Marshall Ramsey

This weekend, I saw my dad take three things, combine them and make a very funny joke. While dementia is stealing his memory for him, he still has his sense of humor. He’s still there. He still remembers me. He is still proud of my boys. He spends his days standing by the fire and greeting people when they walk in the memory-care home. And he beams when I walk through the door.

When he says he loves me, I know he means it. Through all the mourning and pain, that’s a balm that heals.

I know that his light will eventually flicker out. And I dread that day. I’ve had a taste of it already. Last November, he didn’t know he had a son. That hurt. I’ve had some other remarkably painful moments for other reasons — some that just don’t make sense. So many of you have gone through this. You understand. Dementia is the devil walking the earth.

I’m road-weary. And I’m sad. I’m frustrated and disappointed. But honestly, this has made me realize how special my wife and sons are to me. They are positive souls that have kept me sane. I realize that while I can’t change people or events, I can make sure I never go down certain paths. I can be a great father and husband. And and a good brother to my sisters. I hope my parents realize what special daughters they have. I know I do.

My dad lost his two first-cousins to dementia and I know this is a nightmare for him. I get that. Because it’s now my nightmare that I can’t seem to wake up from either. Losing him this way sucks. There is not better way to put it.

All I can do is love and do what I can. I’ll be grateful. And I’ll dread the day when I hear my last joke from my dad.

Twenty-one days.

Three weeks.

Three-quarters of a month.

That’s how long it takes to change a habit.

I am taking a personal challenge of making a list of 21 things I want to change and changing them. For 21 days. If I succeed, I have started a new and better life. If I fail — well, I have a plan B. But plan B shall remain dusty. Anyone can have willpower for three-quarters of a month.

Three weeks.

Twenty-one days.

A dream wakes you up two minutes before your alarm goes off. It keeps you hanging on longer than you should. It pushes you when you’re tired. And it pushes you through pain. A dream gives you a hand when you fall. A dream will haunt you. Taunt you. And at times, offer you a shoulder to cry on.

It’s your coach.

Your tormentor.

Your opposition and your best friend.

When people doubt you, a dream allows you prove them wrong. It’s the tiger in your tank. Your mojo. Your motivation to keep on fighting. A dream gives you 20/20 vision. The makes the future so bright that you have to wear shades. That’s your dream. That’s the fire that burns in your gut.

Only depression, repression and aggression can slow it down. But a true dream can never be stopped. No, as long as you live, your dream will, too. Some well-meaning folks will try to talk you out of it. “Oh, that’s too hard.” Practicality and dreams aren’t old fraternity brothers. Instead, dreams run around with risk — they’re old drinking buddies. Sometimes, they’re the one your parents don’t want you to date. But in time, they will see that a dream is your soulmate.

It will play hard-to-get. It will flirt and then run off with someone else. But you have to be aggressive. You have to show it you’re the one. That your heart is true. Once you win a dream, it will forever live in your heart.

So never settle for anything less.

Because your life depends on it.

Stalactites hanging from your nose. You’re wheezing and gasping for air. Yes, it is time for the yellow scourge. The pollen plague. The allergy attack.

Your eyes are red from weed — ragweed.

You eat Claritin, Allegra, Sudafed (if you bootleg it in from Texarkana in your Trans Am) and Benadryl like Tic Tacs. You take local honey enemas, stick a car wash hose up your nose and you still can’t get relief. If you saw the Lorax walking down the street, you’d slap him. There’ll be no tree hugging for you. You want to cut all the green monsters down. The Giving Tree is giving you hell.

Leaking rain dripped on the young priest’s head.

Father Thomas looked up at the Christus Rex and quietly asked, “Why?”

The Christus Rex looked down at him and didn’t say a word. It never did.

“Of course you won’t answer. You never do.”

Father Thomas was doubting. A man of faith was losing his. He continued to do his priestly duties.

It was cold, gray, dreary Sunday. The pews were nearly as empty as the collection plate.

St. John’s Episcopal Church was dying. And Father Thomas couldn’t save it.

Water continued to drip in from the cracked slate roof. Drip, drip, drip, the water hit the top of the Christus Rex. Like water torture, the church had slowly dwindled one person at a time. People died. People moved. Once a bustling congregation, St. John’s membership dwindled as the neighbors shifted to the suburbs.

Fresh out of seminary, Thomas Dunn landed the job at St. Johns three years ago. The Bishop, a short gregarious man, saw something in the young man. “I normally don’t like head rectors to be as young as you are. But you have been touched by God.”

