It is funny how life plays itself out. After so many years of war, all that I've seen, all that I've done, all that I've become, I no longer felt that I deserved to be loved. I thought that God abandoned me for my transgressions. In tortured times, in the low moments of our life, it is often easier to simply quit rather than resolve to overcome- at least for me. I was never accustomed to failure. Personally, the pain, hurt, betrayal, and loss consumes and can only be managed in a dark, seedy hotel room drowning the memories in some emotional abyss treading absently down the Sierra Nevada River. Drinking provided my only relief. In these moments, I no longer have to feel. How did it come to this? What have I become? At the age 35, when 30 is supposed to be the new 20, I felt 70 years old, and I wanted nothing more than to end it all. The Army still had grand plans for me as the War on Terror rages on perpetually, but I could not fathom leaving my room. I was simply tired of killing, but I was so damn good at killing. In retrospect, I was born to kill.
For many years, I lived by the mantra that just one more drink I can remember and just one more drink I can forget. Just one more drink, and I'll be gone...Regardless, I'm still here.
As I attempt to step out of this dilemma, I will share my story. This story is that of life. Life ebbs and flows in a sometimes quiet, sometimes chaotic wave crashing into the shore and then withdrawing again into the great sea of the universe in continual pattern. In the middle, emotions of hope, love, death, and despair churn in perpetual cycle. In darker times, as the wave peaks and crashes, life can be hard. In other times, life can be sheer joy. Regardless of the intensity of one's individual wave, life is exciting. This is my story of redemption and retribution. This story is how I learned how to truly live.
I suppose that God looks down below from heaven lovingly smiling at mankind's inherent inability to comprehend his creation. For far too long, I was angry at Yaweh because I confused his smile for a smirk. I thought that he was chuckling at my fate. I was too stubborn. I had no idea how much he loved me.
Sometimes life whispers in such sweet breaths compartmentalized until the time that we need them. Sometimes, we live too loud to hear the words. Occasionally, these words crash into us in times that we do not choose. Maybe it is Jesus carrying us through the darkest nights. Maybe it is angels at the gates. Maybe it just is.
It wasn't always this way. It was never supposed to be this way. Many moons ago, it was much simpler. My name is Daniel Michael Beers. My friends call me Danny. On September 10, 2001, I had everything- family, friends, and wealth- the American Dream, I had it all.
It seemed surreal. My deep roots were much more humble. My great-grandfather was a coal miner from West Virginia just shy of the Ohio border. Living in the most meager of circumstances, a life of trailer parks, ancient American-built trucks, drive-in movie theaters, and countless fast-food outlets, my grandfather packed up and moved to Charlotte to start a new life. He settled in the country next to a popular amusement park called Carowinds along the South Carolina border. In this time before the greed of the 1980's, folks lived peacefully with acres of land, spending what they earned and never contemplating a credit card, fearing the God of Abraham from the Southern Baptist interpretation, and otherwise content. Divorce was unheard of, church was a three times a week affair, and life was good. In some ways, each family lived out the pursuit of happiness promised by our forefathers. In other ways, each family concealed and dealt with internal problems such as pregnancy outside of marriage, adultery, and spousal abuse. These transgressions were but a whisper within the community- gossip amongst the gossipers. Each family dealt with their problems internally. Even with its misgivings and shortcomings, short of utopia, country life in North Carolina suited the Beers family well.
When it came to machines, Papaw (my nickname for my grandfather) had healing hands. He could fix anything- cars, washing machines, microwave ovens. You name it, he could fix it. He quickly established a profitable small business as the local handyman. As I stated before, in the art of fixing machines, he had healing hands. In his relationships with people, he was inexplicably mute.
Maybe Papaw was simply of the old breed that never showed emotion. Maybe the talents that God provided him allowed him to excel in some areas and limited him in others. Regardless, he never talked. I loved him dearly, and as a young child, I spent hours in his workshop learning his trade. In those moments, as he dissected the internal organs of a refrigerator, I watched his eyes brighten as he explained how the generator provided electricity to the cooling agents that in turn lowered the temperature of the entire system. I never understood any of it. It was oblivious to me as trying to understand Einstein's hypothesis on the time-space continium and quantum physics, but I loved every minute of it. I sat entranced as he poured a cup of Maxwell house coffee from his Thermos, the heat escaping in fumes of clouds from the lid as he sipped patiently examining the latest broken machine that some farmer brought to him to fix. I will never really know if I ever understood my grandfather, but I thought that I did.
Maybe he was quietly teaching me everything that I needed to know. I will never know.
Even back then, on the outskirts of Charlotte better known as the boondocks, I remember what he taught me. He took me fishing. I still remember it. I was six years old, and he took me to Lake Wylie to learn his second passion. Lake Wylie sits southeast of Charlotte hugging the border between North and South Carolina. The glossy wake stands in quiet contrast to the hectic metropolitian pace of downtown Charlotte just five miles away as developers, bankers, and other professionals scurry to and fro, back and forth, after the next dollar in the never-ending search of the capatlist utopia. Lake Wylie serves as a metaphor for my grandfather. Calm on the surface, the depths below that seemingly never-end house the chaos and confusion of nature- fish and plants striving in a complex eco-system competing and co-existing in life. I should of paid more attention to Papaw.
Today, like many other areas of the country, Lake Wylie is quickly becoming an upscale suburban enclave of Charlotte with massive multi-million dollar homes enchroaching along the banks. It took several decades of development as the neuvo-rich and northern implants outgrew the more popular Lake Norman northwest of Charlotte. Back then, Wylie was a simplistic redneck weekend getaway from the hard-working life of the blue-collar lower class. I will always remember the lake in its simplicity.
Even at six years old, I preferred downtown Charlotte to that of my family. I wanted it all- the glamour, excitement, and prestige of big city life. I thought that maybe if I grew up to walk sharply in a Brooks Brother's suit downtown then I would have made it. At the time, going fishing with my grandfather seemed lame, but I'll never forget that day. Papaw and I penetrated the calm of the lake in his 12-foot bass boat. I was wearing short Carolina blue shorts and my favorite Panama Jack T-shirt. He was wearing his typical Dungee pants and plaid shirt. As he navigated the small boat through the lake towards the sweet spots that housed the fish, he methodically sipped his coffee from his thermos. His gray hair twinkled in concert as if he was born to be on the water. Papaw did not smile- he sat transfixed staring at the controls of the boat, but he was at peace. I know this for a fact. It was as if every beast and burden of his past was removed as he glistened across the wake. For a brief moment, the weight of the world was off his shoulders. I observed his weighted, darkened eyes lift in relaxation in every yard removed from land. I sat on the front of the boat swallowing a Sundrop, a majestic sugar-caffeine concoction that rivals even Mountain Dew and can only be found in the Carolinas.
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