Bound” by Marta Keen. It gave me chills as the metaphors from the song conjured up deep emotional images for me.

In the quiet misty morning


When the moon has gone to bed


When the sparrows stop their singing


And the sky is clear and red



When the summer’s ceased it’s gleaming


When the corn is past its prime


When adventure’s lost its meaning


I’ll be homeward bound in time


Chorus

Bind me not, to the pasture


Chain me not to the plow


Set me free to find my calling


And I’ll return to you somehow


That was my chorus as I approached adulthood. I dreamt of far off places removed from the pastures and plows of home. My parents not only refused to bind or chain me to a future of their choosing, they encouraged me to go forth and find my calling, even if it took me away; Even if it put me in danger. Never once did I feel bound to a life I didn’t want to live. My parents gave me wings.

Through the hole in the clouds we could see the drop zone. The pilot gave the go ahead and my stomach did one more flip as I looked down at the volcanic mountains covered in green trees and the deep blue water of the Pacific. I wondered if I was ready for this experience. (During all my flight training, jumping out of an airplane was always considered an emergency.) I wondered if I was ready to die. My son sat just a few feet in front of me in the second half of the group. Was I ready to let him go?

He was my firstborn, my oldest son, the experimental child. I thought about all the mistakes I made as a young parent. I remembered all the foolish things I had said to him, or all the times I yelled at him, or was too tired to play with him. Had I prepared him well enough to succeed at life? Did I give him the courage to find his own calling? Could I give him the wings he needed to fly and push him from the nest?

If you find it’s me your missing

If you’re hoping I’ll return


To your thoughts I’ll soon be listening


When I’m homeward bound again



Then the wind will set me racing


As my journey nears its end


Then the path I’ll be retracing


When I’m homeward bound again


Chorus

Bind me not, to the pasture


Chain me not to the plow


Set me free to find my calling


And I’ll return to you somehow

The pilot gave the signal, and we shuffled to the door and fell into the blue, homeward bound. Skydiving is to flying what motorcycle riding is to driving a car. I felt like I was one with the scenery as I fell to earth and felt the rush of the wind. We tumbled and hurtled downward reaching terminal velocity, and personal discovery. When the chute opened and the rushing wind became a whispering breeze, I let out an exhilarating yell. I was going to live. Perhaps more importantly, I was living.

As I touched down and disconnected, I looked upward for my son.

I don’t know what road he will choose, how far he will go, or what dangers he might face. I only hope he knows that he is not bound to the pasture or chained to the plow. He is free to find his calling. I only pray that when he has, the wind will set him racing homeward bound again.

BTW here's the video - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203634888295710&set=vb.1321445124&type=2&theater

I read in the motorcycle handbook that a motorcycle rider is sixteen times more likely to be injured or killed in an accident than someone driving a car. And yet, here I was straddling a BMW K1200LT (affectionately christened by my daughter as “Charlie Brown”) hauling down the Kentucky highway. I hoped the day would be at least seventeen times more fun than driving.

The temp was twenty-six degrees when I woke up. It wasn’t supposed to get below freezing during the night, but then again we are talking about the weather, and it was the year they invented the word polar vortex. The thought of sitting by the fire all day instead of riding did cross my mind. Besides, I could hear every you’ll-shoot-your-eye-out lecture I had received since I announced that I was buying a motorcycle running through my head. Whatever impulse made the first cavemen leave the fire and venture out into the unknown was thumping inside of me. I had Raisin Bran with raw whole milk for breakfast. (It was the closest thing in the house to Wheaties.) I took my vitamins, trying to be health conscious. (I wouldn’t want to put my health in danger.) Then I geared up for a cold-weather ride and headed up to the shop to get Charlie Brown and head out on the highway.

It was thirty-one degrees when I walked out the door, but the sun was shining. I could see that large chunks of the gravel lane were covered with snow. I had to get the bike out of the shop, up a hill, down a hill, around a bend, and all the way to the asphalt highway that bordered the front of the farm. The highways and roads were clean and dry, but because it got below freezing again during the night, I had several sections of snow-covered driveway to traverse before my tires would find dry asphalt. I had visions of getting five feet and dropping the bike in the snow. I thought of various ways to avoid it, but most of them were ineffective or simply returned me to sit by the fire. I uncovered the bike and slipped on my helmet worried that I would slip on the snow and end up in the corral behind the barn with the cows instead of on the asphalt highway calling my name.

