Where Did I Go So Horribly Wrong?

And when does the pain of caring go away?

I was afraid to hold you at first, you’re seemed so small,

not at all like your sister, so quiet, reserved, and still.

It’s not that she was in better or you will be worse,

the two of you would just very, very different.

It’s even a little awkward to say that you were small,

when I look back after all these years,

especially compared to all those other new babies

who weighed six or seven pounds when they were born,

and here your sister and you checked in at 8.10 and 9.4, respectively.

But to me you seemed tiny; fragile, and I thought, somehow, I’d break you,

both of you. As silly as that sounds, that’s how I felt.

Even after a year’s worth of practice holding your sister

I still felt that way the first time I held you;

That against all odds I would still do the impossible

and be the father who broke his newborn the first time he held her,

And in the most horrendous kind of way imaginable,

nearly forty years later, I’m still petrified by that fear.

For 18 years I did my best to show you how the do your best

I tried to be there when I could, be all the things a father should.

I went to plays, games, concerts, gymnastics meets, and trips,

helped the coaches, teachers, volunteers and pretty much anyone

who put out the call, needed a helping hand, or volunteer.

I tried to teach you about Jesus, and the difference knowing Him would make in your life

when you committed to him and trusted your eternal future to His loving care.

And I tried to be a good responsible example at home what a husband and father should be,

although I guess that was probably my biggest failure.

I taught you to be strong. I taught you to stand up for yourself.

I taught you to never be afraid to speak your mind when you believe strongly in

something or someone, because you might be the only one

who takes up that person’s banner; who shows them someone cares.

Yes, I know I make my mistakes. Some of them repeatedly. Some of them huge.

But I tried to separate those things from you. You were never the source of the problems.

If anything, you were my anchor. You were what kept me going.

You are why I kept trying.

More than anything else, you are why I’m writing this. I can’t undo the past

or the mistakes that I made. I can’t change your perceptions of confused memories,

or memories of events that happen before you were born.

I can’t defend the versions of incidents that took place that I wasn’t there

to defend when you heard the version that you heard.

And I can’t make up for past mistakes I’ve apologized for

more times than I can remember because sometimes forgiveness

is accompanied by a “right to throw it up in your face again” clause.

I wasn’t a perfect Christian or a perfect Father, but I did try to raise you to not be disrespectful,

or to challenge your Elders about things you really weren’t there to know about,

much less contrast your ‘facts’ and the memories of we who actually lived the ‘facts”.

I can tell you how deeply it hurts when you call me a liar,

or challenge me or disrespect me in an open forum like Facebook

because your feelings don’t really matter when you’re calling me a liar

in front of people of examine my integrity when I’m Answering their questions

or offering an explanation about what the Bible means

when someone like Paul says “don’t be conformed to the world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”,

or something as simple as when I say “I’ll pray for you”.

YOU aren’t the one who‘s being called to the carpet.

I’m 62 years old now. 15 days from being 62 ½. I’ve been with me

for every one of those 62 ½ years. You, on the other hand,

depending on which of you are reading this, are either 35 or 36.

I have mostly known you for all of those years. But I was 25 years old

when the first one of you was born. Theoretically at least,

that’s 25 years of my life about which you know nothing.

There are an additional 25 years that have passed since your mother

made the decision that she did preferred the preference of another man.

And so realistically of those 62 ½ years, 50 of them

are unaccounted for in your knowledge base of my life. Therefore,

when I tell you what I’ve done with my life, you only really have about a dozen years

with which to accurately challenge my conclusions.

And even then, new and it only really be guessing.

Now you can ridicule me, challenge me, call me a liar,

call me ignorant, fight with me in an open forum,

disrespect me in an open forum, call me judgmental,

call me a hypocrite new and openly criticize me,

anything you want. But bear in mind

that your children see you treating your grandfather like this,

and if they see mom do it, they’ll decide it’s okay for them to do it,

and if it’s okay to do it to grandpa,

it’s okay with mom and dad,

and teachers,

and Sunday school teachers,

and any other adult. Because that’s what mommy does,

and that makes it okay. And that’s why I delete those disrespectful

crude, obnoxious posts, because strangely, I feel the need to protect my child

from wagging tongues that would see her saying such hurtful things

because she forgot “Honor your father and your mother,

so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."Exodus 20:12,

 while she was busy accusing him of Matthew 7:1-6.

Because no matter how badly I screwed up in the past,

no matter how many mistakes I made raising you.

You will always be my children, and I’ll always love you.

By David Roth

©17 May, 2015

Jerry Falwell - His Mark Still Changes Lives

Jerry Falwell I Love America Tour

It was almost thirty years ago.  She’s my ex-wife now, but back when the news came that her father had passed in the night, we’d been married just about a year, and she was pregnant with our first child, something about which we were, at the time unaware.

We were in college at the time, or at least I was.  That was her father’s one stipulation in agreeing to allow his daughter to marry – she had to finish college.  I still had a year to go after she graduated.  It wasn’t that I was slow or anything – I was just, shall we say, dirt poor.  I had to work my way through school with the aid of a few low level grants and a college loan it took me ten years to repay.  That, plus I took two years off of school when I graduated from with my Associates Degree from Miami Dade Community College.  You might very well say that my plan was to cram four years of college into six.

