Marshall Ramsey

“God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.”

My friend was trying to comfort me after listening to the stream of bad news I had received over the past few weeks. He went to shake my hand.

“Ugh,” he said, “that looks pretty bad.” He looked at the purple-yellow swollen mess I call my drawing hand.

I smiled and said, “It’s alright. Good things come from the worst moments.”

Yeah, I know that sounds trite, but I honestly believe it. And I felt slightly comforted by his attempt to cheer me up. I filed it under, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Actually, I generally believe bad things are good because they force you to change. I’ve never changed when I’m comfortable.”

So God is giving me things I can handle. But I also think He is helping me change for the better. And that’s the good in the bad.

I shook his hand with my injured hand and felt the shock of pain. That pain will make me stronger. I will do rehab and make my hand stronger. I will appreciate my ability to draw more.

I will get better.

And I can handle that.

Looks like another gray Monday. It’s cold. The milk and bread index is an 8. The word “ice” has been thrown around by the weather types. Mississippians can’t drive when it rains. We’re toast if we get an ice storm.

Why? The Mayans chuckle when it freezes here. It’s the end of the world.

There is really nothing redeeming about an ice storm. You can’t make ice angels. Or an ice fort. An Ice Man is a pilot in Top Gun. If you throw an ice ball, you’ll most likely impale your friend in the heart. (That’s not good.) The power will most likely go out — because power lines get whiny when coated with tons of ice. And if they don’t fall on their own, a pine tree will help them out. Pines don’t like ice either. But look on the bright side, you’ll get plenty of firewood and a new sunroof in your house.

Bonus.

An ice storm happens when there is warm air aloft and freezing temperatures shoehorn themselves right under it at the surface. If it is cold, warm, cold, we get sleet. Cold, cold, cold, we get wonderful snow. You know, the fun stuff. The stuff that makes the world pretty, not looking like a glazed hell.

When I was a kid, we got five inches of ice. Five. It was the apocalypse. People were out of power for Katrina-like lengths of time. Trees came down. Aquariums froze (no kidding.) I remember my dad sliding our family’s giant green station wagon up Willard Drive on his way to work. That’s when I knew it sucked to be an adult.

Which I am now. So I await the impending ice apocalypse brought on by freezing drizzle — or worse — with clinched teeth.

But I still say this one truth: Ice is only good for drinks. And I have a feeling we’ll all need one by tomorrow.

A cold rain poured down on New Orleans. Simon O’Mally looked out his window at the city and caught caught a glimpse of his reflection. “How did I get this old?” he thought in disgust. Sex, drugs and rock and roll had somehow turned into Viagra, ibuprofen and easy listening. This was no way for an aging rockstar to live.

But was he really alive? It felt more like he had died years ago.

He breathed against the glass. A fog formed. “OK,” he thought, “At least I am alive.” He just wish he could have said the same for his career.

Tonight he’d stand on stage with his guitar and play his hits from 30-years ago to a crowd who would show up fashionably late and talk through all the new songs. They might cheer his biggest hit, a #2 smash from 1986 — the one that was playing in the damned elevator. Or they might leave early because of the weather. He looked at his phone and saw three messages from his manager. Simon replied by throwing the phone across the room. He was throwing an epic pity party in his small hotel room. No one else was invited.

Simon felt the wrinkles on his face. Was this all there was that left? He imagined himself diving out the window and onto the street below. That might get him on the charts again. Death did Elvis’ career wonders.

No. He wouldn’t quit. An old freighter pushed against the Mississippi River’s mighty current. It struggled and sent up a frothing wake. But it was heading toward it’s destination. It didn’t stop because things were “too hard.” Simon thought of a day from his youth. He and his father were sailing near Sydney, Australia when a sudden storm came up. “I’m scared Dad! I want off!” His father, who was fighting to keep the ship afloat screamed back, “Then jump overboard. But I’m not quitting. We have a beautiful destination ahead of us. We just have to ride out the storm!”

His father died three years later of a heart attack. But they didn’t die that day. They kept fighting all the way back to their destination. Simon thought of all the beautiful destinations he had seen since then: MTV, Award shows, beautiful fans, exotic cities. If he had quit that day, he would have missed them all.

I just have to ride out the storm!

New Orleans is a city of lost souls. But one of those souls also became Simon’s muse. He walked over to the desk and started writing lyrics. Images of a storm flowed from his hand. Images of a boat and a small boy. Currents swirled around the green water. Froth churned in the storm. Sea-spray stung his eyes. And by the end of the lyrical journey, hope and grit arrived safely at its destination. It was a song he needed to write. It was a son he needed to hear. He picked up his guitar and the melody flowed from his fingers. Never had a song been this easy to write. Never had he felt magic.