Touched by God? What was that supposed to mean? Maybe he meant cursed.

Father Thomas struggled to bring the ailing church back to life. He opened the doors to the neighborhood. He worked repairing houses. He created a preschool for working mothers. Faith became a verb, not a noun.

Still. Nothing. Father Thomas felt like he was just throwing matches on wet wood.

He held the wafer in the air and broke it in half. “Body of Christ, bread of heaven.”

Rain began to fall harder outside. Water dripped onto the Christus Rex even faster. And then something miraculous happened.

Thomas didn’t notice it at first. But soon, there was an audible gasp as blood red streaks streamed down the wall. Father Thomas turned around and walked to the wall. He stuck his finger out and tasted the red liquid.

“Wine.”

“It’s a miracle!” screamed Hilda Taylor. Her 75-year-old sister Frieda yelled, “Praise God!” Her 13-year-old granddaughter took a picture of the wine and posted it on Instagram. Before you could say the Lord’s Prayer, the photo went viral.

The next week, the sanctuary was full. People came to see the St. John’s Miracle. And the miracle energized all areas of church. On Wednesday nights, the Vestry was full. People poured out into the neighborhood to rebuild it. The dying church came back to life. And soon, the community surrounding it did also.

And so did Father Thomas. His homilies took on new energy. He found words that turned words into action.

A year later, Father Thomas turned and looked at the Christus Rex. He smiled and said, “Thanks be to God.” Of course, the Christus Rex didn’t answer. It never did.

But this time, Father Thomas was a doubting Thomas no more.

The heavy wooden cross rested on my shoulder as my muscles burned. I kept thinking, “He carried this by himself?” I was struggling and had three friends helping me. One step forward. Then another. I focused on His march to Calvary as we walked down the aisle. Every few minutes, we’d pause. The burn intensified. “How did He do this? How did He handle the pain?”

When we got to the stand, we had one shot of getting the cross’ base into the holder. I knew it would be awkward if it fell on one of the singers — or us. There are worse ways to die but this would be from humiliation. I held my breath as my burning arms extended up. Three…two….one…..

We raised the cross like the flag over Iwo Jima.

And at that moment, the sun went down. The light behind the giant stained glass in the front of the church extinguished and the bright colors went dark. It was the moment hope died.

I felt cold.

The good news is the story has a happy ending. Easter came on Sunday and we were throwing Hallelujahs around like beads on Mardi Gras. But I’ll never forget that moment when the lights went out. When the sun went down. When I was diagnosed with cancer. When I lost a job. When I faced an injury. When I felt alone. When I…

No matter how dark the moment, there is always hope.

Happy Easter, y’all.

Red headed and freckled, the little boy’s face was flush with frustration. Blood caked his knee and salty water trickled down his cheeks. He yelled into the larger man’s chest.

“Dad, why is life so hard?!?”

Bullies had chased him down the street, caught him and then shoved him down. Luckily his father has been driving home and rescued his eight-year-old son from the melee.

“Dunno, but it just is.”

The little boy found no solace from his father’s answer and continued his outburst, “School is hard, too! Mrs. Bremer isn’t fair! She yells a lot and gives too much homework!”

The father dusted his son’s backside off and listened.

“And I don’t like baseball! I’m sick of playing in right field! That means I am no good!”

The father half-smiled. He wished he could wave a wand and erase his son’s pain. It was pain he had felt as a child. It was pain he felt now. What would his son do when he learned people he loved sometimes would throw him under the bus? What would he do when he was fired? Dumped by a girl? Cheated on? Under stress in his job? But he knew he couldn’t fight all his son’s battles. That facing trials and learning from them was part of growing up.

He carefully wiped his son’s knee off with peroxide. He remembered Mercurochrome and how his own dad would paint an orange smiley face on his wounds. When the bandage was firmly put in place he put his hands on his shoulders and began to speak softly.

“You are a strong little boy. The good Lord gives you challenges because He knows you are up to the task of handling them. Each tough moment makes you stronger. It’s part of your journey. Your mom and I will help protect you -but you have to learn to fight your battles, too. Bullies, tough teachers and the right field can either break you or make you fight to become stronger. It’s your choice. But I know you. You’re strong and determined. And you’ll fight until you succeed. Remember, if we don’t fall down, we never learn the power of getting back up.”

The dad thought about the challenges in his own life. It seemed like the darkest moment for him, too. But he knew that it was only during the bad times that he changed. He prayed his son could see challenges for what they were: Opportunities to grow. He hugged his son and gestured toward the door.