At this point in my life I was going to school full time and working full time at the warehouse the college used to store the salvaged furniture bits they purchased from the huge military depot in Roanoke until I could transform it into something that was functionally usable in a classroom or dormitory.  That was my job – take the stuff and turn it into something usable.  Sand, strip, paint, glue, nail, repair, whatever it took.  It came to me a truckload at a time and I spend my non-class and non-studying time turning junk into usable furniture.

That morning, the one her father died, I was there at the warehouse after seeing her off at the airport.  I had to – I’d been reminded a number of times by the director of the school’s Work-Study program precisely how many other students at our college needed jobs.  Besides, I didn’t have classes scheduled that day.  I’d put my wife on an airplane back home earlier in the morning, and was planning to fly out myself later that evening.  When the phone rang, I was the only one there so I answered.

The caller identified himself and asked for me.  Both the identity of the caller and that he was calling for me were highly unusual, or so I thought at the time.

He explained that he’d gotten word regarding my ex-father-in-law’s passing, and wanted to ask a few questions about arrangements as well as offer his condolences.  He explained that he’d already instructed his secretary to send flowers to the funeral home, which in itself was extraordinary – I didn’t have that information at my disposal yet!  He went on to tell me how much he admired and respected my wife’s family, what he knew of them.

He also wanted to know why I was answering the warehouse phone and not in Michigan with my wife and her family, all things considered.  He explained that if it was a question of money, that could, and would be taken care of.  I explained my concerns about what had been explained to me regarding the work-study job, and he said he would make certain that my job was waiting for me when I returned, take as long as I genuinely needed, but to ‘not milk it.’

He took the time to instruct me about the importance of the need of my family for my presence at this time, and in a sort of father to son way, told me that he fully expected that I would be on the flight which he already knew was scheduled to depart Lynchburg’s small airport at 6:15 that evening, that he would know if I wasn’t…and would expect a very good reason for my not being on that aircraft if I wished to deflect his formidable, if loving and fatherly wrath.

I assured the caller that all was taken care of and that I would indeed be outbound that evening on the aforementioned flight.

He ended the conversation by taking a few moments to ask my permission to pray with me.  I agreed.

Here’s what’s significant about all of this.

My wife and I were really no one of great or even minor importance around the college campus or church that sponsored it.    She worked off-campus, and I attended classes and worked.  We lived off-campus, and neither of us were on any of the musical outreach teams or athletic teams.  In short, she had been, and I was still, just another unremarkable student finishing up college and working to pay the bills.

Yet, on this difficult day, the needs of our family were important enough to this caring individual to take time out of his very busy day to make certain that my personal, individual needs, and those of my family were met during this time.  This was how he conducted business at ‘his’ college and the ‘young champions for Christ’ he and his 20,000 ,ember strong church were helping train, from pre—school right through a doctorate in Seminary, if the Lord so lead!  No one was unimportant to him.  Where there was a need, or where one of ‘his’ was hurting, he attended to the need himself when he could, much like the loving shepherd who left behind the 99 sheep to go in search of the one that was missing or injured..  Many words and many hours of film have been devoted to this individual in the media over the years, but you’ll never hear a story like this in mainstream media. You won’t hear them talk about the faithful husband and father who never strayed from his wedding vows, or took a nickel for himself from the offering plate. It serves the fuels of media fire more to talk about his role in politics and other things, or to criticize his stands on political and moral hot-button issues.

That man passed away this morning* in his office at the school he founded and loved so much.

His name was Jerry Falwell.  He was my Pastor.  He was the Founding Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, a church whose growth he oversaw from the original 30 members to 20,000 members, now Pastored by his son, Jonathon. He was the Founder and Chancellor of my college.  And yes, he was my friend.

*This was originally written the morning of 15 May, 2008, when I first received news of Jerry Falwell’s Homegoing. Today is the Eigth Anniversary of Jerry’s call to Glory, and comes just six days after the 42^nd convocation of his beloved Liberty University! 

©2007, 2015 Too Cheap To Buy A Real One Productions®

Isn't - A Poem for Mother's Day

My Mom - Marge Costello

Isn’t

By David Roth

©10 May, 2015

Mother’s Day

 This isn’t how I pictured spending Mother’s Day this year,

Alone at my computer mixing misspelled words and tears

But no one thought to warn me she was leaving us that day

Without a chance to tell her all the things I had to say.

Linda's Mom - Shirley Venable

I’d tell I you was sorry I’d been difficult to raise

That growing up was hard for me, too, in those early days

And how I wish I hadn’t left, and just walked out the door

Not knowing how a Mother’s love goes on forevermore.

I thought I’d have a second chance with someone else’s Mom

Someone I had come to love the way I loved my own,

But she, too, had her own ideas, and slipped off in the night

Before I got to say that it’s okay; that it’s all right.

That I would do my best to take good care of her first born,

That these ten months had left me feeling weary, tired and worn,

Instead I’m fixing typos through a curtain stained with tears

Not how I pictured I’d be spending Mother’s Day this year.