He was two when his mother gave him up. He has one faint memory of her.

In the memory, she’s sitting in the backseat, holding him. He remembers radio music. Sunlight. That’s all.

It’s a short recollection, but it’s all he has.

She gave him to his aunt—who had even more addiction problems than his mother. It was a bad idea. He was five when his aunt gave him to the foster system.

Group homes are not places you want to find yourself. Three square meals and a bed. It’s no day at the Ramada.

When he was thirteen he came down with pneumonia. It landed him in the hospital for a week. He didn’t care if he survived.

At night, he’d stare out his hospital window and wonder if anyone even cared that he was sick.

Someone cared. A woman with gray hair and kind eyes. She was a night-shift nurse.

“What’cha staring at?” she asked him once.

“I dunno,” he said. “Stars, I guess.”

She talked. He listened. She

told stories. All kinds. A good story can do a lot for a lonely kid.

She told a story about her grandmother, who was raised in orphanages during the Great Depression.

The boy was all ears.

She told him how her granny wore plain clothes and ate institutional food. How love ran thin. And how one day, she got married.

The kid’s face perked up.

“My granny wasn’t lonely forever,” the nurse said. “When she met my grandfather, she inherited a big family. She was so happy.”

When Granny passed, she'd become the happiest orphan in ten states. She had a big family. Fourteen grandkids.

“That’s a lot of grandkids,” the boy said.

“One day,” the nurse said. “You’ll have a big family.”

The thought made him smile.

But life isn’t a…

Memphis, 1984—your name is Billy. You’ve got two bucks left to your name.

A few months ago, your landlord kicked you out. Strike one. You got fired from your job. Strike two. Then, your dog was hit by a car. Strike three.

Thanks for playing, Billy.

The last few months, you’ve been sleeping in your storage unit. But not for long. You only have a few days left before the unit lease is up.

Then, you’ll be living in your car.

And you know, of course, this was all your own fault. How could you not know? You’re no angel.

Right now, it’s late night, and you’re walking into a supermarket because you’re hungry. You’ve already searched dumpsters behind restaurants.

And hunger doesn’t just go away.

So you shove apples and bananas into your jacket pockets. A loaf of bread. An old woman sees you do it. You notice her. Now she’s following you through the store.

Great. Just what you need.

“Young man,” she says. “Don’t do it.”

There’s no use ignoring her. Besides, you’re a terrible liar. You hang your head and say, “I don’t know

what else to do, ma’am. I’m starving.”

She’s sweet. Eyes like dewdrops. Face like your Great Aunt. She tells you to walk with her.

You put the food back. She holds your arm; you push her cart. She shops. You reach items on top shelves, lift heavy things, you help her check out.

She asks you to follow her home. So you do. You drive behind her—your tank is on “E.” So is your belly. It’s dark.

“This is ridiculous,” you say to yourself.

Hers is a small house. You remove your jacket and hang it on her kitchen chair. You unload her groceries. She makes you a pot of canned chili.

When you finish, she hands you a few bucks. It’s not much. But it’s her kindness that touches you. You…

Do you remember when we met? I do.

It was a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I was reading; you were with friends. You waltzed through the door with that determined walk you have. That I-can-take-care-of-myself walk.

There are some things a man never forgets.

You wore a baby-blue sweater. Your hair was chin-length. We must’ve talked for an hour. Two strangers. A chance meeting.

No. I take that back. I don’t believe in chances.

How about the long drives we took just for fun? We’d ride two-lane highways through the night for an excuse to talk. We’ve always been able to carry our weight in words.

I asked you to marry me. You said yes. I gave you a jeweler's box containing the world’s tiniest diamond. It cost me every dollar I had. You wore red that night. Red.

We got married in a small chapel. We honeymooned in Charleston. We had no money for that trip, but we went anyway.

We were dumber back then.

I miss being dumb.

How about our ugly apartment. Remember that place? I drove by it yesterday, for old time’s sake. The grounds were overgrown. Mold on the siding. What a dump.

Our old neighbors were still there. The same ones who had fleas that infested the whole building.

God, I loved that place.

Then there was the time I wrecked the truck. The man behind us fell asleep at the wheel. You were listening to the radio when it happened.

“Shameless,” was the song playing. I thought we were dead. It was a miracle we survived.

But then, our whole lives have been one big miracle, you know? You got me through college. You tutored me through math class. Those are miracles in themselves.

We used to argue hard sometimes. When our spats ended, we didn’t get lovey dovey like adolescents.…

She didn’t expect her life to turn out the way it did. She expected something else. Something mundane.

Let’s back up. She was past middle age, rounding the corner into old age when she met him.

