First Becomes Last

It's great to be able to get back into the swing of things. The air smells of springtime and the
dreams smell of lazy summer nights with the windows open. Oh yeah! This will be a good year!

I now have texting capabilities and I'm enjoying the WhatsUp app even though I don't know
half of what I'm doing. LOL! It's just good to have fun with people from other countries and
timezones without having to pay a thing. The first official text message I sent was to my
awesome sister, Mashi. I just have to remember those sleep times are different while she's
working the graveyard shift. :P

I watched Taxi Driver for the first time today and really liked it. It just has a great feel to it as a
movie. I liked the everyday items all throughout the movie such as the classic diners, neon signs,
and authentic atmosphere that the movie projects. It felt gritty and Catcher-and-the-rye ish.

The rest of the day was spent watching the new Green channel which has documentaries and
such all the time. There was tons of Jesus ones too....both the historical figure and the Christ
of Faith. One thing that has always stood out to me about Jesus is that he came from nothing to
be probably the most influential figure in the history of the world and we have nothing on him
but the accounts of others. It has to be the most remarkable story that has ever been told. I mean
that in a positive way of course. Why I say that you ask? Here is my reasoning:

* His father was a widower who was asked to take a wife drastically younger. Joseph had a
previous wife and other children.
* He finds out she is pregnant and freaks out about it. Wouldn't you? Can you blame him for
thinking Mary might have loved a man her own age? Joseph showed great trust in the Lord to
believe the angel Gabriel that his wife was faithful and then to be a father to a child that wasn't
his albiet divinely implanted. Guys have such a pride thing about children being theirs. This
shows great character of the man Joseph in my opinion.
*Jesus was both a popular and common name at the time. Another Jesus would later be turned
loose at the Passover during Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate years later. His name was Jesus Bar
Abbas (or Jesus Son of God in Hebrew). Those were confusing times. So many Jesuses.
*Joseph and Jesus were both handymen. Most people say carpenters but the word used actually
means workers of all kinds of crafts like stone masonry or other things. They were not specialized
artisans but were good enough to get by.
*They were Galileans and Judeans looked down on them as lower class or peasants.
*Jesus and his family lived in the "projects" or the area of developement for the poorer people.
It was a dangerous area of revolutionaries and shady individuals.

So, you see....everything about Jesus was average. No one could ever see what was coming. They
were looking for some military leader with a lineage that went back to the super soldier King David
or Joshua....and never thought to look for a quiet, articulate, and meek spokesperson for
non-violence and unconditional love. It's just proof that sometimes things are not always in the
packages that you'd expect.

-Thork

Can't Keep a Good Man Down

Well, I bet some of you are wondering where I've been. I went in for a routine procedure on
the 8th. It was supposed to be a 15-30 minute ordeal and it turned into a 4 hr one and a night's
stay at the hospital. I guess I had a hernia and didn't know about it. I remember everything up to
and afterwards but it was definitely a weird feeling when I woke up. They were teasing me before
the surgery acting like they didn't know what I was in for and stuff, so when I woke up and all
this happened I was kinda freaked out. Haha!

I have been resting and haven't been able to write on my laptop due to back pains but I am here
once again. The people at Lowe's have missed me and even some from that DM place. It really
does mean a lot. It's been a long raod back but, for those who know me, it's just another step in
the road. I've fought all my life so this will be no different.

I've been going through another round of that depression I've talked about so it's just been a long
and draining couple of weeks. This will be my year though. No more being #2. No more being
the Best Man. I will perservere and I will overcome. The Promised Land looms just over the
horizon.

-Thork

A Memory of Light

So, you see I believe that miracles happen everyday and, just like in Spiderman, there is a hero
inside all of us. Some are buried deeper than others. I always thought it would take a miracle to
find that little boy again. I had robbed myself of many long years where I could have been happy.
I learned that you can't hold all people guilty for the actions of a few. I learned other things about
myself as well. I learned that I could be a violent person and also a random thinking person. That
can be a bad combination.

It turned out that Jennifer liked girls for a while and recently married some guy. They actually did
their wedding in all camouflage with fishing nets and things like that instead of the traditional
things. >_< Whoa! I must have messed her up or something. LOL!

Eddie got married too. I was worried I'd see a Conferedate flag or something at his wedding but,
thankfully, it was normal...well for Eddie anyways. I got to be Best Man for my cousin Josh's
"wedding" (translation: Going to the courthouse with a couple witnesses and all his kids) for
the third and final time. I told him that I just couldn't be his Best Man anymore because look how
his other ones turned out. I must have been jinxing him by being the Best Man or something. That
preacher walked up to me at a football game and apologized for how he treated me. I shook his
hand and forgave him because you can never fly by weighing yourself down with grudges.

