Thank you so much for thinking about me this Christmas. I was surprised when my boss handed me some mail (only Dad had the address) and very happy to find it was a card from you two.
I hope you’re having some fun these days and that Grandpa’s bionic knees are being put to good use.
Yes, I am doing better. Doing badly was really exhausting. I’d try to throw my life away and God would find some weird little way to bail me out. Then I’d have to try to throw it away again, and God would bail me out. So, I gave up trying.
In September, I tried to walk to Stillwater. I left Shawnee at 10pm wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I didn’t bring anything else. I was hoping I would freeze to death on the way or die of thirst or something. I imagine God smiled and said, “You’re not going to die, but this isn’t going to be much fun.” It was cold and dark and there were coyotes on both sides of the highway and it rained. I was freezing and tired.
In the morning, someone actually stopped and asked if I needed a ride. It was a pretty college girl on her way back to school, I guess. I turned her down. I regretted that by the afternoon when my feet were hurting so bad I could hardly walk anymore. I had to stop every few minutes to rest.
And then I did get very thirsty, so I started stopping at houses to ask for some water, but no one would come to their door.
I walked on for another couple of miles and started up this hill. As I approached the top of the hill, I could see one of those little green Cemetery signs. And of course I thought about your cemetery and planting flowers and Memorial Days and all the people there. Then I laughed to myself that I could just turn right and take a nap (or possibly just die) in that country cemetery.
When I got up the hill a little farther, I saw a plastic ice cream container sitting right at the base of the sign. It was perfectly flat on the ground and had collected the rainwater. There was a little sand in the bottom, but there were no bugs or anything. It was great water.
I had been trying to hitchhike all afternoon but no one would pick me up. Probably ten minutes after I found the water, a farmer was pulling out onto the highway from a little dirt road just behind me. I waved at him and he stopped and asked if I needed a ride.
He was this old black guy, but in great shape – probably worked hard every day. He said he wasn’t going up the road but a couple of miles to the next little town to drop off his trailer and pick up his son. He had a weird accent I’ve never heard before. It was a mix of pure Oklahoma farmer and some deep-South cotton plantation, I imagine. We only talked for a couple of minutes – long enough for me to explain what I was doing – and then he pulled into this feed place of some sort. I thanked him profusely and started walking again.
Fifteen minutes later, the farmer’s truck, less the trailer, pulled up next to me. He and his son took me all the way to Stillwater – the last 20 miles or so.
On the way, they talked about farming stuff like how much wheat they were going to plant and how much of the seed they could carry in a load. Every good field we passed they examined. They seemed to know the names of the farmers who worked those fields.
I couldn’t get into the homeless shelter in Stillwater because I didn’t have a Social Security Card.
On my third night in town, I was sleeping in three little boxes behind some bushes on the OSU campus. I was laughing about leaving that school with a job and returning 20 years later to sleep on the ground.
At about 2am, I woke to the sound of thunder and smiled and said out loud, “No way, God.” And I imagine that God smiled back and said, “Way.” It rained for 15 minutes or so. I was laughing as water started to drip through my little house and soak the back of my t-shirt.
When the rain stopped, I hopped up and threw my boxes in a dumpster and got three new ones from the recycling bin.
Two hours later, I woke again to the sound of thunder and started laughing. It rained on me again.
I got paperwork from the SSA on Monday, but they still wouldn’t let me stay at the shelter because of the legal trouble with my ex-wife. Making a couple of nice phone calls in defiance of a court order is domestic violence in Oklahoma and someone with a domestic violence record is not allowed to stay at that shelter.
The people at the shelter suggested that I walk to the Salvation Army in the next town – about 30 miles. So I started walking.
I was really hungry. I had nothing to eat for three days (but I’d gone much longer than that before).
I stopped about 5 miles out of town at a Harley Davidson dealership which was closed on Mondays. I rested on their bench. Eventually a woman in a yellow Corvette drove up. She was the manager and was coming in to do some work. I asked her if she minded if I rested there for a while longer and she said she didn’t.
An hour later she came out and asked if I needed some help. I asked if I could use her phone. I called my ex-girlfriend in Shawnee to see if she would drive me to the Salvation Army there. She said she would. The manager drove me ten miles down the road to a truck stop where #3 picked me up.
The whole point of this long story is this: I was supposed to be in Shawnee and not in Stillwater.
Two months earlier I had made contact with a guy who owned an IT consulting business in Shawnee to see if he had any work for me. We met and talked about a couple of projects he needed a programmer for, but he didn’t have any money for them yet. A few days after I arrived at the shelter, I was using a computer at the Shawnee library and sent him an email explaining my situation. We met and he created a job for me.
The office was just two blocks from the shelter.
I’m not an employee and this job doesn’t even pay minimum wage, but we’re helping each other out and that feels terrific.
I think it’s funny when people look at life as a game of chance. Many people are willing to believe in luck but refuse to believe in God.
It’s no accident that I am where I am. Did God keep me safe from the coyotes? Did He keep me from freezing? Did He provide that water? Did He send the farmer? Did He keep me out of the homeless shelter in Stillwater? Did He make it rain on me? Did He send the manager? Did He inspire my ex to come pick me up? Does He inspire all the kind people who work at and support the Salvation Army? Does He inspire my new boss?
The rain thing still makes me smile.
Grandma, in my whole life I’ve only hurt someone on purpose a couple of times. Oh, I know I’ve hurt people, but usually it was through carelessness or mistakes. I am so ashamed of April, 2008. I know you and my aunt were trying to do the right thing, but it hurt my feelings to be escorted out. I actually had this fantasy that I could go live with my aunt for a little while. So, I decided to embarrass you two by making all that noise. I am very sorry for that. I did it intentionally and I wish I could fix it, but I can’t. I apologize.
You’ll be happy to know that I’m not crazy. I don’t actually have the mental problems that I let the doctors believe that I had. I was abusing that drug I told you about and it made it possible for me to believe my own bullshit (which is really fun, by the way) and sometimes my bullshit was just too much nonsense. I quit all that and have been doing much better ever since.
I miss you, Grandma and Grandpa. I also miss my aunts and uncles and cousins.
I took Mom’s death a lot harder than I expected I would. Denial sure puts things on hold.
I had planned on copying this down using an actual pen with my actual poor handwriting, but I think I’ll spare you ten pages of difficulty.
Thanks again for everything.
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