Marshall Ramsey

As his world crumbled around him, Gary Brandon couldn’t help but notice the taste of gun oil. He sat alone in his one-room apartment twitching the .38’s trigger. One pull. That’s all it would take to end his pain. One pull. Just one pull. He felt the muscles in his finger tighten on the steel. One pull.

But something stopped him.

Gary exhaled and thought about everything that had led him here. His wife had left him. She had cheated on him but the courts gave her the kids anyway. That had left him broke. Then he lost his job. Insult always follows injury.

How had he fallen so fast? Just a year ago, he was the top television meteorologist in town. Now he was broke and licking a gun barrel.

“Go ahead and pull the trigger. I always knew you were weak.”

Gary’s head swiveled around. Nothing. No one. Where had the voice come from?

“C’mon, you puss. Pull it. Put you out of my misery.”

Gary had heard the voice before. He searched his memory and uttered, “Naw. Couldn’t be.”

But it was. A ghostly specter came limping out of the darkness.

“Yep. I’m your guarding angel. #$%#$ imagine that.”

” But I thought you were in Hell.” Gary spat. He immediately recognized the wrinkled face. It was his high school offensive coordinator.

“What? No hug?”

“You’re dead. You died of a heart attack years ago.”

Gary’s old coach, sighed, “And for some reason, I’m now standing here. So you going to do it? You going to quit?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You tried to make me quit before.”

“And you did.”

Gary put the gun down and screamed, “BULL@#$!!. I stuck with your abuse.”

“But you stopped giving your full effort. You felt sorry for yourself. Just like you’re doing now.”

“I’M IN PAIN!!!!” Gary screamed.

The old coach spit and looked at his former star quarterback. “So you’re going to give that pain to your kids?”

Gary’s mouth opened. No sound came out.

“It wasn’t personal with you kid. I was getting back at your dad. Yeah. There it is. I’ll admit it, now.”

“You jerk.” Gary said.

The coach smiled, “Yeah. But it was fun watching him suffer when I benched you. So, you going to quit again? Or you going to fight this?”

“Why are you here? If I was going to get a guardian angel, why not someone who gives a damn about me?”

“Because the Boss knew you’d respond to me. And I’ll be honest, I’ve watched you grow up. You’ve kicked butt several times when faced with challenges. I am a little reluctant to say this, but I even have a little bit of respect for you. Didn’t see that coming.

But if you pull that trigger, you’ll be the quitter I always thought you were.”

Gary looked at the gun and then at his old coach.

“Kid, you still have fight in you. You’re still in the game. Breathe. In and out. Take a step and then another one. You have the rest of eternity to be where I am.”

Gary emptied the bullets out the gun and threw it across the room.

He then looked at the old coach and something amazing happened. His gray complexion began to glow. And as the room lit with a blazing white light, he changed into a ten-foot angel.

“You are a blessed man, Gary Brandon. Never forget that. I’ll always be your coach.”

Then the room went dark and Gary was alone.

As the University of Tennessee’s football team walks out of their locker room and onto the field, there is a sign above the door that each team member touches.

It reads, “I will give my all for Tennessee today.”

I love that. In fact, I like it so well, I am going to modify it ever-so slightly and hang it on our door out to the garage.

Our sign will read, “I will give my all for this family today.”

Because that’s what it is all about. We either succeed as a family or we fail as one. Everything I do is for Amy and my boys. And remembering that larger purpose is healthy.

The fact that its National Cancer Survivor’s Day just popped up in my Twitter feed. Honestly, it wasn’t even on my radar for some reason. I’m not speaking anywhere about surviving cancer. Nor have I made any elaborate plans. I ate cold pizza for breakfast (which I kind of regret now –That wasn’t exactly a healthy move on my part). I haven’t rubbed my melanoma scar or written anything about how people need to get checked for cancer. It’s 8 a.m., so I guess the day is young.

I did take my oldest son to the church so he could head off to scout camp. He’s 15 now. He wasn’t even one when I was diagnosed. I’m about to memorize some lines for a TV show. I need to plan my week. I am sitting here listening to my wife sleep. My youngest son is still snoozing, but I will make him breakfast soon. I woke up, saw the sunrise and said my thanks to the Lord.

Hmm. I guess I am celebrating National Cancer Survivor’s Day in the best way possible: I’m having a perfectly normal day.

And for that, I’m grateful beyond words.