I figured I had to make it uphill through about ten yards of snow and then I would probably make it. I backed Charlie Brown out of the shed and pointed him up the hill. No time like the present. I took a deep breath and let it go. Of course that fogged up my visor and I had to open my visor and let it clear. I took another deep breath. I feathered the clutch and started up the hill. The snow and ice crunched beneath the new tires. I kept my feet close to the ground, but I knew if the bike started to go, I would have to let it fall. (You don’t catch a BMW K1200LT weighing over seven hundred pounds.) To my relief, the tires held, and I eased up the hill and onto the gravel. I breathed a sigh of relief and fogged my visor again.

The next phase was getting down the hill and around the icy corner. I steeled my nerves and popped the clutch. I kept it slow and eased onto the patch of ice. Luckily, the ruts were deep and kept me from spilling the bike and I made it to gravel again. I breathed another big sigh of relief and kept the bike moving towards the highway. At last I could see the black, dry asphalt ahead of me, but ten feet of ice lay between me and a day of riding with my brother. I held my breath. Just as the back tire began to slip, the front tire made it onto the asphalt. I was free!

The ride to my brother’s house was smooth and I was grinning from ear to ear when we pulled out of his driveway. We were headed over to Western Kentucky to see my Granny and I was excited to spend some time on two wheels cruising down country roads. The sun was out and I was bundled up, but the first part of the ride was cold. I had the windshield all the way up to block the wind and the heated handgrips were on their highest setting, but the chill, and worrying about crashing, made me tense. I was tense and worried. I kept hearing the same you-will-kill-yourself lecture going around and around in my head. I knew that if I injured myself in a crash, my wife would kill me.

Riding a motorcycle heightens your senses. I felt the wind whipping over the windshield and welcomed the sunshine as the sun climbed in the morning sky. I could feel the curve of the road along with every climb and descent. I took in the vistas of fallow fields and evergreen trees mixed with the barren trees of winter that bordered the fields and roads. The ride heightened my sense of awareness, my sense of enjoyment, and perhaps my sense of pain if I crashed.

People in Kentucky are very religious. I enjoyed all the quotes on the church marquees as I rode past – A clear conscience is a soft pillow. ASAP – Always Say A Prayer. WDJD – What Did Jesus Do. Jesus Saves. (I’m not sure if could save me from my wife if I got killed while riding a motorcycle.) As I came around one curve someone had posted a sign in the yard – Prepare to meet God. I was prepared to meet God, but I was hoping it wouldn’t happen that day on that particular curve. I slowed down a bit.

I followed my older brother around Russelville, past the Jefferson Davis monument (Why did we build a monument to the loser?), and over to Hopkinsville. As we entered Hoptown, we passed the state mental hospital and I thought about stopping and checking myself in. Here I was, a grown man, out gallivanting around the countryside on two wheels. Surely, I had lost it. I downshifted and accelerated past.

We made it without incident or problem to my Granny’s house. She is ninety-years old and doesn’t get a lot of visitors living so far away from the rest of the family, but she wants to stay in her own home. I say – More power to ya’ Granny. We offered her a ride, but instead we drove her Camry to the local fish place for some fried catfish and hushpuppies. The scrumptious deep-fried meal was probably the most dangerous part of the day. After lunch, we sat and visited while Granny read to us from the obituaries. I was hoping it wasn’t a bad omen before the ride home.

We took the long way home. We cruised over to Muhlenberg county with the words of Roy Acuff’s song echoing in my helmet. Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County, down by the Green River where paradise lay… We stopped at the picturesque courthouse to stretch our legs and talked about the old adage concerning dropping a bike or laying a bike over – those who have; those who will. I was hoping that my minor scrape on a Yamaha back in high school would put me in the those-who-have category. We cruised over to Drakesboro, back down through Russelville, and back home to Franklin. My brother pealed off and headed home. I made a stop at the Frosty Freeze for some baby burgers to finish out the near-perfect riding day.

When I turned down the lane at home, I was glad to see gravel, but when I topped the hill and my uncle’s tractor was in front of the house blocking my way. I slowed down, but after a day of riding I decided I could get around it if I swerved up on the berm in front of the house. When I started up the berm, it was softer than I expected. The tires slipped, and for a second, I thought I was going to lay old Charlie Brown on his side right in front of the house, but I kept my cool and made it back onto the solid gravel. I breathed my last sigh of relief. I had made it.

