Category: life

A Dad’s Inspiration

D. Michl LoweLeave a comment

In the last fifteen years or so, I have really tried to start paying attention to my Dad. I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, I don’t remember. I know it sounds like I completely ignored him. That is not the case. My parents are not getting any younger, mid-sixties at this point. I have read too many stories about people who didn’t take the time to realize their time was limited. They neglected to take advantage of these folks while they are still around!

That sounds a little dark… basically, I want to listen and take to heart what they have to tell me. The other day, I took two of my kids to their house. I was sitting in their living room, just chatting. My dad happened to mention something to me. We were talking about my oldest girl, Katarina, and he said that I needed to take the time to listen to her, really listen to her.

Don’t get me wrong, Kat and I talk a lot. She is also a writer (like her Daddy). Kat often writes down her thoughts and feelings in the form of stories, songs, verses, and even psalms. What if I read what she wrote with the goal of understanding her emotional world? He said she would teach me. I would become a person she felt like she can rely on even more. I knew she would write when she was having a hard time. I did the same thing at her age. Heck, I do it now. Some of you have read those articles.

“What our kids say (or, in this case, write) can really impact us,” he said. “Let me show you something.” He led me into the dining room, a weird place for this, but there it is. He showed me something I wrote for a school assignment when I was fifteen (pictured above). A year below where Kat is now, fifteen. This simple little sheet of paper was something my Dad had paid attention to. “For decades now,” he said. “I have been trying to live up to your words on that paper. I haven’t always been capable, but it has been my goal. To be the man that you thought I was. I wanted you to feel proud that I was your Dad.”

He had paid attention to what I wrote and listened well. Advice from a fourteen-year-old isn’t something the world often listens to. Teenagers are teenagers after all, but I am really trying to listen to my own teenagers; my own kids, when they talk, write, sing, etc. They are speaking to me, in the best ways they know how. It isn’t always respectful. It isn’t always super clear, but I am listening. You may not believe the teens around you are listening. But, if you take the time to listen, they will too. Let me tell you a quick story.

I don’t remember how old I was, but it was around the time I wrote that thing about my dad. I wanted to play basketball. It’s crazy because I am about as talented at sports as I am at being a rocket scientist. That means not at all. Anyway, my way of shooting a basket was to do a granny shot. If you don’t know what that is, think of the stupidest way to shoot a basketball, and then double it.

Video of a “granny shot” in action.

Now, the kid in that video makes this look like it’s a great idea… it is not. Be prepared to be made fun of a LOT if you happen to try to play basketball this way. Trust me, I know from experience. I argued back and forth with my dad about this. I tried to tell him that I knew what I was talking about. That this was how I knew to shoot the ball and that it was fine. He disagreed. In fact, he eventually got really frustrated with how I wasn’t listening to him and gave up. Telling me that if I wasn’t going to listen, then I could just do it any way I wanted. We had begun yelling at each other, fighting about how to play basketball.

He went inside the house. He vented to my Mom about how I didn’t listen to him. He was frustrated that I acted like a teenager who knew it all. He was very frustrated with me. An hour or so later though, my cousins came over to play and what did we decide to do? Play basketball of course. My Mom went over to the window and cracked it open as played. Then, she called my Dad over and made him sit down to listen to us. As my cousins and I played the game, I repeated my Dad’s words to them, verbatim! I was also doing my best to shoot the ball exactly as my Dad has shown me.

As a teen, I was too stuborn to admit he was right to his face, but I listened. As the handwritten note above states, I respected my Dad. I listened to him even when, in my teenage angst, I may not have admitted it to his face. So my fellow parents out there, your teens are listening. Your kids in general are listening. Are you taking the time to listen to them speak? I am trying and it is worth your time to do the same. If you listen, they will listen.

D. Michl Lowe

I Am Not Enough

D. Michl Lowe2 Comments

I’ve concluded that there is apparently something deeply unlikeable and untrustworthy about me. There is a reality of who I am that others must see, that I do not. Maybe those who truly care about me know. Maybe they have tried to tell me. Maybe they have tried to help me understand, and I have stuffed cotton in my ears and closed my eyes to their kindness. Maybe I have been willfully blind to my own shortcomings. Maybe I still am.

For the last couple of years, I had been through over twenty job interviews and had had no luck at all until just recently. For over ten years, I have been nominated for a leadership position but have never been voted into that position. And I don’t blame the voters; I believe they are voting truly and in good faith! It is myself that I see as a failure. It is an observation of my own persona. I would say I am lazy, but really, I don’t think that is it. I value being able to live with the money I make, but I struggle to see my efforts as valuable.

So, is this a depression, then? I assume so. I have heartache and am searching for passion and purpose. I would like to be a true writer, but I have never felt as though I am good enough to truly be called by the title author or writer. Am I proud of my books and writing? Yes, of course, but in the back of my mind, I continually downplay them and question their validity.