She was a retired hairdresser. A faithful Methodist. Two daughters, a small home, and a Shih Tzu named Bill.

She met him in the doctor’s office. He was with his granddaughter. The little girl was the first to start the conversational momentum.

“Are you a grandmama?” the girl asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said.

That was the beginning of it all. Sometimes, it only takes a few words.

The three of them went to lunch that same day. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. The most fun she’d had in years.

He called and asked her to dinner the next night. She turned him down. It was more out of instinct than anything.

She’d always considered herself a married woman before.

She let a week pass before she called him. Her

opening line was: "I changed my mind...”

So they went. She wore a pink suit. Her friend, Maria, teased her hair to perfection.

They ate at a nice place. They ordered wine—which went straight to her head. She told him about her life, her daughters, her grandchildren. And even though she didn’t mean to, she started talking about her late husband.

She caught herself. “I feel so embarrassed,” she said.

He told her not to be. Then, he talked about his late wife. About the stroke, about caring for her.

They stayed out until two in the morning.

And it was easy sailing from there. She took him to church. He brought her to his granddaughter’s musical. She cooked for him. He ate.

They announced they’d be having a ceremony in her backyard after four months of dating.

He plays a banjo downtown, Crestview, Florida. He’s a big fella, thick-bearded, with a personality so jolly he makes Santa look like a jerk.

“Whatcha want me to play?” he asks a few kids.

Somebody's mother asks, "Do you know ‘Will the Circle be Unbroken?’”

He does. And he plucks through it like a man whose beard is on fire. He plays this music like he belongs in a different world. An older one.

The world your great-grandparents came from—long before twenty-four-hour news channels.

He was homeless for a long time, and it's been hard on his body. He uses a wheelchair. Once, he even died on an operating table from a collapsed lung.

But he's a cheery son of a banjo.

He fingerpicks the tune, “I’ll Fly Away.” And even though I've never met this man, I know him. Just like I know all the verses to this song. It's a melody which sounds like a hymn, but isn't. It's more than that.

It's a rural church, with wood floors. Where preaching is more like shouting, and the

pastor rolls up his sleeves to pray for folks.

It's a funeral procession made of cars with headlights on.

The music is salt peanuts in Coca-Cola, straw hats, and side-of-the-road boiled-peanut shacks.

Like the peanut stand I stopped at last week, outside Dothan. The old man filled my bag until I needed a forklift to move it.

“It's on the house,” the man said.

I paid him anyway.

The banjo-man isn't playing for onlookers at all. He's playing for men who hunted coon with oil lanterns, and women who could grow camellias in red clay dirt—and did.

Women like Miss Flora, whose hair is whiter than Elvis’ Resurrection suit. Who still remembers when the biggest news in the universe wasn't Facebook politics, it was a war in Europe.

“During the Great War,” Miss Flora says—tapping her foot to the banjo rhythm.…

He’s young. Mid-twenties I'd guess. He is bagging my groceries but he isn't paying attention. He is just looking at me.

So, I give him the nicest smile I can, then I make a startlingly obvious remark about the weather.

He answers by saying, "You like cheese?”

It feels like a trick question. So I plead the Fifth Amendment.

“It’s REALLY GOOD cheese,” he insists.

The cashier giggles, and I half-expect this kid to ask me to pull his finger.

But instead he whispers, “It just came in. You wanna go see it?”

"Go see what?"

“CHEESE!”

How silly of me.

Thus, even though the cashier probably thinks I’ve fallen off my toy horsey, I follow him to the dairy section.

He walks with a limp, but he moves fast. I notice a large moon-shaped scar on the side of his head where hair doesn't grow.

“Hey Dan!” says my dairy-liaison to a man in a red apron. “This guy wants to see the CHEESE!"

The man leads me to a basket in the cooler case.

“This is it,” says the red apron. “We only get

it once a year. Comes from Georgia, aged thirty months.”

It doesn't look so special. I ask him if it’s truly as good as my broker advertises.

“It's pretty good,” he says. “If you’re into cheese."

“AND IT COMES IN A WHEEL!” the young man points out.

The older man explains how the cheese arrives in a big circular package, and how it’s up to the deli to slice the stuff.

Traditionally, such an honor is given to the most valued deli employee. This year, the privilege fell to a certain young bag-boy with a vibrant personality.

The kid’s face lights up like Biloxi. "I CUT THE CHEESE!" He laughs as hard as he can.

Cute.

As it happens, besides being a champion cheese-cutter, I learn this kid was once a promising outfielder, and…

I don't know how to put this, so I'll just come right out and say it.

You are enough.

Maybe you don't need to hear that. But I feel it's important to tell you since some folks are sending today's kids a different message. One that says you AREN'T enough.