Then I turned the corner to head up the hill, and that patch of ice from the morning was still there, but this time the ruts were gone and the ice was wet. The sign – Prepare to Meet God – flashed across my mind. I panicked and tried to keep my momentum going in the right direction, but in less than a second, Charlie Brown was on the ground.

There I stood after an incredible day of riding looking down at that big beast of a motorcycle laying on its side in the ice and mud. I laughed. I banged my right shin getting off of the bike, but I other than that, the bike and I were fine. My wife was right. I was crazy.

I was prepared to meet God, but thank goodness I didn’t have to meet Him that day. With the help of my Uncle, I righted the bike and put Charlie Brown to bed in the shed.

By the way, It was fifty times more fun than driving.

I went running a few of days ago for the first time in almost a week. It was a nice spring morning in Phoenix with a nice breeze. I should have been enjoying it, but instead I stopped in the middle of my run to cry. I was falling to pieces inside.

My mother is dying, but that isn’t a surprise. Let’s be truthful, we are all dying. Her date just happens to be a little closer and the signs of her impending demise are beginning to show. The cancer in her peritoneal cavity is taking its toll. She has grown very weak and has lost so much weight that she is barely recognizable. She hasn’t eaten since Dec 24th, and sleeps most of the time. If it weren’t for her stubbornness, she would already be dead.

I visited her several times last month, and after every visit, I struggled not to fall apart inside.

She is one of the strongest women I have ever known. Her mother died when she was eight years old. She bounced around from relative to relative for a few years while her father struggled to provide a home and a future for her and her sister. She married young, and started having children (by choice) at an age when most young women are still thinking about high school prom. Ten children later, she battled with dirty diapers, dirty dishes, and dirty floors. Along with raising ten children, she raised a garden. She stretched a dollar until it screamed and shopped for bargains at second-hand stores. She learned how to repair cars, frame houses, and weld. If you wanted her to do something, just tell her she couldn’t do it. I think the only thing she never really mastered was the computer, but that’s mostly because she viewed excessive time in front of a screen as frivolous.

When she had cancer as a younger woman, I didn’t worry. I knew she wasn’t ready to die, and she wasn’t going to give in to disease so easily. Her stubbornness would carry the day. She lived, of course. Now, after two battles with cancer and a death sentence passed on her by modern medicine, she is finally succumbing to the disease that tried to rob us of her so many years ago. Death, it seems, is more stubborn than she is.

I knew she would not go in for treatment this time, and I accepted it. I knew that her faith in the next life was strong and would carry her through. I had accepted her death intellectually. I had accepted her passing spiritually. But I had not come to grips with her demise emotionally. How could I let her go? What lighthouse could I turn to in the storm of life? What rock could I count on when everything else was falling apart?

My mother has always held her emotional cards close to her vest. Her even temper and poker face carried the day. I could rarely tell when she was angry, unless she was switching me with a switch from the forsythia bush. When chaos and emotional mayhem reigned around her, she was steady as sunrise. When tempers flared and voices rose, she was like a duck on the water, smooth on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath. She was a hard person to get to know, but not a hard person to love.

I guess that I was still in denial about death really claiming her. Somehow I still believed that she would figure out a way to stiff-arm death once again. I expected that she would be too stubborn to let death take her one single second before her appointed time. So far, she has done just that.

I have only spent one Christmas with my entire immediate family.

The average household during the last census consisted of 2.58 people. My family was four-times that size at an even dozen (ten children and Mom and Dad). The dynamics of a big family are very different than small families. Routine is more important. Structure is a thin wall between orderly execution and utter chaos. Everyone has to contribute. However, you almost always have someone to play (or fight) with, and many hands do make light work. With a household four-times the average size, my childhood experience was anything but average.

One of the unusual dynamics of a large family is the age difference between the first child and the last child. My oldest sister was born in September of 1957. The baby sister of the family was born in September of 1978. In that twenty-year stretch the world changed a lot. By the time my youngest sister was born, my oldest sister was married and had a baby of her own. In fact, my mother and my oldest sister were pregnant at the same time. Because of that, the entire family was never home for Christmas.

In December of 1989, I was just finishing up pilot training in the USAF. My wife and I had been married a year and a half and had just welcomed our first son into our home. We were stationed at Laughlin AFB, Texas (southwest of San Antonio in Del Rio). We didn’t have the time or money to go too far for Christmas, and the nearest sibling was in Oklahoma. We thought we would end up spending Christmas by ourselves.

