The year was 1930.
The setting was LaCrosse, Kansas in the middle of the depression and the dust bowl. Everybody was hurting in this tiny town. As Bryce Logan let the screen door shut behind him, he kept his eyes pointed west and didn’t bother to look back. His wife would offer her CCD best and chase him with the words, “BRYCE, don’t go.” Huddled behind Anna were her two children age 10 and 5.
Speechless…
Last friday Marie Logan Scott, my mom, recalled this story and the dad that abandoned her at the tender age of 5. Mom’s 86 now, and remembers this wound as if it just happened. She was putting her makeup on as she spoke and she told me that she takes her time getting ready because she wants to look better on the outside then she feels on the inside. My heart hurt hearing her recall her pain.
My mom is super strong and wouldn’t want you to feel sorry for her. She is a stubborn and giving German that doesn’t often let anybody see her sad side. She has lived alone for 15 years in the home she shared with Dad until cancer ripped him from her. She had both knees replaced last year and rehabbed them like a banchee so she doesn’t need a cane or a wheelchair. She has migrains and all kinda aches and pains. None of them compare to the scar tissue from the wound that just won’t heal.
Today, somebody is thinking of leaving those that they love because it would be easier to turn your back and let the screen door hit your backside. Before you quit, before you walk on, before you leave them behind, do me a favor…
Turn around and remember that the pain you are about to run from has a home and unlike you, they got nowhere to go. Think about the deep, lasting 81 year scar you are heaving on a llittle one. Close your eyes. Ask God for help. And, turn toward your pain, own your piece, and model the way. The next generation thanks you.
Thanks Mom for giving me the gift you never really received. Thanks, Mom.
And, God help me pass it on…
BUILT TO LEAD 
This one hit close to home.
A good read for anyone tempted to be-leaving be-lieving “love is a feeling” having bought the media rag headline that if you don’t feel in love be true to your feelings is — “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce”.
WARNING — do not read it if you are looking for some more material to reinforce the idea that divorce is what is best for the kids. Do not read it if you are looking for stats to show you that your odds for a lasting relationship are better the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th or 5th) time around. Do not read it if you are looking for reinforcement that a trial run of living together is the secret to a marriage that makes it.
As the saying goes, you can leave your situation behind, but the real problem is that wherever you go, you are still with you.
Years after one father left and re-married, in a rare vulnerable moment when the two of us were alone in a beautiful tropical setting, he said it was the worst mistake he ever made and his biggest regret.
As someone who’s done a lot of marriage counseling and counseling for those who have divorced or remarried, I exhort you to make divorce the last option, and never the way out for falling out of love, boredom, most unresolved conflict, or mid-life crisis. The road to healthy relationships always, always is built on two people with strong cores who have become givers, not takers, in their relationships.
Yesterday I re-studied one of the 12 Essentials — “Build your Knowledge of Yourself”, a key discipline for becoming core-centered & self-controlling. It’s real, hard work — and I know I’m not alone in still figuring it out. But the alternative which is much easier in the moment — remaining self-centered & others-controlling and looking for someone “compatible” — is the story line of the nightmares that fill the rest of the media rags.
From the related reading I’m doing on the roots of addiction, one of the saddest legacies of divorce is the lingering affect on the emotional development of kids. Addictions are a “feelings disorder” — rampant in today’s culture — making no distinction across class to deal with the wounds & pain & conclusions of abandonment and helplessness.
So thanks, Chet’s M&D, for giving to Toto something your dad wasn’t strong enough to give to you. One unexpected legacy of your life is that it’s made all of us at BUILT TO LEAD part of your legacy.
Thanks Gurue for sharing your story. I am so glad to have you with me…