And they're full of Shinola.

I don’t know where these screwy messages come from. But just for laughs, let's say they come from a radio-tower operated by a fella named Lou—who has goat horns and a pitchfork.

And these radio broadcasts play inside our brains. They go something like:

“Welcome to tonight's broadcast of: You're a Big Stinking Loser, Kid. Tonight's episode: Top Ten Reasons Why You'll Never Amount To Spit. Now let's take our first caller..."

Everyone's radio picks up Lou’s god-awful programs. Both rich and poor people. And after listening to Lou for a while, these folks start to feel unsatisfied. And it's a feeling that's spreading like black fever.

Chances are, even your mailman feels dissatisfied—just ask him.

Today, too many young folks feel like they

aren't enough. To fix this, some kids find heroes who they consider MORE than enough. These are usually the wrong heroes— celebrities with fat bank accounts and fake body parts.

And this is exactly what Lou wants.

But you should know: Lou is a liar. And I know this because he still owes me money from the Super Bowl.

So don't listen to him. Don't be one of those kids who tries to measure up to Lou’s ridiculous ideas.

If you want to know my opinion, here it is:

You came out of your mama’s belly. Which was no easy task. Your mama probably screamed bloody murder, squirting you into this world. You should've seen yourself, you were something else. When folks caught glimpses of you, they couldn't help but stare.

And on that day, you weren't just “enough.” You were…

Prichard, Alabama—I’m pumping gas. This is a bad part of town. The kind of place you see on the evening news, where they string yellow tape on people’s porches.

Here, locals often speak to news cameras, saying: “He seemed like such a nice man, pumping gas, minding his business, then WHAM!”

I should’ve waited to buy gas somewhere else.

I see a man pushing a shopping cart full of tin cans. After him: two women in leopard-print Spandex, probably on their way to Bible study.

When I pay at the pump, I hear a voice. It's a man. He makes a beeline for me, hollering, “Hey boss!” He's old, wearing a backpack and an Army ball-cap. His eyes are bloodshot.

He says, “Help a veteran out, man. I'm a veteran. I swear. You wanna see my veteran card?”

I shake his hand and introduce myself. He misunderstands me when I tell him my name and calls me “John.”

This man's breath is strong enough to kill mosquitoes.

I reach for my wallet. All I have is a ten and

a Target gift card. I hand them over.

It's not much, but he thanks me and says, "John, I'm gonna use this to buy food, John, I promise."

I wish he’d quit calling me that.

Anyway, modern wisdom says it’s unwise to give money to men like this. And maybe that's true. But, I come from a long line of men who do stupid things with cash.

My great grandaddy, for instance, was a card-playing gambler and a whiskey sipper.

My father was frivolous in a different way. Once, I rode to Franklin with Daddy. He picked up a hitchhiker. We rode some two hundred miles while that young man talked Daddy's ear off. He was filthy, and smelled like a substance commonly found in cattle pastures.

My daddy just listened.

We pulled into a truck stop. Daddy bought him lunch,…

Marie was a Waffle-House waitress with two kids. She smoked like a fish, worked like a trail horse, and was self-conscious about her teeth.

Several of us fellas used to visit her every weekday morning for breakfast.

Once she showed me a bronze token.

“I've been in recovery for nine years," she said. "My boyfriend got me into meth, it almost killed me. I’ve learned that sharing my embarrassing secrets is what sets me free...”

Secrets.

Like the man I know whose mother lived with him. She died in his living room. I’ve known this man a while—he lived four houses down. He borrowed my lawnmower once. I thought he lived alone.

I asked him why he never talked about his mother.

He said, “Aw, everybody's got problems, nobody wants to hear about mine.”

Then, there's the secret I learned at my friend’s second wedding. The same fella I’ve known for years—since his long-haired days.

“My ex-wife used to beat me,” he admitted. "She’d throw things, hit me, kick me… Once, she punched me so hard, I had to have eye

surgery. I was too humiliated to talk about it.”

Or: Deidra—which isn't her name. She's wife to the pastor of one of those Six-Flags-Over-Jesus churches that have Chick-Fil-A's in the lobbies. Her husband has been cheating on her and stealing church funds.

She finally left him, but his sins never surfaced. Instead, he told his congregation that Deidra had robbed the church blind.

She’s been in therapy two years, battling ideas of suicide.

That brings me to my daddy, a man I write about often—probably too often. And I won’t beat around the bush, he was a tortured soul.

But he was also a good man, trapped in a vicious brain. His self-inflicted death came as a shock to anyone who knew him, even close friends. But then, few knew the hell he suffered in secret.

How could they?…