I sort of raised myself.

My dad died when I was a kid. He died by suicide, shortly after he’d been released from county lockup on bail. His death was dramatic. It made the papers. On his final night, he almost took my mother to the grave with him.

I was 11 years old. And at the time, I thought this was pretty old. I mean—hello?—I was practically 12. In some cultures, my cousin once told me, boys were starting families at 12.

But the older I grew, the more I realized what a baby 11 was. I was an infant.

As a result of losing my father young, I learned a lot about life. I learned lessons my peers, thankfully, didn’t need to learn.

Foremostly, I learned how to make crappy decisions. I made TONS of bad decisions. One right after the other. This goes with the territory. Boys without dads don’t have the luxury of someone making decisions for them.

One of my first idiotic decisions was to quit the baseball team. I did this because I couldn’t face the guys anymore. They didn’t understand me. They’d quit calling, quit asking if I could come outside and play.

They sat on the opposite side of the lunchroom. Didn’t speak to me. Acted like I had plague. It wasn’t their fault. It’s just how kids are.

My second bad decision was to drop out of school. This happened in seventh grade. I declared to my mother that I would never go back. She was going through so much post-trauma of her own, she said, “Whatever.” And that was that.

Truancy officers came to our house sometimes, but eventually they quit showing up. And I kind of disappeared. My name fell into oblivion.

Everyone pretty much forgot about me. I became a nonentity. I worked crap jobs. I was cosmic debris. I was white trash. At least that’s how I felt.

But I’m not trying to depress you. I actually have a point to all this—so, give me a moment to make one up.

See, over time, I made SO MANY bad decisions, that eventually I learned to make good ones. Namely, because good judgment comes from experience. And experience comes from crappy judgment.

But as I continue to age, I look back into the coldcase files of my childhood and I realize none of the good judgment in my life was EVEN MINE. None of the right choices were mine. The good choices were kind of MADE FOR ME.

Somehow.

Looking back at my own boyhood story, I see an element in the story-arc, one I never saw before. A Presence. An Omniscience, hovering above the whole mural of my past, present, and future. Like a mother hen, guarding its young.

I am referring to something much vaster, something much more expansive than some Protestant version of an Eternal Santa Claus wearing a John-Belushi toga.

I am talking about a being so mysterious, so monumental, so everlasting, that the moment you try to attach a name to this presence, you’ve already screwed up.

Because to name it would be an attempt to define it. And to try to define it would be—by definition—ridiculous. This would be like attempting to swallow the Titanic. Or paint the Grand Canyon purple. You can’t do it. It is mere arrogance to think you can.

Which is why people who claim to have the answers are ALWAYS wrong. Because only a fool is capable of thinking he is wise. The truly wise person is wise enough to know he’s a fool.

Well, when I was a kid, God became this fool’s dad. I realize this now. I didn’t raise myself at all. I had a dad all along. And so do you.

I hope you know this. I hope you feel this. Way down in your soul. I hope you embrace it. I hope you never sink so low that you forget this.

Because you might be some 11-year-old’s dad. And that 11-year-old needs you.