“Thanks, Dad.”

That night in the House of Blues, Simon O’Mally played to a 3/4 house. They showed up late and talked during his newer songs. But when he played, “Riding out the Storm” at the end of the last encore, you could hear a pen drop. “This is for my dad,” he said as he began to play. Camera phones rose like the tide, capturing the raw moment when an aging rock star delivered three and half minutes of magic to the world. When his guitar’s last string silenced, the hall erupted into cheers. Simon wiped the sweat off his forehead and the houselights came on.

“Helluva song, Simon!” his manager nearly tackled him. “I was even inspired by it. Where did that come from?”

Simon tapped his heart and pointed to the sky.

Postscript.

“Riding out the Storm” became a YouTube sensation. It was the most retweeted video of 2015 and was shared over and over on Facebook. Like the 1,000th match hitting wet wood, a fire was started with that song. And Simon O’Mally had his first number one song ever. It was played at the Super Bowl the next year and became the theme song for anyone facing a struggle. When Simon came back to New Orleans the next year (to a packed house), he met a man and his daughter. “I was going to kill myself, but I heard your song. You helped me ride out the storm. Now she has a dad and I have hope. Thank you.”

Simon O’Mally hugged the man and the little girl. And at that moment, he realized, he also had ridden out the storm.

I learned several things in college: My Social Security number, how to draw editorial cartoons and the joy of a Saturday afternoon football game. But its funny, the most important lessons were the quiet ones that were taught in odd moments in unexpected places. And many of those lessons were ones that I didn’t appreciate until years later. Like today.

My oldest son was working on an English paper recently and my mind went back to the 500-word, five paragraph essays I had to write in my early UT english classes. I didn’t consider myself a good writer back then (and probably wasn’t), but I got good grades. I figured out the drill and learned how to tell a decent enough story in a properly structured way.

My sophomore year, my English class was over “The Hill” in one of the engineering buildings. I don’t remember much about the class or even the teaching assistant’s name, to be honest, but I do know my friend Julia Gibson Hammer​ was in the class with me. (Julia, I include you in this tale because you might remember the prof’s name).

I settled in for several weeks of more 500-word essays.

Until one day the professor (short, fairly heavyset, thinning hair) began a different lecture. He began talking about how we need to live our life in the moment. How we should just engage and live deeply. That we should not be like Gerridaes (water striders or water bugs) and skim across the surface of our lives.

I sat in that Engineering classroom, listening to an English teaching assistant tell me one of the most important lessons of my life. And it went completely over my head.

Until today. This evening, I’m saddened by the sudden death of someone who I liked and respected. I continue to mourn a loved one who is in the early stages of dementia. Thursday, I watched my son get wheeled into surgery. And I earlier that morning, I nearly tore my fingers off my drawing hand.

I am feeling very, very mortal. And tired.

And then I thought of the Gerridae. I thought of how much life I’ve wasted just skimming. Maybe it is time to go deeper in the water. Maybe it is time to appreciate the remarkable gift of life a little bit more.

I raise a toast to that unnamed teaching assistant. You, my friend, were wise before my ability to realize it. And I raise a toast to the Gerridae. While you skim, I’ll start to live.

I went down to the basement to get a drink. On the elevator back up, a man walked on and we both did what normal people do – we looked at the numbers as we rose up the tower of the hospital. I was feeling down as we went up.

My right hand was in considerable pain in my heart was too. My son was in for ear surgery. I felt like it was the worst day in the world. I looked at the man – he was probably a little younger than me and I could tell he was having the worst day in the world too.

There is a silence before sunrise that grabs you. The birds quit singing and even the bugs stop their cacophony. The wind stills and the sky prepares the stage by turning from black to pink to blue. The earth pauses for the sun’s big moment as it cracks the horizon. It peeks from behind the trees and warms the earth. And then, as if on cue, the world starts moving again.

It’s a gift. A blessing. A daily miracle.

I try to get out on Saturdays to see this show. As I’m running along the shores of the Reservoir, it’s the brief moment when I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to be on this side of the grass.

Today is Ash Wednesday, a particularly somber religious holiday and the official start of Lent. Lent is practiced by many Christians and usually involves giving things up — I remember one classmate who gave up gum. “Do you chew gum?” I asked him. “No.” Well, that shouldn’t be too hard.

Me? Well, I am see Ash Wednesday as more than just a reminder that I came from dust and will return to it. It’s a reminder that I need to truly live during the time in between. So I will rub my melanoma scar and live in the moment. I will seize the day and be proactive in my relationships. I’ll give up my rotten tendency to take my life for granted. I will meditate and reset my priorities. I will have a grateful heart.

