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