When my Aunt and Uncle that lived near Fort Worth, Texas, offered to host us for Christmas, it was just the catalyst we needed to get everyone together. My wife and I figured we could make the trip to their house. My brother in Oklahoma announced that he would be coming down. My Mom and Dad made plans to travel from Kentucky, along with my sister living nearby. Pretty soon, everyone except for one sister who was dealing with a high-risk pregnancy had made plans to be there for Christmas. The Aunt and Uncle that invited us didn’t have any children. I don’t think they had any idea what they had bargained for. It was going to be a packed house.

We packed up our Mazda 626 and drove along Highway 90 and then up I-35 to Dallas/Fort Worth with our three-month old son strapped into his car seat in the back seat. The weather was cold, but good. We arrived and staked out our territory in the corner of the den. Within a twenty-four hour period, the house went from quiet and orderly, to loud and chaotic.

Everyone, except for my pregnant sister, packed into the house and staked a claim in the living room, the den, the dining room, and even the hallway. We had beds and sleeping bags everywhere. My youngest sister slept under the dining room table with her niece. At night you couldn’t walk through the house without stepping over, or on, someone.

My parents didn’t know it, but the pregnant sister had been given permission to travel, and arrived after everyone else. I will never forget the look on Mom and Dad’s faces when she and her family walked into the house and surprised them. We pretended to interview them about getting the family together for Christmas and captured the moment on video with one of those huge video cameras that you rested on your shoulder. It was the look of sheer joy! The whole family would finally spend a Christmas together.

Mealtimes were an event unto themselves. The kitchen was a bustle of activity from sunup to sundown trying to keep with the house full of hungry mouths. We had homemade pies and cakes, fudge, and cereal by the case. On top of the regular meals, we had several nursing mothers. Keeping everyone fed was a round-the-clock operation.

On Christmas Eve, I got sick with fever. I curled up in my corner of the den and drifted in and out of consciousness as I watched the festivities in a feverish stupor. On Christmas morning, my Mom made everyone wait to open gifts until I felt well enough to sit up and participate. Thank goodness, I felt better before noon. Gratefully nobody else got sick.

I don’t remember too much about the gifts exchanged. I got a book about modern fighter aircraft. Honestly, the gift exchange was anticlimactic. The real excitement sprang from just being together. If there was an argument, I don’t remember it. If there was contention, it never rose to a noteworthy level. In spite of the close quarters and cramped arrangements, a true spirit of harmony permeated the entire home. If ever there was a Christmas miracle, having a house full of hardheaded Boohers together for three days without an argument surely qualifies.

I have tried for over a year to write this blog. That particular Christmas carries so much emotion for me that putting it down in words has been difficult. I am sitting in a hotel room separated from my own family this Christmas day as I finish it up, and I still don’t feel like I have done it justice.

What is the takeaway from this story?

No one is promised tomorrow. Today is the only gift you have. Be grateful for the time you have together as a family, because you never know if it will be your last, or only, time together. Material possessions and fancy gifts will pass like the setting of the sun and leave you unfulfilled and hollow, but the time you spend with those you love will burn inside of you forever. Take time to make some warm memories with those you love.

I was twenty-six years old before my entire immediate family was together for Christmas. I’m fifty now, and we have never all been together for Christmas except that one time, but the memory of that Christmas still burns inside of me.

I swear my wife knows everyone. So, I should not have been too surprised when she announced that, thanks to her friend Tiffany Masterson, we would be attending a special screening of the movie The Book Thief. What did surprise me was how deeply the movie touched me, and the fact that I had not read the book. (Shame on me!)

We never experience life in a vacuum. Everything we do and everything that happens to us is tainted by the events around us that shape and frame our experience. At face value, the movie, and story, is about a young orphan girl in Nazi Germany that learns to read and then becomes so passionate about reading that she is willing to steal books. But since she is in the middle of a war, it is much more than the simple coming-of-age story.

Likewise, my opportunity to attend a special screening of the movie did not happen in a vacuum. It was a very hectic day. I had several projects to finish, the chief of which was refurbishing an old bed I made twenty-four years ago so my daughter could use it. It was a labor of love, but when you have a deadline, it’s work. Right before the movie, we attended the same daughter’s last volleyball game of the season. It was a special event in which the two rival teams wore pink and honored breast cancer survivors. I didn’t want to miss it since my mother and my mother-in-law are both breast cancer survivors. Unfortunately, my daughter’s team lost, and I had to comfort her.