I love my family; they give me unending joy and satisfaction, but I feel inadequate at the task of being a father and husband as well. I wonder if this inadequate feeling comes from a lack of my ability to fully support them financially, but then again, maybe it goes beyond that.

I seek purpose in God but feel a failure there as well. I wrote a book in an attempt to harden my devotion and zeal for Christ, but even in all I have done, I feel a failure. As if I should have done more or not done enough. I understand there is continual growth in Christ, and I do see that growth within myself, but then I look back on where I was before. Back then, I thought I was wise, but truly, I was very foolish and didn’t know it. So how am I to believe I am now wise, knowing in ten years I may look back and see my current foolishness for what it is?

They call it a mid-life crisis, but the crisis is a realization of a lifelong inadequacy. How do you make a life worthy? How do you understand what you can change to make it better? There are some things you are locked into, some things that cannot be changed. How do you turn listlessness into motivation and purpose? I don’t trust myself to know that my answers are right.

So what am I to do? Am I meant to meander along, continuing to live in a miasma of stale living? Should I continue to be burdened by a raw and open self-inflicted wound to my ego? Or should I accept the truth, accept the truth that I am not good enough? That I am not worthy of praise? That I am not enough? Because I will never be enough. I can’t do it.

However, when I am weak—because I am weak—He is strong. When I am not enough—and I am not—He is enough. When I am lacking, and I am lacking, He is full and true. When I am down, and I have been down, He is more than enough to raise me up. When I am through with giving effort, and at times, I feel as though I am through, He is there to carry me on.

I am not enough, and I never will be. The reality is no one is enough. No one is truly able. We are all frail and slowly dying, the conscious dead. It is only through the light of Christ we become anything else. In truth, we are only ever meant to be the marionettes of God, allowing the Master to bring us to life and give us His purpose. Am I enough? Yes, but only because I am His. Do I have meaning? Yes, but only the meaning He brings to life within me?

I am the resurrected corpse, Lazarus. I’m stinking but smelling better as the light hits my gaunt face. Undecaying from my death – being brought back into the world of the living, color returning. It is not I who now lives, but Christ who has chosen to live within the destitution of my life, giving it a robust and full justification.

He is worthy, so I am worthy.

The Effect of a Good Church

D. Michl Lowe1 Comment

This past Saturday, my family and I went down to the local IHOP for some breakfast. This is a relatively normal thing for us to do on the weekend. As we walked into the restaurant, my youngest daughter tripped and fell to her knees. An older gentleman reached down to help her up. He smiled and asked her if she was okay. She said yes, I thanked him, and we walked on to our table.

As we sat down to order and later eat breakfast, it became apparent that this older man was sitting alone. He was seated in the middle of our section, and nearly every table around him got a smile and brief conversation. Before long, it was our turn. He asked about the kids and commented on the current state of politics and some other things.

“My kids won’t have anything to do with me,” he commented. “I had open heart surgery and they didn’t even come to visit. No phone call to check on me, nothing.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“They did come to talk to me once though,” he continued. “To ask me about their inheritance. I ain’t given them nothin!”

He laughed at that and, soon after, smiled and said goodbye. As he walked out, I thought about this man. He was so lonely that he obviously came to the local IHOP so he could talk to random folks. It was clear that this was why he was there; he didn’t order any food, just a coffee.

This might sound odd, but it made me think of my church. This coming year, my wife and I will have been at our church for 20 years now. It is the longest I have spent at a single church in my entire life. Nearly half of my life has been spent around my church family. Sunday after Sunday, we come to this house of worship to spend time with these people and the God we serve.

Sometimes, I am grim in my thoughts about the future, but this time, I was uplifted. God forbid I would end up alone like the man at the IHOP, but if I am, I would not need to go down to my local eatery just to get a human connection. I know that for a certainty. The family of God would be attending to me. I have seen it over and over in our church. Tragedy strikes, or there is a need and the people of God respond.

I wouldn’t need to attend IHOP; I could just attend church. It’s like God understood the need for fellowship in humans. Go figure.

D. Michl Lowe

Chrono Trigger and the Death of My Friend

D. Michl Lowe3 Comments

I’m starting to understand what Anne Rice harped on so often in her Vampire Chronicles so much. Eternal life here on Earth would not be as great as some might believe it would be. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think I could make it work, but it wouldn’t be all unicorns and rainbows like you might first believe. In the Vampire Chronicles, the vampire Lestat, the most famous vampire after Dracula I would argue, often laments being “alive” for so long. Vampires often have to go into decades-long hibernation just to be able to deal with living so long.

The loss and pain of losing others tend to catch up to these creatures and cause massive amounts of pain and depression. I have lost more people in my life than I thought I would by this point in my life. Currently, I am 41 years old, and I can think of many friends that I have already lost to death and many more family members. I would like to talk about one of these that has been on my mind here recently and why I miss him. For the sake of anyone who might know these folks and be sad with me, I am going to use a fake name.