I was asked to be a paulbearer at my grandfather's funeral because I just couldn't speak a eulogy.
I wanted to but I somehow felt that he would like my eulogy for him to be done in action not in
words. Words are like the wind but actions last forever. Papa's church was too small to hold all of
the people so we had to have it in the Assembly Church. There were so many people from all over.
I will never forget how many people came to pay their respects. People were greeted by the CD
Grandpa had made with all his songs on it. Precious Memories and Until Then, Don't Overlook
Salvation and Family Reunion....all of them floated in the air. We wanted Joe Fowler to preach it
because he had been our pastor for so long. Now, it wouldn't be a Merrill funeral without a few
jokes and Mr. Fowler delivered. He had us laughing once again...through our tears. He totally got
us as a family...we laugh, we cry, we live and we die. That is how best to beat death. Grandpa had
faced death and he won.

The casket was slick and sky blue trimmed with silver. The face didn't really look like him much.
I changed it, in my mind, to the face I was used to...just like he was sleeping after a big supper
on the couch. We loaded him in and held the graveside service. All I could think of was that time
he ran over a nest of ground hornets and had to run through the okra to try and brush them off. He
had to have been stung a hundred times all over his body. He had a few sleepless nights and the
bedsheets stuck to him due to the sores. I thought of being afraud my first time on stage and him
telling me to just look at the clock on the back wall that way people would think I was looking at
them. He'd say not to look at the crowd and just that clock. I even thought of the time when he
jumped off the hood of a car to hit a guy that was taller than him (while using a fist full of coins).
But, most of all, I thought of the time when all the old crew of his Going Down Swinging band
was on stage and I got to sing with them. I wish I had recorded those times but they will only live
on in my mind now and who I share them with.

I just couldn't get over how many people were effected by him. That is exactly the way I'd want
to go out. When you've been in darkness for so long you begin to feel that it's all that there is.
You think that you can never climb back out but the funny thing about light is that no matter how
dark it may be....all one has to do is flip a switch on and it retreats so fast it'd make your head
spin. He did that for me. He flipped that light back on and all was light again. The journey back
was not as easy as you'd expect but life's about the journey and not the destination, right? I think
so too. Seven months later, I went back to Papa's grave and made him a promise. Since he could
not longer go and see the world that I would bring the world to him....and carry his message as
far as I could.

-Thork

Tears in the Stream

You know, they say that miracles just don't happen anymore. They say that good guys always
finish last. You can merely turn on the television and watch as they disect and tear apart all of the
legends and poke fun at every belief we, as a society, have ever held dear. They have even taken all
of our heroes and spun out countless documentaries highlighting all of their faults but none of the
good things that they had done. They have laughed and mocked anyone that has ever believed in
something that cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. They have called those people who do
uneducated or unrefined....fanatical people who roam about from one thrill to another. The truth is
that they secretly want to believe but don't have the courage. They must have been heartbroken when
they found out that Santa Claus doesn't really exist (shhh...don't say anything) or that there really
isn't a boogey man or the tooth fairy (even though Dewayne Johnson did a decent job). They want us
all just like them....without hope and without faith. They want us to rely on science and the media
to tell us everything. They seek to be our everything. They are jaded, hurt, and cowardly people that
want us to suffer just like they do.....and I used to be one of them.

As the months rolled by, my Grandpa Bud kept getting weaker and weaker. He once fell to the
ground because his legs gave out on him and no one was there to pick him up until about an
hour later. I just so happened to be coming home from work at the time and noticed the barn door
open. After that, he had to use a wheelchair. He used to be able to run like the wind in his youth
until he got polio in one of his legs, so for the rest of his life (since I had known him) he had always
walked with a limp due to one leg being bigger than the other. So, a wheelchair for him was such
a pain. He couldn't garden anymore which was something he dearly loved to do. He couldn't ride
the tractor anymore which is another thing he loved to do. It was like life gives you everything and
then takes it all back one by one. I could see it effected his pride having to rely on other people
after doing things on his own for so long. His stern and sunstreaked face had relaxed and instead
had gotten soft and plump. He looked different from the man I had watched everyday sitting on
the porch after dinner watching the sky for storms and stars. I remember him teaching me about
the constellations and how cows always lay down before it rains. I remember all the funny stories
and songs he taught me too. He would say:

"Chief Rain-In-Face pee'em agin a wind and make 'em all wet." Oh, and "Chief Crusty-Butt
belonged to the No Wipe'em Tribe." LOL! He taught me some hilarious songs from his father
as well. His name was Brandon Ole Merrill.

One was:

"Oh, Mickey tied his tail around the flagpole and everyone in the valley say his @$$hole." :P

and the other one:

"Wellllll, she jumped in the bed and covered up her head and swore that he couldn't find her.
But he knew damn well that she lied like hell and he jumped right in behind her." RITFL!