“C’mon boy. Let’s go get a milkshake. And then we’ll sign you up for karate like you wanted. Heck, I may even sign up, too.”

April Fool’s Day — the day when people try to trick you into believing something that is not true.

Of course, we spend the other 364 days trying to trick ourselves into believing things that aren’t true about ourselves. Don’t believe me? Think I’m fooling? Even Bonnie and Clyde thought they were innocent. Seriously. We craft stories that we tell folks to make them believe in the best about us. And we believe them them, too.

Why? The unvarnished truth hurts. It sends splinters into our ego. It tears down a very fragile self image.

We create excuses for our flaws. We spread BS to cover our mistakes. It’s easier to seek sympathy than it is solutions.

I got out of bed this morning to run. I had been “too tired” lately and had gotten into a mini-habit of sleeping in. If you had asked me, I could have given you a dozens reason why I should stay in bed. But this morning, I told myself the truth: I needed to get my butt up and get going. As I ran I thought about all of my failures (personal and job) — and you want to know what? Most of them were my fault.

Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not beating myself up. And you shouldn’t beat yourself up either. But you the first step of success is knowing where the starting line is. And if you are living in some BS fantasy land of victimhood and excuses, you’ll never find it.

So April Fool’s! Hope you trick others today. Just do me a favor, don’t be an April fool. Stop tricking yourself today.

On today’s radio show (10 a.m. on Mississippi Public Broadcasting), we’ll be talking about what it takes to be successful. Success is such a loaded term. It really doesn’t mean having bags of cash. I’ve seen rich men who are miserable and I’ve see poor men who are joyous.

I’ve been “successful” and I’ve “failed.” Both are in quotes because in hindsight I’m not sure I had succeeded or failed at the time. Five years ago, I was a the top of my game. But that crumbled. Since then, I’ve rebuilt so many things and watched some of them crumble again. But I’ve also rebuilt some parts of my life on a more firm foundation. Anyone in Central Mississippi knows about Yazoo Clay (and if you don’t, country yourself lucky.) If you don’t build on a solid foundation, everything will eventually break apart.

Success starts with how you define it. My view of it has changed considerably over the past 15 years. I once thought it was using my talents to achieve my dreams. Now I know it is for me to use my talents to help others reach theirs.

That’s a big difference.

So if you were ask me what my five keys to success are today, this would be my list:

1. Have a purpose: You have have a reason to live. I file this under faith. It’s what keeps you going when the chips are down.
2. Organization: My weakness but I’m working on it. You must plan to live and live your plan.
3. Follow through: You must finish what you start. I’ve struggled with it, to be honest. It’s your word. And it is precious.
4. Hard Work: A work ethic is like Bondo on a car — it will cover a lot of faults. This is probably what has saved me from myself more often than not.
5. Think “How can I help others today?”: I always have loved this quote from Yazoo City’s own Zig Ziglar. “If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.”

Those are my five? What are yours?

Last night, I wondered if my wife had slipped something into my drink. My head kept nodding up and down to the point I thought it was going to snap off. Then I remembered I hadn’t had a drink. I was just worn out. By nine, I was snoring on the couch. Can’t say I remember too much after that.

Saturday mornings are my long-run day. It’s a sacred time when I go clear my mind and burn a little fat. I got a late start this morning — usually a problem in late March due to the heat. But since Elsa can’t seem to let it go this spring, it was cold today. I put on my cold weather running gear and was on the road by 7:45.

The Reservoir was murkier than normal, causing it to look more like chocolate milk than water. The sun, already well into the sky, made the waves look like gold flakes sprinkled on the surface. I ran along the Natchez Trace and watched a fishing boat head out of a cove. He had to be cold. I know I was.

My breaths and footsteps started to line up. I was getting into a rhythm as the miles clicked off. I passed the oak tree. It was starting to get its green coat for the season. I decided not to photograph it today. I’m sure it already thinks I’m a stalker.

I went a new way today as I ran by the Jackson Yacht Club. White sail boats looked like mayflies buzzing the water. There was a certain fluid beauty as they danced out into the open water. I looked at my watch, I had run over five miles.

It was time to head home.

I finished 10.16 miles in a little less than two hours. I showered, ate some oatmeal and a chocolate donut (you run over 10 miles, you can have a chocolate donut). And then I went back to bed. I just woke up. It’s 4 p.m.

I have hit a wall. The stress of the last several months have taken a toll on my body and mind. Yes, I have a ton of work to do today but I just can’t seem to do it.

Tomorrow I’ll work. Yes tomorrow. Today, I rest.