When I was a kid, I had a good friend. I know, shocking that I had a friend, but I did. And this friend was a great guy. I will call him Charles. When I was around eight years old, Charles and I’s entire relationship consisted of playing Nintendo and using the Game Genie to try to find ways to make Mario invincible so we could actually beat Super Mario 3. We were terrible at it. He would come to my house and spend the night and we would stay up to all hours of the night playing games together, going on adventures, and discovering new worlds through my little 13-inch TV.  Later on, I got a new 25-inch TV and we thought we had died and gone to gaming heaven, it was so big!

When I was around 14 years old, we had upgraded our gaming to the Super Nintendo and one weekend Charles brought over a game on a Friday night that he had borrowed from a friend for the weekend. We started playing Chrono Trigger, a Japanese RPG, at around 6:00 p.m. We saw the credits roll at around 8:00 a.m. the next morning. It was the first time I had ever stayed up all night. It also helped that Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest games of all time. The story sucked us in. Time travel, revenge, and alien invaders who are trying to literally eat the Earth kept us glued to the TV set.

Charles and I grew apart after High School. The next time I heard about him, my mother was telling me that he had died. We never heard what had killed him, he was still really young. I was at the end of my time in college at MVNU and I remember Dad asking if I wanted to go to the funeral. I said yes. We went and I remember seeing his family there, but I don’t think they recognized me. I’m sure they were in shock. It was so sudden after all. It was one of the first times I had lost a childhood friend. To this day, I drive past his old house and always… always think about my friend.

Every year, I play through Chrono Trigger at least once. I play through the adventure I had with my friend and think about the first time I went on this journey. How childhood felt like it had been forgotten, we were adults; staying up late and doing what we wanted. We could save the world from the comfort of my bedroom. We could be heroes and leave the confines of a little holler in Sissonville to roam a new and magical world, if only for a little while. Just one night. For just one night we were more than just little boys, trying to understand the world and our place in it. Charles was a good friend. He was my friend and I will always remember him.

I guess, I just miss my friend.

D. Michl Lowe

Looking Through the Window that’s Not Really There

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If you look at the picture above, you might be remiss to think I stare at the wall all day and to some degree you would be right. However, the pictures haphazardly taped to the wall around me are all important parts of the creative process from my book. You might not be able to fully tell by looking at it, but the maps have minor and major changes made to them. The one on the right has the most.

The black and white pictures on the left are mostly armor, clothing, and weapons from throughout history. I admit, I would rather have a nice bay window behind my desk to glance out of, but I like my little corner. The temperature is cool down in the basement and at times even quiet. So there’s an allure to the basement space that makes it nearly ideal for a writer.

However, I take some umbrage at saying I don’t have a view. I do have a view. In fact, I have a very unique view. My view is a window into a world where I am God. I don’t say that lightly either. Writing is an interesting pastime. Writers spend a large portion of their lives creating story and character. In other words, they make people who live out lives in worlds of the writer’s creation. Whatever happens to them, at them, by them, all of it, is the design of the writer.

We get to play at being God. I was talking to a new friend of mine and we were discussing different books we had read. This new friend and I suddenly realised we had both read the same book and nearly at the same time exclaimed, “man, that character was messed up!” speaking about a particular character who had a rough life growing up. When we read a story, or watch a movie or tv show, we allow our brains to move us into that reality. We become.part of that world, if for only a little while. It’s a truly magical and wonderful ability we have.

So I do have a view. I view the World of Pillar. The Mammon Engine is not just a book, but a place I feel I watch through the window of the computer screen. I am getting to know the characters of Thistlewart, Dasa, Christoph, Meshiah, Nicodemus, and Schalk. I watch them and listen to them. They speak to each other and in turn, they speak to me. I get to spend to each of them and talk to each of them through the mouths of the other characters. At times, these characters are more real to me than people I see on the news or people I pass on the street. I am intimately aware of Meshiah’s doubt. I feel Thistwart’s shame and Christoph’s anger at God. Dasa’s loss and depression are at times my own. Dasa is pictured below.

Maybe someday, when I finally finish this book, you will fall in love with this world and these peoples as I have. Maybe for you, you will begin to understand why staring at the wall has been so fascinating to me. Maybe you too will feel the shame and anger and adventure I feel. I hope you get that chance, and soon.

D. Michl Lowe

Kicking the Back of My Chair

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Occasionally, I find an article or a video about a person on an airplane and the struggle with having a child behind them on the plane that kicks their chair. I don’t know what it is, but there is deep seeded primal annoyance with chair kicking. I’m not sure there is a person alive who this wouldn’t bother. However, there is a valuable lesson in chair-kicking etiquette that I would like to share with you. Our church combines the two services we usually have during the year into one service during the summer. As such, that one service is often full. So it was this morning. My wife and I came in just as the service started and sat in one of the back rows.

