DEAR SEAN:

Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. …Just who the hell do you think you are?

DEAR READER:

Who do I think I am?

My life begins at age 11. That’s when my father took his own life.

He killed himself probably because he was going to prison. The night before Daddy died, he was arrested for attempted murder, assault and battery, and threatening his family with a firearm.

He spent the night in county lockup. And I knew, as an 11-year-old boy, that he was freaking out. One of his worst fears was incarceration.

The last image of my father is imprinted on my brain. I am a little boy. Officers are reading Daddy his Miranda rights. My baby sister is screaming. My mother is battered and bloody. There are deputies in riot gear who entered our house with short-barrel shotguns.

And I’m saying goodbye to my father. Forever.

The next morning, his brother posts his bail. It's crazy expensive. He drops my father off at his house,

then goes to work. When my aunt gets home, her car comes charging into the garage, and she hits a body.

There’s a shotgun in the decedent’s hands. The body’s big toe is stuck in the trigger guard. It’s Daddy.

Nobody is ever the same.

Everyone is in shellshock. All the adults are worried about me because I’m not crying. They expect me to be a wreck, but I’m not. I’m just stunned. I can’t cry.

Oddly enough, I am relieved that he is dead. I am actually glad he’s gone. My father was so difficult to live with. He could fly off the handle at any moment. You never knew if you were getting Good Daddy or Abusive…

Be with them, Lord.

Comfort them. Embrace them. Bolster them. Ease their pain. Hold them like a parent holds a child. Give them uncommon strength during these present moments of horror.

Help them remember to eat. Help them remember to hydrate. Take care of their bodies. Because right now, many of them don’t care whether they live or die.

As I write this, 51 have been killed in the Texas floods, at least, and 15 are kids. The total of missing people isn’t even clear yet. What is clear is that 27 of them are girls who were attending Camp Mystic, a Christian youth camp on the River Guadalupe in Kerr County, the area worst affected.

Nearly 850 have been rescued, and 1,700 have been involved with the rescue operations.

So be with them, God. Be there in silent ways nobody would ever expect. Give them supernatural signs that their loved ones are still out there. Give comfort to those whose loved ones have passed, and are now safely

with You.

Give them all little miracles, God. Coat their hearts with tranquility and stillness. Whisper in their ears, words of affection and peace.

Be with the siblings of the girls who were lost. Be with the girls’ grandparents. With the camp staff. Be with the remorseful, the ones who cannot stop blaming themselves.

Be with the girls’ friends from school. With their teachers who loved them so. Be with the family pets, who still wait at front doors, tails wagging, wondering when their favorite girl is going to get back home.

Be with the entire community. Drape yourself over their towns and neighborhoods like a heavy mist.

Be with the rescuers, the first responders, the volunteers. Be with the EMTs, police officers, fire-medics, rescue parties, K-9 unit search teams,…

March, 1783. The Revolutionary War was not over. The throng of Continental soldiers encamped at headquarters was pissed.

And with good reason. The soldiers were bloody. Battered. They were sick. And worst of all, they were unpaid. Namely, because Congress would not get off its fat aspirations and pay its own army.

Just who did Congress think it was? These wealthy jerks, sitting in ornate boardrooms, wearing tight pants and powder wigs, making up new laws, refusing to fund their own army.

The soldiers were angry. Angry at the negligence. Angry at bloated government fatcats whose daughters mail-ordered clothes from Italy, whose sons studied Latin and ceramic pottery.

This was NOT the America the soldiers signed up for. This was B.S.

General Washington’s officers began whispering behind his back. They wrote seething letters in secret.

The soldiers had been circulating petitions suggesting large-scale mutiny. An anonymous letter was read aloud in the bunkhouses, barracks, and tents:

“Any further experiments on our patience may have fatal effects… If this then

be [our] treatment, while the swords [we] wear are necessary for the defence of America, what have [we] to expect from peace...?”

So the men’s minds were made up. They decided on mutiny. Screw this. They were going to abandon the war, let the American people fend for themselves against the British. Then, the army would march on Congress and demand paychecks, with muskets drawn.

Washintgon caught wind that his officers had planned a secret meeting. This was serious. These were HIS officers. HIS trusted guys. And they were plotting against him.