And I’ll give up gum — strictly in honor of my old classmate.

Most of the times, I have weird dreams. Last night, I had a good ol’ fashioned nightmare. And it’s still bothering me today.

I went to bed early last night. Life has kicked the crap out of me lately, leaving me wiped out physically and mentally. I turned on the alarm, (set for 3:58 a.m.) and rested my head on the pillow. I was asleep before it could get warm.

And then it happened.

I was in house recording a TV show. A popular band was there and I was emceeing the event and talking to one of the members. But then the house morphed into a hospital waiting room. Soon, I found myself in surgery. A female doctor (who I didn’t recognize) was talking to me. “Your cancer has come back.” I felt the pinch of the needle as she numbed the area and began to cut at my flesh. She kept reassuring me that the spot was small — but I knew I was in for the fight of my life. I heard her giving me my test results but before I could find out my fate, I woke up.

3:56 a.m.

Exhausted, I turned off the alarm. My workout would have to wait a day. I needed some more sleep.

But I laid there shaking. On this day before Ash Wednesday, I faced my worst nightmare — thankfully just as a nightmare. But I kept reciting, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” over and over in my head. I was reminded of my own mortality. And I kept thinking about all the things that have been hammering me lately. Those things that have left me angry and disappointed. I wrote them mentally on a list in my mind.

And then released them.

I was given a gift 13 years ago when the third doctor found and removed my malignant melanoma. Being depressed, angry or afraid is squandering that gift.

Life is too short. And it took a particularly nasty nightmare to remind me of that.

It stands as tall as a 36-story building and if it had failed at launch, the explosion would have rivaled a small atomic bomb. It was designed using pencil, paper and sweat by men who had designed the very rockets that had rained down on London during World War 2. It lifted off slowly toward the heavens and it’s 1960’s technology never failed (something my 1969 Firebird did occasionally.) It was American’s technological miracle. It was the Saturn V.

The Saturn V was — and still is — the most powerful rocket ever built. It took men to the moon, put Skylab into orbit and lifted our dreams toward the stars. Three exist today — in Huntsville, Alabama (a testing model) and in Florida and Houston, Texas (from cancelled Apollo missions after America became bored with moon missions and Congress didn’t want to pay for them.). It was replaced by the Space Shuttles — which now reside in museums, too. Someday the massive SLS rocket will rival it. Someday.

But for now, the Saturn V is the king of rockets. And to me, it stands for something even bigger than its giant size.

America had vision back then. We dared to conquer the impossible — and did. The Apollo missions provided hope during a hopeless time. As I stood beneath the mighty rocket this weekend, awed by its size and the size of the dream that created it. I remembered what we are capable of when we pull together. It was when a dream could conquer bureaucracy.

I walked the length of the old rocket and looked at my sons. I can only hope their generation has the courage to dream again like the creators of the Saturn V once did.

3…2….1….liftoff.

Last night, I cracked open a copy of my book Fried Chicken & Wine and read one of the stories. It’s the one about the man who gets fired and with the help of a random stranger, restarts his life. It’s called the Mustard Seed and has a line I particularly needed to reread.

“You’re not defined by what happens to you. You’re defined how you react to it.”

My life currently is like many of yours. There are some things that I can’t control. They’re painful and are causing serious frustration and sorrow. Yet I’m not complaining — life isn’t all cute kitties and cotton candy and I know it. But I’m exhausted and grasped for some encouragement.

“You’re not defined by what happens to you. You’re defined how you react to it.”

Everyday you walk past people who have the weight of the world on their shoulders. They’ve lost a loved one. They face an illness. They’ve lost a job. They’ve been a victim of crime. And everyday, those people get out of bed and keep taking a swing at life. They look for the good and cling on to it. Life’s crap tsunami doesn’t faze them. They keep pushing forward.

My oldest sister is one of those people.

I’ve watched her support her husband as he bravely battled ALS. I’ve seen her be strong and continue to live as her world crumbled after his death. She recently had three trees crush her home in the middle of another crisis. I was Facetiming her as she surveyed the damage. She said, “Thankfully the house was strong enough to keep me from getting crushed.” It wasn’t “poor me.” It was “lucky me.” She didn’t whine. She didn’t blame anyone for her bad luck. She pushed through with the other crisis she was in the middle of and didn’t use the trees as an excuse. Her house will be repaired hopefully within a month. Three gables were destroyed. But she’s still here.

My sister hasn’t allow what has happened to her to define her. She is not a victim. She’s a rock star. And my hero.

To find encouragement, I really didn’t have to look far. And I’m very proud to be her little brother.

Today will be a great day. Because I know one simple truth:

“You’re not defined by what happens to you. You’re defined how you react to it.”