As the service continued, a newer family sat behind us. Throughout the service, the youngest son consistently kicked the back of my wife and I’s chairs. She wrote on the bulletin that he was kicking her chair, and I nodded. It’s tough to learn about Noah, while every couple of minutes, you get bumped. However, I thought about that new family in our church and their young children. That family needs Jesus. Their kids are sitting in our pews and listening to our Pastor talk about living life in dedication to Christ. Isn’t that worth a distraction? Of course, it is! I want nothing more than to have more kids kicking my chair. Of course, it is.

A week or so later, a friend sat in front of us at church. Throughout the entire message, she whispered to the young man beside her. Now, when I say whispering to him, I mean constantly! An almost neverending stream of whispers. You might be thinking, “How rude.” However, again, there is more at work here. My friend is translating (as quietly and unobtrusively as she can) so that this young man can hear the word of God. Is it distracting? Maybe, but it’s not a big deal to me. This young man is being fed the truth of all the universe through a loving and compassionate woman who wants nothing more than to allow this young man access to the gospel.

Years ago, a minister told me a story about a hotdog get-together his church was having. They were having hotdogs and advertised it throughout the surrounding neighborhood. “Come out for free hotdogs and Gospel singing!” the signs read. Many new people showed up. After the hotdogs, the people piled into the sanctuary for the singing. In the back, the minister watched a little boy come into the sanctuary carrying two hotdogs, one in each fist.

He was dirty, his hair a mess, and he had clearly dressed himself that day. His hotdogs were loaded down with mustard. That’s how he liked them; he had prepared them just right. But as he walked to a seat in the front pew, he dripped little spots of mustard up the aisle. He sat on the front pew, happily munching his hotdogs, singing along with the choir, spraying hotdog and mustard the entire time.

The service ended, and several people approached the minister and complained. He merely walked to the custodian’s closet, took out the rug cleaner, and got down on his hands and knees to clean the floor. He smiled at those complaining and said, “That little boy was fed tonight. And he had fun singing songs he didn’t know yet. Mustard on the carpet is worth a soul.” That’s how I want to be. That’s the kind of church I want to help create for the masses.

Please, give me more families. Please, give me more children. Please, give me all the people, the multitudes. Give me the single mothers with the crying babies. Bring them all into MY church because it’s not MY church; it’s Jesus’ Church. Swell the walls, make it hard to find a seat, give me the kicking on the back of my chair, and the kid dripping and spraying mustard on the carpet. Give me all of it. Make my church a destination of discomfort for those who regularly attend so that those who do not regularly attend will feel welcomed and loved. God make me uncomfortable until I am willing to realize that it’s not about me.

D. Michl Lowe

My Father-in-Law’s Ethics

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My father-in-law, Larry, is an interesting man. I have a significant amount of respect for him. Much like my own father, he comes from a background where he invested a lot of time, effort, and diligence into providing a stable and good life for his wife and kids. 

I hesitate to call him a self-made man, in that I assume many people assisted him throughout his life in achieving what he has, not the least of which would be his amazing wife, but still, I would say he is as close as they tend to come. 

Anyway, my mother and father-in-law are moving, and my wife and I abandoned two of our children to head up to Rochester, NY, to help them finish packing to be ready for the movers to load everything up and get their things into the new house in Columbus, OH. So for the past three days, my wife has been in the house, packing away items in boxes and wrapping them in paper to protect them. I have meanwhile been in the garage with Larry. 

At one point, we were finishing power washing some of the more oversized items in the garage when Larry announced he would go and till the garden with the rototiller. I was confused. To be fair, I am not a mechanical-minded person, and my father-in-law is a master-mechanically-minded person. So I will default to his expertise, but this didn’t make sense to me. So I told him, “Larry, why are you going to till the garden? This isn’t your house now; you aren’t going to plant in that garden”. 

In my mind, this was a waste of time. He was leaving this place, starting a new life. In many ways, it was going to be a better life. It brought him closer to many of his kids and grandkids; the new house would be better in nearly every way. So why waste time tilling a garden, he would never use? He looked at me and said, “It will look nicer for the new owner if it’s tilled.” 

And was no other explanation. I could have just taken it as is, but my mind wouldn’t let that explanation rest. Throughout my time helping Larry pack away his things to prepare for the move, we have been cleaning the garage as we go to the point of vacuuming the baseboards at the edge of the concrete floors. Now I wouldn’t leave a filthy house for someone to buy, but it’s a garage; to me, that’s a naturally dirty place expected to be a little dusty. 

But I think several ideals are in place in my father-in-law’s mind. He is a generally kind man who wants to do kind things for other people, even people he doesn’t really know; like those buying his home. The other ideal, though, I believe, goes a little deeper. He is proud of his home and the life it represents and for good reason. This home, in many ways, represents his and Carolyn’s success in raising a family and providing for them in the manner Christ has called parents to do. 

