I spent seven and a half years at Guantánamo, without explanation.

I know firsthand how well my mom does “grace.”

Grace is something that doesn’t seem natural. It doesn’t feel right. Things like revenge, getting even, and making people pay for how they’ve wronged us—these things feel better. They come to us instantly. They are our gut reaction.

Things like “grace” take learning. Grace takes practice. Grace takes compassion. Grace requires a special kind of person—the kind of person who is willing to set aside the aforementioned desires of revenge and making people pay. It takes a kind of person who is willing to put love, selflessness, and compassion into daily practice.

This kind of person, a gracious person, needs to have a multitude of qualities beyond simply being “gracious.”

To have a home that is filled with grace, you have to be pretty adept at developing a whole host of other qualities—and then you have to have the fortitude and strength of character to be able to put those qualities into action day in, day out.

Mom, you’re one of these people.

The grace you show is only part of the story, because it is rooted in a spirit that is more compassionate than any I’ve ever met. I think about when we lived in Georgia and provided Christmas—decorations, gifts, even a tree—for a single mom with a ton of kids and no money. I think about all of the times you had me bring my violin (when I used to play) to nursing homes so that you could sing and I could play carols around Christmas time. I think about the countless people who ask how you are doing—even two years after you guys moved away—because you’ve simply touched that many lives.

The grace is rooted not only in compassion, but love—no one loves the way that you love your kids. Ever since you left work twenty-three years ago to begin raising a family, your life has revolved around us three boys.

When I was in middle school, you singlehandedly raised and spearheaded a project that put in basketball courts and play areas at our school that was otherwise barren and only surrounded in acres of yellow grass. Why? Because you wanted your boys to have a place to play when we were at school for recess and PE.  

I remember my years in high school when I would wake up every morning at five—and you would wake up right after so that you could make me omelets and fruit and toast so that I would have a hearty breakfast ready by the time I got out of the shower.

I remember when I was in first grade and you dressed up like a rabbit and came to my class to read Easter stories.

I remember the package I received last month that had two big loaves of banana bread that you had baked for me right before you went in for treatment—because when you could’ve been thinking about your impending chemotherapy, you were thinking about me, all the way across the country.

I remember what you told me when you found out about the cancer: “I just don’t want to leave your dad—and you boys without a mom…” I will never forget it.

Don’t get me wrong. You are a gracious person. I’ve screwed up enough in my life to deserve the worst—and yet you always respond with grace. Sometimes it takes a couple days, sometimes it’s immediate, but it always comes.

But the grace is only part of it. You’re an incredible woman whose grace is grown from a source of love and compassion that few people can muster.  And it is practiced every day.

You see, grace doesn’t come naturally to us. It takes someone special—someone who possesses the strength to keep practicing grace even when it doesn’t make sense.

Strength.

Love.

Compassion.

Grace.

Mom, that’s you. You deserve better than to be starting your tenth round of chemotherapy on your birthday. You deserve better than to endure the pain of this.

But I’d bet a million bucks that you handle it with the most grace anyone has ever seen.

I love you, mom. Happy Birthday. 

I held him down until he stopped screaming and thrashing, too tired to do anything but resign his position. I was nearly four years older and about thirty pounds heavier than him—he didn’t have a chance.

“Get…off of…me,” he muttered through gritted teeth and heavy breathing. He knew I wouldn’t.

I silently held him, trying to regulate my own breathing so it seemed like I was pinning him effortlessly. The knowledge that I was using every amount of sinewy strength I had would only provide a fuel for his already burning anger—and it would certainly give him the idea that he should continue fighting back, his chances of toppling me increasing with every second of exhaustion on my part.

Sweat dripped down my nose and onto his face. My arms shook as my hands pinned his wrists to the ground. No one would help him, after all. He was trapped and at my mercy.

He tried to spit in my face, but only choked on the saliva through his own struggled breathing. A drop of the spit landed on my arm, making its way through the canopy of hair and settling on my skin. He had to have known, right?

His breathing slowed…his eyes closed in frustration. But he had worked himself into a fury with such quickness that it was bound to fade at an equal rate. If he only knew why no one was coming to help me.

Surely that would make a difference in his efforts.

His eyes opened again, flashing green flecks embedded in a face of worn, brown skin. They were barely opened before they closed again.

Then he said it, confirming my worst fears, “You’re all alone here, man. No one’s coming to help.”

So he knew that this place had been left, then. He knew we had been abandoned here. And he knew I was the only guard left. I felt something claw through my veins as I realized what he was doing. I’d have to kill him. I had no choice.

He was resting, waiting for me to let up. He’d have no problem snapping me in half if he got the chance. He didn’t care anymore—and he knew I wouldn’t do it. No…couldn’t do it. Not after what happened.

I wish someone would come help me.

I heard footsteps…someone was coming! They’d take over…then I wouldn’t have to do it. Then I wouldn’t have to kill my own brother.

I looked at my surroundings for the first time in several minutes…or was it hours? It seemed like the walls were closing in on us. It was just he and I in his cell…surely another guard was coming! The footsteps grew louder until I saw someone through the cell door.

“In here!” I shouted. “Code orange!” It was the familiar phrase to let the fellow guard know that the man I was pinning had tried to escape. My brother had tried to get free.

