Hank got home from work late. His 1969 Buick Riviera—metallic blue—rolled into the carport of a nondescript one-story-one-bath in Suburbia, USA. He stepped out of his car. He stretched his back.

It was nighttime. The moon was out.

He was tall, lean, with salt-and-pepper hair. More salt than pepper. He wore a tan suit and a striped necktie because this was the uniform of the American desk jockey.

In his den, Hank found his son and daughter sitting cross-legged before a glowing television screen, their two noses practically smooshed against the tele-tube glass.

Hank’s wife was perched on the edge of their sofa, smoking Camels, her eyes focused on the RCA console.

“Hi,” said Hank.

“Ssshhh,” his wife said.

She didn’t say “Hello.” Neither did she say, “Hi, honey, how was work?” It was just “Sssshhh.”

“Sorry I’m home late,” he said. “Traffic was just—”

“Sssshhh,” everyone said in unison.

He left the den and entered the vinyl kitchen. He placed his briefcase onto the enamel kitchen table. He retrieved an Old Milwaukee from the Kelvinator refrigerator.

In the oven was

his Swanson TV dinner, baking on low heat, still boiling in its volcanic-lava gravy. He took one bite of his unevenly heated turkey-and-mashed-potatoes and the roof of his mouth was ruined forevermore.

This food reminded him of the C-rations he ate when he was in Italy, fighting Hitler. Except, the field rations tasted better than this flash-frozen slop.

He returned to the den to find his family still rapt before the screen.

He said, “What are you all watchin—”

“SSSHHH!!!”

The voice on the TV sounded like it was coming from a walkie-talkie. The voice said: “This is Houston, Roger. We copy. And we're standing by...”

His family was lost within the black spell of the boob tube. He didn’t understand these people. How had they let technology invade their lives like this? Look at them. They were vegetables.

“I’ve never met a blind dog before,” said the little boy.

He was a foster child, his foster mother was with him. We were all introduced by chance in a public park.

The boy watched my dog, Marigold, walking along, bumping into a nearby fence. We were out for a potty-break. Marigold was trying to find a suitable patch of grass to do what I call, “leaving constructive criticism.”

The boy watched us in rapt wonder. We are a team. Dog and man. Marigold and me.

I am Marigold’s “Seeing Eye” human. My job is to guide her through this world of woe. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m trying.

And at this particular moment, I was following Marigold closely with a plastic baggy over my hand, ready to do my duty.

“Why is she blind?” the boy asked.

I chose my words carefully. Because how do you tell an innocent foster child that somebody took a blunt object to this puppy’s head and destroyed her eyes?

How do you tell a child there are humans out there who would use

a length of rebar as a weapon against a soft, floppy-eared puppy?

“Someone hurt her,” I said.

“Why?”

“Not everyone’s a nice person.”

The boy’s eyes grew serious. “Yeah. I know.”

He looked at Marigold prancing along and said nothing. He just observed.

The kid was maybe 6. He wore Levi’s and a striped shirt that showed his little belly. His hair was strawberry. Opie Taylor eat your heart out.

His foster mother said he’s had a rough life. And that is all I’m permitted to tell you about him.

He watched Marigold with great interest. Marigold walks with a cautious gait. Sometimes she high-steps like she’s hiking through tall grass. She does this so she won’t stumble on any sudden obstacles.

We’ve been working on things, every day. When we go for walks, off-leash, I…

Lake Martin is calm. There aren’t many people here. Spring break is over. All the bikinis and beer kegs have gone home, never to return again until this summer.

I am watching the still water, thinking about how much I’ve changed.

I’m older. I’m stiffer in the mornings. I don’t have the metabolism I used to. Used to, I could eat a Big Mac and finish the day like a hummingbird. Now I become akin to a gorilla hit with a tranquilizer dart.

Time seems to move faster, too. I don’t know why. When I was a 10-year-old one day lasted a hundred years. At this age, a day is only a few minutes.

Life, my granddaddy used to say, is not unlike a roll of toilet paper; the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. And oftentimes, the roll is finished long before you are.