I have seen many parents who have failed at that calling. Because of drugs, alcohol, failed marriages, unresolved mental health issues, etc., they have failed in their calling to be good parents and spouses. I can’t tell you the number of kids raised by grandparents or single parents because one or both biological parents have failed to step up and do what needs to be done. In essence, to grow up. Now I realize many extenuating circumstances in many people’s lives have led them to where they are, many uncontrollable. 

However, I think I understand why my father-in-law tills the garden for the new owner of the house he is selling. He understands the value of what he is selling and wants to present it so that it shows the value it truly has. It is a memorial stone to a life well lived.

D. Michl Lowe

The Lesson I Learned from an Icee

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I’ve often thought about how some memories are stuck in my mind, and others seem to have slipped away from me. For instance, I remember waking up when I was five years old from a nap on the floor of my room. I don’t know why I wasn’t in my bed; I assume I was playing and merely slept where I was. That said, I awoke to a puppy licking my face. I don’t remember anything after that, but I remember the first time Samson, my golden retriever pup, and I met. It’s adhered to my mind.

I remember walking down the hill to the neighbor’s house, having been invited to come over for a cap gun battle, only to be ambushed on my way down by the three neighbor girls wielding their cap guns and blasting me away after jumping out from behind the trees that lined the hill. I don’t remember anything else from that day, but I remember being surprised and happy.

Yesterday, I was brought back to another time in my memory. My wife and kids and I had gone to Sam’s Club to get a couple necessities. In particular, I needed a new pair of jeans. I tend to kill pants. I’ve tried $100 jeans and $45 jeans and everything in between. However, no matter the price or the claims of the brand, the pants tend to die on me after about six months. So, several cycles ago, after a recommendation from my dad, I purchased my first pair of $10 jeans (although they have increased in price now to $14). These jeans lasted me, surprise, six months before giving up the ghost. So now, I buy cheap $14 jeans and save myself some money.

Anyway, after shopping for jeans and all the other random stuff you pick up at Sam’s that you never intended to buy before walking in there, we paid for our items and my wife walked over to the snack center and got the kids some Icee Slurpies as a treat. She took their picture as they stood there enjoying the sweets. However, my mind was taken back. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a lot of money. I don’t think we were poor, but there wasn’t a lot of money for things like Icee’s. My neighbor and her three girls and my mom and I often did things together during the day. They were home-schooled and I was an only child. So by default, we were all the best of friends.

One day though, my neighbor’s husband got a promotion at work. As such, when we went into the local K-Mart, all of us kids got an Icee as a rare treat. I know some of you reading this might think that it’s odd to believe that an Icee could stick out in my mind, but maybe the remainder of the story will clue you in as to why. Our neighbor, Chris, handed each of her kids an Icee.

Ashley got an Icee, and her response was, “Thank you!”

Courtney got an Icee, and her response was, “Thank you!”

Angie got an Icee, and her response was, “Thank you!”

And finally, Michl (me) gets an Icee, and his response is SLURP! SLURP! SLURP!

Suddenly, my Icee is gone, as if it has merely vanished from my hand. Looking up, I see my mom standing there, slurping on my Icee. She raises her eyebrows and glances down at me. I am shocked.

“Next time, you will remember to say thank you,” she says and walks away with my Icee.

She drank the entire thing. The saddest part is, she doesn’t even like cherry Icees. There was a similar lesson that happened earlier in my life with a Snickers bar, but that’s a story for another time. Some of you may think the lesson cruel, I’m sure. However, while I am sure I did cry, I don’t remember crying. What I remember was a lesson my mom taught me. To this day, I remember to be polite. It was ingrained into me to show respect and thankfulness to someone who is kind to me. It was a big deal for Mrs. Chris to buy us those Icee’s. At the time, the amount of money it took to buy all of us kids those Icee’s was a lot for her, and at that time, I didn’t show appreciation for that. True, I was just a little kid, but it was important for me to recognize the value of what I was getting. Just like a pair of jeans that obviously aren’t worth $100 to someone like me who is just going to kill them in six months, an Icee to a mom who is pinching pennies for the good of her family is a big deal. And it was a big deal to us, but I didn’t recognize it for what it was and my mom wanted to reinforce that value of thankfulness. She wanted to engrain that value into my head enough that I would remember it. I don’t remember crying, but I remember the lesson.

I was standing over to the side waiting for my wife to get the Icees for the kids and I didn’t hear if they said thank you to her when she handed them the treats. So, I can’t say if the direct lesson has been passed down to my own offspring. However, I can tell you that they are thankful for the blessings they have. True, like all kids, they must be reminded from time to time, but I think the value has been instilled. So, as I sit here sipping my coffee and thinking back, I must smile, I have a good momma, who taught me how to live life in gratitude and thankfulness; not just to her and my dad, but to God for all the blessings I have been given. I hope in the end I am able to give back some of that blessing to others.