I’m thankful I live in the era of:

1. Sneeze Guards. Let buffet food’s grossness stand on its own.
2. Air Conditioning: I bet the people in the 1800’s smelled.
3. Deodorant: See #2
4. YouTube: My wife said she’d watch MTV all day to see a Duran Duran video when she was a teen (good luck finding a video at all on MTV). Now she can watch one as quickly as she can type in “Her name is Rio.”
5. Airplanes: Orville and Wilber, you guys rock. Sure, airports kind of suck — but the whole experience of crossing world in hours instead of months is awesome.
6. Airbags. Not the kind that explode in your face randomly. But it beats the steel posts called a non-collapsable steering column that would impale our parents.
7. Remote controls. Yes son, when I was a kid, I was the remote control. I changed all three channels.
8. Microwave ovens: Making leftovers better since 1946.
9. Safety razors: Five safe blades > One scary-horror movie one.
10: The Internet. Teenage boys had to rely on National Geographic (um, for world knowledge.) Now you have the whole world tied to your phone. Great for sounding smart at parties. And copious pictures of cats.
11. Football. I’m still struggling with the whole concussion thing (because I had a few myself), but there is no better party than an SEC tailgate.
12. Netflix: Binge watched House of Cards last night. Allows me to watch stuff when I want it.
13. Modern Dentistry: Novocain for the win.
14. The Weather Channel. OK, showing my weather geekness here. But watching Jim Cantore in a hurricane is good TV.
15. High Fructose Corn Syrup: I hated being thin.
16. GPS: Now when people tell me to get lost, I smile say, “not possible.”
17. Turvis cups: No more sweating cups on the table.
18. Ice Makers: Ice trays were the devil.
19. Elevators. (Except for perfectly healthy people who take them only one floor.)
20. E-mail: I never would have gotten my million dollars from the man the nice man from Nigeria without it.
21. Star Wars. I’ll even forgive the prequels.
22. Personal groomers. Trimming nose hair is now a snap.
23. Soft-toilet paper. OK, toilet paper in general.
24. Interstate Highways. By-passing Mayberry’s speed traps since 1956.
25. Random lists of Facebook.

The gray sea looked like glass to the horizon. A terrible storm had hit this coast 71 years ago. Now all that remained were  the salty tears on Lucy Gilds’ cheeks.

She gingerly made her way down the path from the bluff to the sea. Her journey was simple compared to her father’s. But she wasn’t dodging bombs and bullets like he did. Going to the sea was easier than coming from it.

Pvt. Lawrence Gild had done it on a Higgins Boat. Spray and vomit stung his face. Lead killed his friends. Blood stained his clothes. He came ashore on Omaha Beach during the second wave. He was near the tip of the spear on D-Day.

Lucy hadn’t known it until March 15, 2015. Her jaw dropped when the lawyer read his final request. Now she was honoring it.

She knew he served in the Army during the war but thought he was behind the lines. At least that was what her mother said. Her mother was a woman full of secrets.

While she loved her father, she knew her mother’s heart belonged to someone else. She had met and fallen in love with a young Marine named Skip Walker.

Lucy had found their yellowed love letters while playing in the attic as a little girl.She held the flashlight and read his last letter. He was fighting on an island somewhere in the Pacific. While her father was storming ashore on Omaha Beach, a Japanese sniper ended Skip’s life.

Part of her mother died that day. The rest died in 1968 when the men in uniform showed up at their front door.

Her brother, a Marine (she remember her father’s anger he hadn’t joined the Army), was shot in the head by a Viet Cong sniper (how cruel that had to be to her mother). She and her parents stood in the cemetery as cold rain fell around them. The moment his coffin entered the earth, her mother stopped talking and started crying. Her mother would cry as her father sat at the kitchen table holding a glass of scotch.

Cancer took her a year later. But Lucy knew that it was a broken heart that killed her. Her father never remarried. A dark chill fell upon their house.

The Greatest Generation was a tortured generation.

Lucy had always thought her father to be cold and unloving. Now she knew the truth. Now she knew demons were haunting him.

Demons born on this beach.

After the war, her father came home, went to school on the G.I. Bill and became a teacher. Mild mannered Larry Gild. Her father retired in 1985 as superintendent of schools. Dementia slowly stole him from her in the late 2000s.

He died in his sleep at the age of 91.

Sleep. That was when the demons normally came. She remembered the screaming she and her brother heard from his bedroom. Her father, like so many of his generation dealt with it by swallowing it. He suffered from what was now known as PTSD.

Lucy took her shoes off and felt the sand under her feet. She quickly crossed the beach (something her father was not able to do) and walked into the surf. There she opened a small container and pulled out a bag of ashes.

Tears hit the water as the ashes touched the sea. After a lifetime of war, her father finally found peace.

I’ve always kind of liked Gordon Ramsay (other than he spells his name wrong.). He’s the foul-mouthed, passionate chef that pops up on TV judging contests and helping restaurants reinvent themselves. I’ve met Master Chef winner Whitney Miller and she thinks the world of the guy. I respect her, thus, I like him more.