Wisdom.

Sometimes I wish we could slow down the aging process, but the only way we could do that is to get Congress involved. And what would

be the point?

Old age used to be coveted. Old age used to be a big deal. Sadly, it’s not cool to be old anymore. When was the last time you saw an elderly person in a car commercial?

My grandmother used to always say old age is a privilege denied to many. She ought to have known. It was denied to her. She wasn’t 70 when she died.

My aunt Irma was 77 when she went. She was a tough woman. She buried three husbands, and two of them were just napping.

I bring all this up because I made a speech yesterday at an old folks home. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to call them old folks homes, they’re “assisted living facilities.”

But the old folks were calling it an “old folks home” because old folks don’t get worked up about…

“What is Easter?” the boy asked his grandfather.

The old man and boy sat on the front porch. That’s where people used to sit in the olden days. They used to build porches on the fronts of houses so you could wave at your neighbors. Now they build “decks” on the back so you can wave at your above-ground pool.

“Easter is a day of rebirth,” said Granddaddy.

The two cohorts were still wearing their Sunday best. The boy: His necktie and khakis. The grandfather: His button down, crisply pressed, with only a few tobacco-spit stains on the collar.

“What’s rebirth?” the boy said.

“Well, you remember when you was born, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, trust me you were born, or else you wouldn’t be here.” Granddaddy took a sip of his Doctor Pepper. “And today it all happens again.”

“What happens again?”

“You get born.”

“I get born twice?” the boy said.

He nodded. “Look at the trees and the flowers, see how they’re all blooming? You see those azaleas across the street.”

“Which ones are the azaleas?”

“The pink ones that Mrs. Wannamaker will slit your throat you if

you touch.”

“I see them.”

“And the trees, look at them. They’re turning green. The birds are singing. That’s what resurrection means.”

“It means birds?”

“No. Resurrection means, when something comes back to life. And it’s a miracle, every time something gets reborn. Because a new beginning is a miracle.”

“Is that why we look for eggs on Easter?”

“No. Hell. I don’t know why we look for eggs.”

He took another sip. “Look,” he went on, “you know all those crosses people wear around their necks?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think we’re wearing the wrong thing around our necks. We shouldn’t be wearing the cross. The cross is death. It’s a tool of execution. It’s like wearing an electric chair around your neck. Or a hangman’s noose.”

“Granny wears…

Yesterday was Vietnam War Veterans Day. It’s the day the last troops were pulled from Vietnam.

In Washington D.C., near the intersection of 22nd Street NW and Constitution Avenue NW, just north of the Lincoln Memorial, stands their wall. A wall of black granite. It’s huge.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial consists of 140 stone panels, polished to a high finish, sunken into the earth. The panels create a massive wall that is 493 feet and 6 inches long, about the size of a skyscraper laid on its side.

You expect the wall to be big, but you’re not prepared for how big it really is. This thing is ginormous.

I was in D.C. a few months ago. The granite gleamed in the morning sun, I stood before the never-ending wall of stone, sipping a bottle of water, taking it all in. The Washington Monument was on one side, Honest Abe was on my other.

There was an old man and his grandson roaming the wall, reading the names reverently. The old man had a wild white

beard, he wore an army cap.

“Look, Grandpa,” said the kid, “is this one my uncle’s name?”

“Lower your voice,” said Granddaddy.

“But… Why are we whispering?

“Respect,” the old man said.

There was indeed a very respectful mood at the Vietnam memorial, which surprised me. I’ve been to U.S. war memorials before. And at most National Park Service war memorials the mood is nonchalant, happy even. Because most memorials commemorate wars that happened so long ago that nobody can remember them.

At the Gettysburg Memorial, for example, I saw hundreds of families pushing strollers, laughing, posing with performers in Civil War costumes, snapping selfies. At Arlington National Cemetery, I saw school kids playing tag among gravestones.

But people were silent here.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is not like other American memorials. Here, I saw old men touching the wall, heads bowed. There were…

Opening Day of baseball.

