The Phoenix

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.

-Christina Baldwin-

Life's a mess sometimes.

But, in that mess, we often find an unexpected courage to move forward, to survive and ultimately to thrive.

In October of 2016, my family sat in a hotel room, operated by the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Salt Lake City, as my dad recovered from major, life-saving surgery. At the young age of 61 my dad’s heart started to fail him. We had found out in in January that he would eventually need a new ticker but we didn’t know when.

June had been that moment but his body was too weak to survive the transplant. Instead he was flown out to Salt Lake City had an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device) implanted in his chest.

The surgery took a toll on his body but by the time we got to October he was recovering. We went to go see him during my fall break from school and it was a great time. He had just been released from the hospital and was in the hotel room next door.

Somehow, during this time, I was comforted by writing. I had previously decided to write a Christian living book on marriage and was almost at the last chapter by this point.

The idea had come from a challenge that I had done with some of the guys from my church, where we would apply the nine fruit of the spirit to our marriages. A lot of people thought it was great and a few even said that I should write a book about it.

I've always loved a great story and for years before this I always thought that I should one day write a book. Initially, I wanted to write fiction but then I thought that non-fiction would be the easier thing to do….

Boy, I was wrong. I wrote an entire manuscript, 12 chapters with 20K words and no one thought it was good. I gave it to a few friends and family members and they critiqued the mess out of the first chapter.

That was disheartened. So much so that I was faced with a dilemma, do I try to rewrite the entire thing or give up.

I gave up.

Honestly, I was hurt and a little confused. I wanted to write but failure can be hard sometimes.

Then, life went on. My dad was able to fly back home to Texas and that Christmas we spent the Holidays with my dad. We had prayed for that moment but didn't know it was going to be possible. It took 6 months of rehab to get him to the place where he could go back home.

By the grace of God we had 6 additional months after Christmas to enjoy my dad and we took advantage of every moment. We watched movies with him, BBQed with him, talked about his parents and grandparents and listened to stories from his childhood in the Caribbean.

Later that spring, my dad traveled down to Austin for my birthday and wanted to make us his famous jerk chicken. Sadly, he never got the chance as his defibrillator shocked him 16 times one night while my wife and I were on a date.

He was then rushed to the local hospital. The doctors decided that he needed to go back to the VA hospital in Utah and that he needed a transplant right away. So, on May 17, 2017, my birthday, my dad was flown from Austin, Texas to Salt Lake City, Utah.

That was the last time I got to be with my dad while he was alive.

Over the next few weeks, we talked over Hangouts and things seemed to be progressing. On June 8th, he had the best video conversation with my boys ever. They were giving him virtual kisses and hugs through the screen and he seemed like he was doing better than ever before.

What the boys didn't realize was that my dad had called me on the side, earlier in that week and I could tell that his time was up. The doctors told him that he was no longer a candidate for transplant and that he needed to live out his last few years happy and with his family.

Somehow, I knew that it was coming and two days after he talked to my boys in the most loving conversation ever, he slipped into an unresponsive state. I immediately flew out and got to say goodbye before we pulled the plug.

It was the second time I had ever cried in over 18 years.

The next two months were a complete blur and almost a year later, I still can't tell you how I made it though that time.

At some point in July, however I cherished relief and I found that in my writing.

Throughout my life, writing had always been there for me. I learned the most about myself and God anytime that I wrote down my thoughts. I had been blogging for a few years but since the beginning of 2017 I hadn't written a single word.

That's when I knew what I had to do. I needed to write again. This time, however, I decided to go back to my first writing love, fiction.

Life often comes out of death and with that life comes the courage to evolve. This was my evolution but I was not going to evolve if I couldn't do it properly. I knew that I had to perfect my craft. I started combing through old emails looking for a podcast that I could start listening to during my 28 minute commute to work every morning.

I stumbled across Joanna Penn and I started ingesting her podcast as fast as I could. Then, the most amazing thing that I could possibly imagine happened. Joanna had Tim Grahl on her podcast and Tim was talking about the Story Grid.

I had no clue what the Story Grid was but I was intrigued. I immediately stopped Joanna's podcast (sorry Jo-I did come back to it later) and started listening to Tim Grahl's conversations with Shawn Coyne.

Let me tell you this: I was hooked.

It was exactly what I was looking for, a process by which to structure my story in a way that made sense and would make it good enough to read. After listening to about 10 or so hours of how to write a story that works, I decided to dive into it.

So I did. I created an outline and started writing the first draft of my manuscript.

For the next 9 months, writing became a refuge that I could have never anticipated. It was a sanctuary from the gritty reality of life and a escape from the clutches of death. Who would have thought that I needed saving from both death AND life. But, that was exactly what I needed and it was exactly what drove me to where I am now, exactly one year from the last time I saw my dad alive in person. It allowed to pen a blog for the first time since he moved from life to death.

A piece of my dad will always be in Utah

So in honor of my dad, I begin the move back from death to life. From the shadows to the light. And in this evolution, I promise to let my pen not only be my solace but my reward.