{Brandon Merrill (my great-grandfather) was our version of James Dean. He went AWOL
during the Korean Conflict, in protest. My great-grandfather Thomas (my Grannie Merrill's
father) was a World War II veteran and was awarded the Purple Heart (for which he probably
accidently shot himself...LOL). Also on my Grandma Dora Lois' side, we have a membership
in the Sons of the Confederacy (the American Civil War). My father was a few cards away from
being summoned to the Vietnam War but it ended right before he was called. Now, I had best
save all of this info in a later blog because you probably don't want to be needlessly sidetracked.}

Please forgive me but I had to include that. Just so you can see the type of people I was working
with....crazy people...I come from a whole line of CRAZY people! But we were also a family that
believed in lots of hugs and lots of laughs. My Grandpa had never ceased to laugh despite all that
happened to him and that was something that was dearly missing from my life. This man that was
full of life was withering away before me like a living nightmare. This was the man that rubbed my
feet to get me to finally go to sleep my first night in this world and, in my eyes, I couldn't repay that.
No one else could get me to sleep but he always could. He was also the first to spank me after I
touched a cast iron miniature oven after he told me not to. Ultimately, Grandpa Bud decided that he
wanted to come home. The cancer would not go away and he grew tired of being sick all the time.
The doctor asked him if he wanted to know how long he had left and I'll never forget his response.
He said he would die just as he came into this world....not knowing the day or hour. He said he
wanted to be with his family and greet death as an old friend taking him home. I thought that was
the bravest thing that I had ever heard. It's not for a man to know when he goes I think. The only
thing you can hope for is to face it with honor and dignity....having finished a great work. Papa had
traveled out to California when he was my age with all his brothers in a beat up old van that didn't
have any air conditioning. They formed a band called Going Down Swinging and played out of
Needles, California, into places like Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He showed me the places he had
played. The trouble was that my Grandpa had "bad nerves" as he called them. He would take a shot
of whiskey before every gig to settle them. They finally came home when their adventure didn't
really pan out (there wasn't any American Idol yet) and he said that he'd become a drunk if he
stayed out there...so, he came home, met my Grandma, got married and had two awesome sons.
He didn't go back on stage for 40 years...until he noticed that I was keeping rhythm by playing
the drums (tapping the beat on the pew making everyone want to strangle me). He broke out all
his old songbooks and instruments and practised with me night and day. I took the stage for the first
time in Barling, Arkansas, and I was singing Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man in the key of
G. Anyways, Papa was sent home into hopice care after all that.

Thunder......Lighting.....Flashing....rumbling....

The rain raked the window in the Sequoyah County Nursing Home. The entire Merrill clan,
including friends and their familes, were crammed together into a small room. The local Mazzio's
had supplied us with pizza and drinks. The date was March 18, 2008, and I had walked the halls
and stopped to glance outside. I recalled waiting anxiously at the bottom of the storm cellar, when
I was a child, while Papa and the other men of the small town of Gans surveyed the horizon and
listened to the radio for weather updates. Grandpa lost two houses to tornadoes. One was in 1959
that took out the white house on the hill. My dad and uncle Terry were just children and Grandma
Lois had to lay overtop of them in the back of the car as the sirens wailed. In the aftermath,
Grandma found the only thing that remained....a pencil drawing of my father Barry and his baby
brother Terry. It still hangs above the coat rack in their house to this day. It still has the waterlines
and everything. The other was in 1961 and was a rare, according to Grandpa, tornado from the
north. Those were the strongest he said. That was the last twister to ever touchdown in Gans. They
always split and go northeast or southeast nowadays.

They came and told me the time was very near and that Papa Bud was moaning something about me incoherently.His five brothers and four sisters were still telling old stories about him and laughing
through their tears as I entered. Laughing through their tears....isn't that an Aiel custom in those
Wheel of Time books? Yes, it was...they believed that there is great strength in tears. That's why
I identified with them more than any other faction of Robert Jordan's masterpiece. My DM
character is an Aielman first most definitely. :P

Everyone was crying and holding each other yet I couldn't help but think of what a wonderful way
to leave this world....in a room full of people who love you and cherish your memories and the
moments you gave them. I tried to go to the back of the room but my father told me to take the
seat next to my grandfather. I sat down and I took hold of his hand and, at first, it was limp and
tense but then he gripped my hand...strong and focused. It all just started sinking into me that I was
going to lose him. I knew then that no matter how strong I was or how much training I had done...
no matter how gracefully I could weild a sword or how much weight I could pick up...it finally
hit me that none of that was going to bring him back. I felt so helpless and powerless. I watched
closely as he twitched and turned...moaned and squirmed all while holding desperately to my hand.
Just as desperately as I clinged to him when I was frightened by the storms when I was so little.
As the rain pelted the windowpane, I just let all the pain and hurt swell up and....I cried my eyes
out. The tears streamed down my cheeks until it flowed down my shirt. I didn't think I had that
much liquid in me. Many people might think I am making this up but I'm not. He opened his
eyes and squeezed my hand. He whispered that love....love conquers all. He nodded to me lightly
and said, "Tell them...show them how to love." He closed his eyes for the last time and the
lightning lit up the night sky.....the thunder crashed and boomed....I thought of...I thought of my
life as a storm. I realized that every person has their own storm to conquer...their own eye at the
center where there is peace and safety. I became Thorkin that night....a person always trying to
master his storm and help others master theirs. My Grandpa once told me, during my dark years,
that one day I "would no longer be undone because I'd have two hearts that beat as one." His along
with mine.

I discover the Dragonmount.com Forums in the next blog and begin the long and perilous road
to healing. More to come soon!

-Thork