D. Michl Lowe

The Loss and Gain from the Pandemic

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I was talking to some people a while back, about thinking positively and how this can impact one’s feelings about negative situations. I relayed to them some of the events from the past couple of years and how negative they could be thought of. The pandemic dropped into our laps as a society in January 2020 and by February, most of the world had shut down. We were in our homes and quarantined from February through most of the summer. In fact, schools really didn’t even go back to full-time and in-person until January 2021. During that time, my entire family caught COVID in July, during which time I was in bed for nearly two weeks, barely able to even sit up due to the disease.

A month after that, Katarina came down with MIS-C and was in the hospital for nearly a month. Some of that time we were worried that she wouldn’t make it. Sometime after that, my Mother had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a week, and then my Uncle Ron passed away after contracting COVID. All in all, one could argue that this has been some of the worst years of my and my family’s lives. However, as I told these folks, I am not sad. I choose to think about this time of my life from a different perspective. A more positive perspective. Truthfully, a more spiritual perspective.

My perspective is shaped by my trust in Jesus Christ. Have bad things happened? Of course, but let’s look at these events differently. There’s been a pandemic and life closed down for a long time and many people were hurt by this. However, for my family, my son was born in August 2019 and his mommy was able to take off from work from August till Christmas of that year. She went back to work in January 2020 and was only there for a month until the pandemic hit and she was “forced” to stay home… with our son, for the remainder of the year. Then we were on and off again beginning the next school year and many of the days she was able to be with him again. So honestly, my son has benefited from having his mommy and daddy home with him for most of his life; what a blessing!

My entire family caught COVID in July and I was severely sick. There was a point where I sat Alicia down and I had a very serious talk with her about what she should do if I were to pass away. However, I didn’t. I made it through the illness without having to be hospitalized. Thanks be to God. A month later, Katarina came down with MIS-C and nearly died. However, thanks be to God, she was spared a premature death. I understand the blessing our family has been given. Our lives have been forever changed by that hospital stay. Katarina will never be the same person she was before this. I will never be the same father I was before this. Not saying I was a bad dad, but I do some things differently. I feel differently about what it means to be a dad, what it means to be a Christian, and what it means to be a husband and man after God’s own heart.

For the last 20-some-odd years, my Uncle Ron and I didn’t speak. There was a rift in our family and no one had contact with each other. Then he reached out. We were hesitant to even meet with him, but thank the Lord we did. Our relationship was able to be mended. The wounds of the past, while still scared were being healed. Words that had laid dormant for years were finally said. Forgiveness was given and God stepped into the gap that we had forged. For the first time in years and years, I was able to hug the man I had seen as my Grandfather. And then the pandemic came, he caught COVID, and he passed away.

I could look at this and yell at God, “It’s not fair!” However, I don’t. Not because there isn’t a part of it that isn’t fair, but because of how merciful and thoughtful God has been. He worked on the hearts of us all to give us the time we needed to heal the brokenness in our relationships. To look into ourselves and realize that we were holding onto the hate of the past and needed to seek forgiveness from each other and God. I praise His name that He had the kindness and mercy to give us that opportunity! He knows what the future holds. He knows what we need most. I look at the last several years and see a lot of pain, hurt, sorrow, and loss; but more than that, I see how God has been working through all of it, present and always seeking our best. Always looking to turn pain into understanding and thankfulness. I can’t look back at the pain, without knowing He was there throughout it, never leaving us, never forgetting us, and never stopping His love for us. Praise be to His name forever!

D. Michl Lowe

Side Project: My Forgotten Youth

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So I took a break from writing the fantasy book that I have been working on and wrote something different. I woke up last night at 3:00 a.m. and had a book idea ramming itself into my consciousness. The idea wouldn’t go away. I had to write down the general idea. Below, I have written out the rough introduction to the book. I don’t plan on stopping work on the fantasy book, but I just needed a break. In my mind, this will be a very short book, less than 200 pages for sure. A middle-grade book, I think. We will see. In my head, this book is dealing with some heavy issues kids are dealing with even today. My current working title is My Forgotten Youth. Enjoy.

Introduction: The Abnormal Life

You don’t really question the things that happened to you as a kid. To you, it was just how life was and that was normal. It’s not until years later that you start to understand that your childhood might not have been completely regular. Example: My mom once told me that my father was a famous magician. I asked her why I didn’t have a dad and she said that he was busy working in Vegas and that the entertainment company that employed him wouldn’t let him take time off.

It made sense to me at the time, that my dad was a magician; too important to come and visit me. I told all my friends at school, and when they got old enough to realize it was a lie, they let me know, harshly, over and over. It was 1990 and I was eight years old. My mom would often disappear for weeks at a time, that was normal. My grandma and I would always order pizza when she knew mom wasn’t coming home. I got to the place where I hated the very smell of the stuff. Mom continually traveled up to Detroit with her boyfriends; sometimes just for the weekend, and others, for a month at a time.