The neighborhood is alive with summer sounds. It’s lunchtime. I’m sipping my lunch from a tin can.

I have a friend with me. A 12-year-old blind girl named Becca. My goddaughter and I are wearing loud, ugly Hawaiian shirts and our Braves hats. Per the tradition. My wife is cussing at the radio.

A few streets over, I hear kids’ voices. Their far-off laughter is infectious. I know they’re playing catch because I hear the rhythmic slaps of leather. Like a metronome.

And I’m thinking about the innumerable evenings my father and I played catch. Catch was our thing. We played whenever the mood hit.

Daddy never went anywhere without our ball gloves in the backseat. We played catch in all kinds of places. In public parks. In driveways. Backyards. In the church parking lot, during the sermon.

Some men’s fathers were Methodists or Presbyterians. My father was a National League man.

Which is why I am on the front porch, listening to dad’s old Zenith console radio. Tweed speaker. Particle-wood cabinet. The

game sounds like it’s coming out of a walkie talkie, courtesy of 690 AM. Joe Simpson is in good voice today.

As each year goes by, baseball gets harder to love. The salaries get higher. The game gets more commercial. I keep getting older; the players stay the same age.

The sport of my youth no longer resembles itself. When I was a kid, professional baseball was played by guys who looked like beer-swilling lumberjacks and retired war veterans.

Bucky Dent was the man. Dale Murphy was a deity. You had guys like George Brett, with cheeks full of Red Man, rushing the mound after an inside pitch to beat the pitcher’s everlasting aspirations.

We had Ripken. Nolan. Sid Bream. And it wasn’t a game unless Bobby Cox made a serious attempt to decapitate an umpire.

Baseball has new rules now. The worst…

She sang before a small room in the back of an average American library. A 12-year-old blind girl. She’s cuter than a duck in a hat.

She stood before a microphone. She sang. Her eyes were closed because her eyelids don’t open. Her irises are dead, but her eyes used to be hazel.

She wore dental braces. She was clothed in a blue dress. Her hair was in braids. She’s a typical kid. Loves macaroni and cheese. Adores her iPhone. Appreciates any kind of humor that makes usage of the word “butt,” “booger,” or “fart.”

There were 120 of us piled up in the library. All Birminghamites. I was doing an informal book event. I made a speech. I wanted her to sing to my friends.

She did. I guided her to the mic. She sang the song of my grandparent’s generation. “Smile.” Written by Charlie Chaplin in 1936.

A song my grandmother used to hum throughout the Great Depression. A song with lyrics that remind listeners that life is still

worthwhile, if you smile. A song that’s gotten me through some hard times.

The sniffles started from the back of the room. They moved to the front. Soon, the accompanist was sniffing, too.

You watch a blind girl, a kid who has undergone some 50 million surgeries; a kid who was born to drug-addicted parents who left her in a crib for the first two years of her life so that her head was flattened; a kid who wasn’t touched; a kid who spent the first portion of her life withdrawing from crack in an NICU; and this kid tells you to smile although your “heart is breaking,” it does something to you.

An old man broke down and wept. And old woman had to be escorted out of the room. A young boy started crying so hard he had to be consoled.

The kid got a standing ovation.…

One year.

It’s been one year since it happened. Blessed are the victims of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, for they are with God.

Blessed are the Covenant School staff members, the traumatized, the wounded, for these shall be called Children of God.

Blessed are the three 9-year-olds, Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and William Kinney, whose innocent bodies were demoralized in a senseless act of murder, for they are seated on the lap of the Almighty. Blessed are Cynthia Peak (61), Mike Hill (61), and Katherine Koonce (60), for their lives were beautiful.

Blessed are their loved ones, with broken hearts, with battered minds. Blessed are all Nashvillians who wept one year ago.

Blessed are the shell-shocked. Blessed are the confused. Blessed are the pissed-off. Blessed are the traumatized. Blessed are the people who still blame themselves, even though it’s not their fault. Blessed are the bystanders.

