Skip this one, or don’t,
——-
He left work early on Thursday for this one mission, his brother was flying in and the shit was going down.
3 hours drive, 3 hours North to Norfolk mountains and cooler climates.
When they arrived at the town they decided to start at a Dollar General, a cheap little retail spot with dirt cheap Necessities.
“Have you seen this man?”
When he held out the printed mugshot the clerk’s jaw dropped.
“That’s your father?”
It is and we’re looking for him, do you know where we can find him?
” Stand by the mountain and just listen, you’ll hear him yell ‘yahoo….yippie’”
They found him.
20 minutes after arrival they found their homeless father, completely isolated for 15 years.
He hadn’t had a shower in 10,
He had a dog and a backpack and a super obvious alcohol problem.
“Do you know who were are??”
The haggard mountain man squinted his eyes and tried to focus..
“We’re your sons.”
We came to find you.
And the tears just fuckin’ flowed.
Bear hugs and sincere shame, he immediately started muttering
“I’m so sorry”
Sorry for the damage done, sorry for the choices, sorry for the pain dealt out.
It’s a mother fucker, the story is a mother fucker and at its heart it’s two things.
Maybe three.
Redemption.
Addiction.
The cycle.
Maybe four things.
Madness.
One clear choice of a man abandoning society and slipping into madness and isolation.
The video showed it all.
ANd everything made sense to me in that moment.
Your brother is an addict and you are too, it’s in your blood because of this man, this mountain man homeless fella, this freewheeling, not a care in the world mother fucker.
One brother focused his addictions into passions, drive, success, care for his family and strive to achieve..
The other brother looked down into a bottle, for a very long time, darkness propagates , always, just manifests differently.
This man was beaten and abused, then he repeated the cycle, then he abandoned his children.
The video showed it all, and after viewing the entire thing, the reuniting, the emotion , the authentic and the sincere…
I had so much respect for the brother I know, the only person in the story I know.
” You have a true thing here.
You have a true story here and it is authentic and profound,,,, you could go viral in a millisecond…people eat that shit up”
But he didn’t.
Didn’t even cross his mind.
“I don’t give a fuck about the likes or the eyeballs, we just wanted to find our father”
Respect…
God damn man, I have so much respect for the choice you made, by keeping something real and private,, I’m honored that you would choose me to share this story with, to show this video to….
Now I’m gonna tell strangers about it on the internet.
But I left out names… so that’s something…
I read in a book somewhere,,,,
“There’s only a handful of story types you can really tell”
People fumble like fuck trying to get them out, or to find something new…
But this one,,,
This one is redemption.
The healing of old wounds and countless hours lying next to your sleeping wife staring at the ceiling..
“I wonder where he is right now”
I wonder what he’s feeling, I wonder what he’s going through.
As he looked at his father, long lost and now found, as he looked at him he also glanced at his brother.
History is repeating itself, it’s in the blood. There was doom for the man that I came from and now there is doom for my brother, whom I love so very much.
And he thinks about his children, how he behaves and how they will know and remember their father….
Whoosh,,,,real shit.
Heavy, emotional and tear jerking.
Now what?
The man has clearly flirted with madness and self destruction and isolation, 15 years homeless, in the mountains of Virginia, walking around yelling out randomly “yahoooo”
I asked how he planned to fix that….
His answer was so simple and to the point.
“Love”
And you,,,,, you person I respect,,, you are why I can’t write off a Christian.
I can’t call all of you fake,
I can’t call you full of shit,
You prove me wrong when I’m out here hating the fuck out of human beings.
You want to save him and you want to save your brother before he becomes him.
And you wanted to tell ME.
You didn’t want to add a string track to that video clip and put it on the internet, watch the views go up,,,you didn’t want to exploit the scenario you’ve found yourself in.
But you told me.
And it gives me a little nugget of faith.
And I admire you for it.
Redemption is real,,
And it might be the best story.
Better than revenge, better than salvation or luck.
Some shit that you simply cannot purchase or fake,,,,
Whoosh,,, the heaviest of the heavy, on a personal level.
You seek to mend that.
You’re going back next weekend to see him.
Fate isn’t real?
Any other path wouldn’t work.
Any other approach to this problem would have failed, but here you are,, father found, help is on the way.
This vicious fucker hasn’t killed him yet, there’s still time for your brother, all can be won and right..
Heavy shit,,
A few people lay heavy shit on me and I’ve gotten better at being a listener,
A real listener.
I hear you man,
I’m proud of you even.
I can’t imagine the weight taken off your shoulders when you finally found him, and the sadness of his current state.
Eeshhh,,
So real it hurts.
You came from that guy’s nutsack, and you noticed your own shit and handled it well…
Kudos dude,,
Seriously
dawn 