                                      *           *           *

I peered at the crazy old loon through the cell door. He was there, kneeling on the ground, holding down an invisible figure of a past memory. The old man would never stop reliving that night, would he? I almost felt bad for him. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to kill your own brother. It had been what, almost forty years?

He must not be taking his pills again. That’s when these hallucinations get real bad, almost every day. It bothers the other guards, I think. That he killed his brother when they were so young. We don’t see a lot of guys that got put in here at such a young age.

“Shut up, old man. Take your pills.”

He shouted back, “Code orange! Code orange! I can’t let him go!”

I never knew what he meant when he shouted that. Maybe he thought I was here to help him. Poor guy, he just can’t move on.

“Take your pills!” I yelled at him, then turned around and walked back to the guard station. It was almost time to go home. God, I hate the night shift.

What does it mean to be a masculine Christ-follower?

Jobs are work and work isn’t fun

But we do it to pay the bills.

When your money runs out and work is done,

What do you get for your ills?

These breaths will expire,

Maybe before I retire.

Will it have been worth it then?

Don’t call me a liar,

We’re just sellers and buyers.

Dancing monkeys, not women and men.

“We do scant justice and honor to our God if we want, for instance, to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was a truly great soul, a holy man who walked closely with God. Our God would be too small if he was not also the God of Gandhi: if God is one, as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him. Many of us perhaps need to have our notion of God deepened and expanded. It is often said, half in jest, that God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment, saddling God with his own narrow prejudices and exclusivity, foibles and temperamental quirks. God remains God, whether God has worshippers or not.”

— Desmond Tutu: “God Is Not a Christian”

I recently broke down and cried a lot one night.

Maybe I shouldn’t be writing about it. Maybe I shouldn’t share. It’s not very manly. In fact, it’s deathly scary to cry sometimes. It’s one of the most out-of-control things we humans do, I think. I think everyone tries really hard not to cry so when we do, you know we’ve really lost it.

I know I do. I don’t like to cry. I feel like something takes me over. It’s as if, for a few brief moments, I have no control over myself as I succumb to this foreign force within me that produces tears and convulsions and snot and strange noises. Some call this “sobbing.” I call it unflattering.

This happened about three weeks ago. Or maybe a month. I don’t know that it matters.

Andrea and I had been watching LOST for about two months and it came down to the final episode. We were watching it on my computer in my little kitchen. My kitchen is a low-ceiling room with a tiny square table and two chairs that don’t face each other. I set up my computer on one corner and we watched it, eating Ben and Jerry’s.

 In the finale, the main character (Jack) is speaking with his father. They are talking of life and death and what happens to us all and Jack’s dad finally says, “Everyone dies sometime, kiddo.”

And I lost it. I couldn’t stop it. The tears that came to my eyes seemed to have no end. Andrea came over to my chair and hugged me and I couldn’t stop.

I wanted to stop, really, I did. I’m a man. I am supposed to be strong. I’m not a really emotional person anyway. I tried to prevent the tears and convulsions and sobbing but the more I tried to suppress them, the more they needed to come out. It was like my body had been creating tears for since I was a little boy in preparation for this moment. Every other time I cried in my life was mere practice.

I talked with this guy a while back. His name is Art. Art works at Nordstrom too, down in Men’s Clothing. Art came up to the third floor one day and we ended up chatting. He told me that he lost his wife and his business a couple years back. Naturally I asked him what happened.

He replied, “I got cancer.”

So I told him about my mom and how, about three months ago, she got diagnosed with cancer. And, in the middle of Nordstrom, with shoppers shuffling by us, tears filled our eyes as we talked about what the word “cancer” meant.

The dictionary defines cancer as “a malignant and invasive growth or tumor,” but to me and Art, it means a lot more. For Art, cancer meant the thing that made him lose everything. To me, it meant the thing that could kill mom.

Art told me that when he had cancer, there were moments when he’d grieve his own death. I knew exactly what he meant. And then he told me that grieving was important. He told me that it was important that I don’t suppress anything, that I shouldn’t try to rush through any sadness to get it over with. He told me that it was necessary and healthy to just feel for a while.

And that it was okay to grieve a death that hadn’t happened. For him, it helped to keep him grounded in what matters.

“Everyone dies sometime, kiddo.”

It was as if he was talking to me.

And the tears wouldn’t stop.

It hasn’t happened, but I grieved my mom’s death. I cried more than any other time I can remember. My tears soaked through the shoulder of Andrea’s shirt, I think.

I almost forgot to mention. After another brief exchange, Jack’s father says, “The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people.”

For Art, grieving a death that hadn’t happened kept him grounded. For me, it helped me remember how important my mom is to me.

“The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people.”

I’m tearing up a little just thinking about it.

The thing is, I had a blog over at wordpress. I enjoyed it all right, but my attention span is short and I think maybe yours is too.

Also, I’m going to start writing again, but here’s the catch: it’s going to be here, on Tumblr. That’s it. As I go along, I am going to repost some of my earlier writings from the wordpress site. That is, I’ll be posting some of the good ones. The other ones will hopefully be lost forever.

Thanks for following. I hope the journey is one of meaning and beauty.

—Austin