In the middle of the game, my soccer-playing son came limping into the gym. He had damaged his foot and ankle during practice. Since I was focused on my daughter’s game, I didn’t give his injury the attention he felt it deserved. A family quarrel ensued. By the time we got back to the house and prepared to leave for the movie, the quarrel had heated up. I almost didn’t make it to the event. I was still angry when I pulled out of the driveway.

Leave it to my wife to not only get us into a special screening, but to also get us VIP status. We were the first people into the theater, thanks to Tiffany. We were joined by several of my wife’s girlfriends. However, all the husbands, except for my buddy Wade, stayed away because the last game of the World Series was on. I grabbed some greasy theater food, and settled down to experience the story.

The Book Thief is a story about young Liesel Meminger who finds solace in reading stolen books and sharing them with others during the horrors of WWII Germany. What makes this coming-of-age story unique is that Death himself narrates the story, because he is so intrigued by her life. Several times in the story we get a firsthand account of what it’s like to take the soul from the body and bear it home.

The first thing that I noticed about the movie was the attention to detail. Unlike some popular movies about historical events that paint the scenes with a broad brush, this movie used the small fine bristled brushes to create detail in vivid and authentic strokes. These intricate details included but were not limited to – the locomotive belching out steam and smoke, the era-appropriate clothing, the uniforms of the soldiers and officials, the labels on food bins in the kitchen, and the wedding on the right hand of Hans, the foster father (the common custom in Germany especially during that period). You felt transported to the very time and place with the pan of the camera. Details can make or break a movie, or book, but The Book Thief delivered, by painstakingly ensuring that the details were authentic.

The pacing of the movie was slow, but appropriate, never letting you feel impatient with the story. If you like fast-paced action movies that use pyrotechnic explosions, elaborate stunts, and car chases to create suspension and action, then you will probably be disappointed. However, if you like a movie that can propel you forward and keep you on the edge of your seat with the strength of the story, then you will love The Book Thief. The pacing moves like the steady current of a river, never rushing you along, but never allowing you to stagnate or hang up in the driftwood along the banks. The rhythm of the film allows you the time to absorb the emotion of each scene without letting you linger in overdramatic pauses.

The actor’s performances were outstanding, particular Sophie Nélisse’s portrayal of Liesel Meminger. Her eyes were so expressive and curious, like lenses that captured everything in her world with wonder. Sometimes child actors behave more like adults than children, but not so with her performance. Additionally, Geoffrey Rush delivered an excellent portrayal of Hans Hubermann, Liesel’s foster father. Granted, he portrayed a character you couldn’t help but like, but he did it with grace, wit, and a sense of presence on screen that drew me into the emotion of each scene he was a part of. Emily Watson also portrayed Rosa Hubermann, the foster mother with the hard shell, so well that it made me uncomfortable. The entire cast delivered and brought the dialogue to life.

I especially enjoyed the ironies present in the story – Death himself narrating a story about how to live your life; A young girl hungering to read in a time when they burned books; An outcast helping her to fit into society in her own way; A street called Heaven Street in the middle of a hellish war; Stealing books instead of food in a time of starvation; Two of Hitler’s Youth screaming “I hate Hitler!” at the top of their lungs; Destroying all reason for hope in order to find hope. These pleasant ironies added to the movie’s charm.

Liesel learned the value of reading in a time of war. She learned of writing in a time of great emotional crisis. The words on the pages gave her life meaning. In essence, the words were life. After the viewing they asked us to write one word on a chalkboard to describe the movie. I wrote the word “Authentic.” My wife wrote the word “Life.”

If you enjoy an emotional movie with a powerful and moving story line, go see The Book Thief.

We never experience our life in a vacuum. As I drove home, I pondered the scenes of the movie that touched me. I thought about the argument with my son. I reflected on the love for reading and writing that my parents nurtured in me by having a house full of books, even when we had little else.

When I got home, I went and found my son. I apologized, and we made amends. Life is too short to give any life to ugly words when we have so many beautiful words worthy of living. I told my daughter I was proud of her efforts to honor those whose lives were affected by breast cancer. Words of peace and hope had been restored to my home.