We lived with my Grandma Susan. She had a little trailer that my grandpa had left her when he died. That was years before I was even born though. We all lived in Sissonville, West Virginia and my mom and Grandma had their own rooms, but I had the hall closet. It was big enough that my twin mattress could fit, but that was about it. 

One morning, I woke up before I should have. Not sure why, but something seemed wrong. Sometimes you wake up because of a noise, but you think you just woke up naturally. It was one of those times when you feel like you slept for a long time. I was wide awake. There was the sound of clinking dishes in the kitchen and I walked in, the footed pajamas I wore had a hole for the big toe on each one, but they still made a soft shiff shiff as they slid across the linoleum floor. 

The sound of my feet caused my mother to drop her little plastic purse on the side of the sink. When she did, amber pill bottles came plopping out on the counter and the floor. She was startled.

“Hey darlin’, what are you doin up?” She asked, smoothing her blond hair back from her face and licking lips that were too dry. 

“I heard something, and woke up,” I said. 

She was fully dressed in a short skirt and some of those fishnet stockings that girls loved to wear in the 80s, but that she was obviously too old to be wearing. Mom was fashionable; MTV was always on when she was home. Her bangs were the poofiest bangs in the whole town. While I always thought mom was pretty, in a “my mom” sort of way, I hated poofy bangs. She quickly picked up the pill bottles and began stuffing them back into the hot pink purse. One of them had rolled across the floor and my bare big toe twiddled it. I reached down and picked it up. It had my grandma’s name on the label.

“Oh,” I said. “This one is grandmas.”

A slight panic flashed across her eyes. “Yes, well I am taking it to get it refilled,” she said.

“Are all of those grandmas?”

She backed away from me and I was confused. “No, these ones are mine,” she said glancing towards the door. “Why don’t you mind your own business, huh? You think you know what’s best do ya? You aren’t the parent here! I am!” She screamed the last part, but immediately hushed herself, glancing towards the hall that led to grandma’s room.

“Mom, are you okay,” I asked, brushing off the harshness of her words. I learned long ago, not to take her harshness with any sincerity.

“I’m fine,” she hastily said, zipping up the little purse. It looked stupid, hot pink and almost rubbery. I thought it was like something a little kid would have, not a grown woman. She brushed tears out of her eyes. When had she started crying? Coming over, she kissed the top of my head. She smelled; sour, like ammonia. Like when our cat’s litter box hadn’t been cleaned in several weeks. Her arms were too thin, I could see the bones in her wrists. She had bruises up and down both of her arms, little scabbed dots all over.

“You be good okay. Listen to your grandma. I’m gonna be gone for a couple weeks, alright. I have a job up in Detroit I have to do. Robert says we can get some real good work this time.”

Robert was the current guy she called her boyfriend.

“Okay,” I said.

What else could I say? She looked back once, then walked out the front door.

I never saw my mom again.

One Last Hug

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I had a dream about a dead person. A person I knew long ago. I didn’t know this person as an adult, I knew them when I was just a kid, a kid in high school. In the dream, we were at a festival of some kind, there was music, and people milling around talking and having fun. People were meeting with old friends and chatting, there was laughter and good food. This person and I were going to perform in some way, I don’t know how maybe we were going to sing. Anyway, this friend of mine was doing some stage makeup for me.

This wouldn’t have been uncommon for this person to do this for me back in the day. They often did our makeup before the performances I was in; of which there were many. Anyway, she was doing my makeup, talking to me, gently whipping away mistakes, and just being their normal self. Suddenly, the haze of the dream was drawn away from my eyes and saw her. I knew she had died and knew I was in a dream. I stood up with intense sadness in my heart and began crying, the tears rushing down my cheeks.

Then she stood with me. “You’re dead,” I cried. “I know you’re dead, but you’re here.”

“I am here,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s really okay.”

I stepped forward and hugged my friend. It was a hug from years and years ago. When I was just a kid who was hugging a friend that he loved. She cried too, but her tears were not tears of sadness, but of joy that she was able to hug her friend again. I realized I was the only sad person at the festival. The people were around us were talking, laughing, and loving each other in friendship and family. It was a beautiful thing, and yet I continued to be sad.

I woke up, tears wetting my pillow, stunned. I’ve had several dreams like this in the last couple of years. Dreams where I have seen friends of mine who have gone on before me into the afterlife. My mother-in-law always says that when you dream about someone, that’s the Lord’s way of bringing that person into your mind to have you pray for them. What do I do with dreams of the dead though? I’m not completely sure. What I do know is that I pray for their families and those left behind.