Last night I watched him deal with a couple of particularly narcissistic restaurant owners (we were watching his show on Netflix). They’re from Arizona, I think — and even went on Dr. Phil afterwards because they came off so badly on Ramsay’s show. Ramsay offered them constructive criticism so they could help their restaurant recover from some bad online reviews and they blamed EVERYONE but themselves for their problems. Normally, he’s pretty darn rude. But he sat there and remained calm.

Then he walked away.

THAT impressed me. He chose not to argue. He could’ve cussed. He could have ranted back. But he didn’t.

It showed me a couple of things. One, people sometimes offer constructive criticism. And sometimes people just attack you. If you truly want to get better you have to be smart enough to know the difference. Get your damn ego out of the way.

And secondly, when people truly don’t care, they shut up and walk away.

“I have good days and bad days and going half-mad days.” Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers

I hit a wall yesterday.

No, not with my hand (Lord knows I don’t need any more hand problems). I mean I hit a figurative wall. Just everything from the last few months caught up with me. It was like I was trying to run through molasses and failing miserably.

You know the feeling. I read your Facebook posts. We all have our challenges. The last six months have kicked my butt. I feel like Rocky after the first fight with Mr. T.

I’ve been juggling chainsaws and dropping them. If you’ve been cut, I apologize. I’ll do better.

But what it has done is teach me what and who are truly important. Thank goodness for my wife of 21 years. I’m married to a rock. Amy’s solid when I need her the most. My boys are amazing and make me want to be a better man. I won the sister lottery. I’ve seen them do the right thing time and time again. Like I told my aunt last night, we have a special family when we’re not grumpy.

Challenges are like a rock and a boat. When you hit one, you either sink or you get shoved in a better direction. I feel like I’ve been shoved in a better direction.

So, all I say is this, it’s all good. I’m a blessed man and I know it.

Now, I need to get to work.

I’m not sure if there is a world record for throwing a pity party, but at six months, I knew I was in the running for it. I was Custodian One at Pope High School and I was feeling pretty darn sorry for myself. I’m really not sure why — I should have just been glad I had a job. But I had just graduated from college and I was miserable. Cleaning toilets wasn’t a rung on my career ladder.

I had my diploma Xeroxed and taped to my trash barrel. I was as much fun to be around as a chronic flatulence sufferer in an elevator.

Sometimes you hear the right words at the right time. I was reintroduced to the Parable of the Talents — Matthew 25: 14-30. You know the story. A master cuts out of town and leaves his talents (currency) with his three servants. One gets 15. The second gets 10. And the third gets one. I’m not sure why each got a different number but the two who got more got busy, reinvested them and made the master very happy upon his return. He rewarded them with more talents. But the servant who got one panicked. He was so afraid of losing his talent, that he buried it. Needless to say, the master was irked. There was some serious gnashing of teeth. I haven’t gnashed teeth, but I assume it is bad.

I felt a cold sweat. I realized I was THAT servant. I was burying my ability to draw. I went back to work the following Monday and started drawing every which way I could. I even drew on the walls and cleaned it off. (I was a janitor after all.) Soon afterwards, doors began to open up for me. And the rest is, as they say, history. I went from being a janitor to working at The Marietta Daily Journal. I met my future mother-in-law who set me up with her daughter. My career and life were launched.

That was 23 years ago. And it is a message I need to be hear again today. As I was standing on top of the Chimney Tops in the Smoky Mountains this week, I thought about the talents I’ve been given. I once viewed it mainly as my drawing ability. But as I looked down at an eagle flying below me, I realized that maybe it was something bigger. Maybe the talent the Master gave me is time.

Yes time.

I can’t bury that gift any more. I have to make the most of every precious second I’ve been given. Yes, I need to use my literal talents like drawing, writing and speaking. But at the end of my life, I have to have used all the time I’ve been given with all the gusto I have.

I can’t bury it. I have to use it.

So it’s time to get off the couch and get busy. My talent is wasting away. It’s time to seize the day.

Ten things I remind myself of every morning. Somedays I even accomplish some of them.

1. You are where you are because of past decisions. If you want to be somewhere else, start making different decisions.
2. Respect is not a participation trophy. You have to earn it.
3. Don’t try to please other people. If you want to succeed, set your own higher standards.
4. Disrespect is fuel, not a reason to quit.
5. Hard work solves most problems.
6. Learn to laugh at what scares you.
7. Pay your blessings forward and help others find their blessings.
8. There is no pro in procrastination. It’s totally an amateur move.
9. Appreciate every sunrise. Make your effort be your thank you note.
10. Love unconditionally. Everything else, set standards.