A meeting was called in New Windsor Cantonment, New York. March 15. A nation’s entire future hung in the balance. This is what happened at that meeting:

It was a large hall, entirely made of wood.…

A small-town Walmart. Rural. Lots of rusty trucks and 20-year-old cars. Busy. Tons of people from different walks.

The first thing you pass when you enter the crowded store is the greeter. An older Black woman, sitting on a stool. Blue vest.

Her smile is communicable. There’s something so happy in her eyes. Not fake. A warm, maternal energy.

Remember when you were little, and you’d show up to a church potluck with your mom? And all the church mothers would be there, buzzing around, setting up various casseroles, erecting card tables? All that maternal energy. All those smiles.

Remember how everybody knew everybody else? And everyone there was basically family? Remember what that felt like? Remember how even as a small child, you felt so… I don’t know. So not-alone. You felt so loved.

That’s what her smile somehow does to me.

Whereupon, I walk through this average Wally World, finding that I, too, am now smiling at random people.

There’s the guy at the pharmacy. He’s wearing construction clothes. Big

guy. Covered in grime. Marlboros in his shirt pocket. He’s missing teeth. He’s holding his little boy’s hand. And you can just FEEL how much his son worships him. You can also feel amazing love being exponentially returned by the father.

I smile at them. They both smile back.

In another aisle, a teenage girl, helping her mother. Mom is riding a motorized scooter. Mom has a surplus of tattoos on her bare shoulders and thighs, her head is half shaved, half permed. She doesn’t look that much older than the daughter.

They’re talking about something important, I can tell by body language. The girl is underconfident, struggling with something, and her mother is actively encouraging her child. I sense a deep, profoundly deep everlasting affection between…

Lake Martin shimmers beneath a heavy midday sun. I am sitting on a dock.

There are distant sounds of splashing. Kids laughing. All the children are swimming. All their respective adults are sitting ashore, dry. As adults often are.

There is nothing like July on the lake.

A boater comes speeding by, towing several middle-aged men on a water tube. The tube men are all yelling gaily, shouting two of the seven major American swear words.

The whole lake can hear these men. But nobody is offended by their language. We instead move in for a better look. Namely, because these men are well into their upper sixties, and yet here they are, traveling upwards of 187 mph behind the nautical thrust of approximately 350 horses.

Soon, everyone is watching these men. Then, the boat driver, who looks like a 12-year-old girl, throws the wheel and makes a donut in the water. The tube is whipped like a slingshot. The group of grandfathers lose their collective grip

and become instantly airborne, sailing into the great expanse of space-time, screaming barnyard expletives as they make their Wile E. Coyote-like journey into the lake, accompanied by splashes shaped like mushroom clouds from a nuclear field test.

I am drinking iced tea, taking it all in. The lake is teeming with youthful joy.

Nearby, I can hear kids playing Marco Polo. I hear them, giggling. Those poor kids. Marco Polo is pox on humanity.

I was a chubby boy. A redhead. A hopeless athlete devoid of coordination. Marco Polo was not my game. I hate Marco Polo. I once got caught in a game of Marco Polo that lasted over six years. This is why it has been my longstanding policy to cheat at Marco Polo. Life is too short.

Along with noises of…

There are a lot of things you can be. In fact, you can be anything you want in this life.

You can be social, or you can be anti-social. You can be an introvert, be an extrovert, or be an ambivert—which is both.

You can be alone. Or you can be a friend.

You can be cautious, be adventurous, be carefree.

Be exhausted, or be lively. Be wild, be peaceful, or you can be aggressive—be, be, aggressive!

You can always be right. A lot of people like to be this. They prefer to be an authority on every subject. These are probably the same people who were told by their parents to “be smart,” “be a winner,” or “don’t be an embarrassment.”

Meanwhile, some people would rather be quiet. Be in the background.

You can be other things, too. You can be a hard worker, be prepared, be responsible, be on top of things, be ready, or be a doer. Or you can be easy going, be chill, or be as lazy as

a house cat.

Then again, you could also be what other people want you to be. You can be a pleaser. You can be obligated. You can be busy, fulfilling everyone else’s needs. Be dutiful. Be committed to all causes but your own.

Or you can just be yourself. You can be free. Be empowered. Be comfortable with who you are. Be invested in your own life.

Likewise, you can be angry. Be upset. Be a victim. Be rageful. You can be crisis-centered. You can be the star of your own life’s movie.

Or you can be selfless. You can be nice. Be humble. Be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Be a helper, instead of a critic. Be a…