I’ve lost several friends and family in the last several years and I think that may be catching up to me. Loss is a difficult thing. Sometimes, you weren’t as close as you would have liked to have been. Sometimes you were very close and the loss seemed personal, like the person’s death was a slight against you. Not that they wanted to leave, but that God wanted to harm you by taking them. The sadness and anger can be almost overwhelming. I don’t feel angry. I don’t blame God. Maybe I haven’t been hurt enough to feel that. All I know is, I miss my friend, and I’m glad I got to give her one last hug.

D. Michl Lowe

Even Stuffies Have Scars

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My daughter came to me with her stuffed bear. We referred to all stuffed animals as a “stuffy”, or the plural form, “stuffies”.  She was maybe three years old and already the bear had issues. His fur was bare in many places, rubbed off from love. The velvet of his nose was rubbed down to the plastic underneath. He had both of his eyes, but he had been hugged and drug around our house so much that his stuffing had been compressed. When I say compressed, I mean that he looked like a limp rag just out of the wash, but my daughter loved him. She loved him a lot.

We had no idea where this particular stuffy had come from. When we had our first child, many gifts came into the house from so many generous people that often, where things came from getting lost in the shuffle. However, whatever generous person got my daughter this bear may never know the impact they had on her life with that gift. Not to embarrass her, but she is currently thirteen and still sleeps with this bear. So back to the point, at the age of six, my daughter came to me and said, “Daddy, my bear is all lumpy. Can you fix him?”

I looked at the little rumpled thing, its head flopping off to one side. By all accounts, this thing should be thrown into the trash. As mentioned above, this little stuffy had been worn down the quick, in my eyes he was worth nothing more than the bin for sure. However, when I looked at my daughter, that was not an option. In her eyes, this was a precious companion; useful, needed, important, and loved. Throwing him away was not an option, giving up on him was not an option.

I took the bear in hand and looked him over. “I can restuff him,” I said. “But he is going to have a scar.” I can sew, but I can’t sew well. However, while my wife does sew, she hates doing it, so the task falls to me. I am the clear choice when it comes to these tasks. That being said, I knew the stitches would show when I was done. She agreed. I took some stuffing, a pair of scissors, and my needle and thread and got to work. I snipped open the little bear’s hip and began the process of replacing the stuffing inside. When the stuffing was complete, I sewed his hip back up. As I had warned my daughter, the stitches showed; there was a scar. Over the years, many a stuffy in our home received scars from “stuffy surgery” by my hand.

I think about this and wonder if this is how God thinks about us. We may look at someone who seems worn out, wasted, lost, and by all accounts ragged. But God, just like my daughter sees someone precious, worthy, and in need. He calls out to us to reach out and heal this person, but we reject the idea. If I get involved, I’m not going to be able to help. There will be scars. God is okay with scars. In fact, I think sometimes he uses our scars to remind us to turn back to him. He calls us to intervene in the lives of others, even if our help might produce some scars. Scars are evidence that healing has been done. They are evidence that someone cares enough to request the healing for us.

D. Michl Lowe

Roller Skating and Maturity

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-The beautiful skates my wife rented-

So my wife and I recently took the kids to a roller skating rink. First off, these still exist. Secondly. The one we went to could have been mistaken for a crack den. Or at least what I assume a crack den looks like. I nearly passed it for not realizing it was the place. It was built inside what I assume is a condemned school gymnasium from 1973. You might think I am kidding. I am not. See photo below. My middle daughter brought a friend and I apologized that she would need to get a tetanus shot after coming with us to this place.

-Literally an old grade school gym-
-The entryway was only slightly flooded-
-We weren’t allowed to go up stairs apparently-
-The skate floor (old basketball court) was nice-

Anyway, this got me thinking about how much things change. When I was a kid, going to the roller skating rink was a highlight of school trips. Thinking back on it now though, sure there was the fun going going fast, but the thrill of the place was finding a girl to hold hands with during the “couples skate” time. Also, the lead up to that time, there would be a whisper campaign of friends going to ask other friends if they wanted to be your couple skate partner.

As a child, that thrill of holding hands and the build up of who it was going to be was what made that time special. We were too young for real boyfriends or girlfriends, but playing the part was exciting. I walked out on the rink today and realized the thrill of childhood newness was gone. My wife skated by me and I realized I already had my partner to hold hands with. There was no mystery or thrill in wondering who, but that was okay.

That thrill has been replaced with the maturity of a deep and meaningful relationship. One that has led to my children being born and getting to see them experience things in somewhat the same way I did as a child. There was no couple skate today, but my girls come home from middle school talking about their friends who are “dating”. Alicia and I don’t allow boyfriends until they are 16 years old. Which might sound old fashioned, but we find allowing them to focus on childhood has worked out well so far.

I have often said that my current life is my favorite time of my life. I am 40 years old this year. That being said, I said that at 35 and also at 30. At 25 and at 20. I also said it at 15, and while I might not directly remember, I’m sure I said it at 10 and 5 as well. My point is, while I appreciate my past, I am happy with my life now and am looking forward to the future.

D. Michl Lowe