Blessed are the men and women in Nashville who can think of no other way to respond to this erratic tragedy than

to help others.

Blessed are the total strangers who showed up on the scene 365 days ago, just to cry. Blessed are those gathered outside Covenant School to hold candles, present bouquets, and memorialize the lost ones.

Blessed are the local media persons whose job was to stand in front of cameras and report, matter-of-factly, on the worst crime of humanity.

Blessed are all those with big hearts, who just wanted to help. Blessed are the givers. The doers. The feeders. The bakers. The babysitters. The shuttle drivers. In a world of people blinded by their own anger, bless you. A million times, bless you. You are not invisible.

Blessed are those who painstakingly tried to maintain peace, especially while everyone else in this world was fighting like rabid canines. As politicians held public urination contests, and random people on Facebook fought from 3,000 miles away. Blessed are the peacemakers.

“Hello, I am Deaf,” said the young woman. Her voice was loud. Her words were enunciated.

Her grandfather translated our conversation in sign language.

We were in the hotel lobby. Eating breakfast. Three strangers in the dining room, nursing plates of lukewarm eggs. Hotel breakfasts—even on good days—taste like reclaimed sewage.

The woman was mid-20s. She wore a pink dress and high-top basketball shoes. Brunette. Brown eyes. Her personal style is one her granddaddy calls “funky.”

The young woman was reading my lips, eyes focused on my mouth. I tried to talk slow, but she was having problems understanding. So her grandfather began signing.

“I can read lips,” the young woman finally explained. “But not yours. You have a beard, your mouth is hard to see with all that hair.”

I told her that next time we met, I would make sure to give the old Chia Pet a trim.

She was born Deaf. Her biological mother was didn’t want her, so the girl was given away to one of her aunts. But her aunt didn’t

want her either. Her aunt was more concerned sustaining a lifelong pain-pill buzz.

So her aunt just left her in the crib all day, until the infant girl almost starved. A neighbor found the baby when they heard her screaming. A baby has to be crying pretty loud for neighbors to hear.

Someone rescued her. Within months, she was adopted by an older couple in their 60s. And this is where Grandaddy takes over telling the story.

“It was my wife,” said the old man. “She was the one who heard about her first. There was no way my wife wasn’t bringing this baby home.”

The young woman blushes when the story is told. She calls the old man “Grandpa,” and her adoptive mother used to be called “Grandma.” Grandma is deceased now.

I asked why she calls her parents by these names instead…

The email came this morning from an 72-year-old reader named Gerald. Gerald is a Baptist minister from Arkansas.

“Dear Sean,” his letter began. “...Sometimes you write good articles but I am so disgusted when you write flippantly about alcohol and beer, Scripture says ‘Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled to excess with the Spirit…’”

This is exactly the kind of positivity I needed today. Thank you for the kind words, Gerald. But you forgot to comment on my cheap haircut and my weak jawline.

Anyway, today I decided to write a special column for Gerald. This story was emailed to me recently by a reader named Lucía.

Our story begins in Utah, where a young woman named Melanie was living in an abusive relationship. She was 26.

Since abuse only works in isolation, Melanie’s boyfriend kept her away from friends and family. Privacy is paramount for abuse to succeed.

Melanie was pregnant. She went to a doctor’s appointment and found out she was 20 weeks pregnant. And it all

sunk in.

“I’m bringing a baby into this world,” she was thinking. “Is this the life I want for my baby?”

So late one night, she steals her boyfriend’s car. It’s a Toyota. A crappy one. She aims the car Southeast. And she just drives. No destination in mind.

Melanie has a little money, but not much. She sleeps at rest areas in the backseat. She bathes in truckstop bathrooms. She survives on Uncle Ben’s and lunchmeat.

She lands at a halfway house in Colorado. In a few months she has her baby. When her baby is born, she is surrounded by halfway-house volunteers. Each of them, women. Each has been in an abusive relationship before.

She lives at the halfway house. She decides to go back to school. She enrolls in a community college. Melanie undergoes remedial education, then receives a two-year degree. Whereupon she…