.jpg)
Meet the Author Video
https://youtu.be/mfb8WOeMSG4
Excerpt:
At seven years of age, I am not comfortable at all being alone. It is a very unsettling feeling. Nerve-wracking. The sense of uncertainty over whether anyone will come back to get me. That I will be abandoned and left behind. Well, I already am left behind, so the fears are well founded.
My coping mechanism, when terrified at this age, is to cry and then shrink into a corner.
But I don’t want anyone to witness my fragility. I have to keep that hidden.
As I search for a place to disappear into, I stumble across an unlocked gate to an enclosure. There are no people on the other side in the enclosure and my youthful brain interprets this as a secure place then in which to hide and cry.
I do not even hesitate to go in. Keeping my emotional fragility hidden far outweighs the explicit warning from the park owner that “everything in Australia can kill you.”
In recent years, I have often wondered how the course of any life might change if these small insignificant moments in our lives were different. How strong is their influence on the outcome of our existence? What if we had not gone to this animal park this day? Could my life be completely different? And this moment occurred 48 years ago. How grand do defining moments in a person’s life have to be to completely change the trajectory of their lives?
What if mum and dad had taken us kids for a hike this day instead of driving around the back streets? What if we went to the toad races? What if I had not needed to go to the bathroom?
What if? Can a life change that much from the effect of a moment that takes just five minutes to play out?
I wander a few steps into the pen and sit down with my back against the fence. Here, I will not have to be worried about seeing the faces of my parents, who could be embarrassed at the sight of their shrinking violet of a son, while at least they will see where I am and come get me. Hidden but obvious. A useful tactic in every child’s handbook.
It is at this point that I am aware that I am inside a large pen that has a group of kangaroos in it.
If there is one native Australian species that any person alive would prefer to be enclosed with, it is the kangaroo. Not with one of the world’s nine deadliest snakes out of the top ten. Not with a couple of saltwater crocodiles. Not with a collective of deadly drop bears. Give any man a docile, grass eating kangaroo every day of the week.
A group of kangaroos is most commonly referred to as a ‘mob.’ They also use the terms ‘troop’ or ‘court’. In this case I will stick with the use of ‘mob’ and then I can later casually toss in using the adjective ‘unruly.’
Most of the kangaroos are listlessly lying around scratching their groins, as these animals do most of the day, even in the wild. The life of a nature park animal exhibit is most likely 99% boredom until some inattentive staff member also leaves the gate to the crocodile pond ajar.
I sit against the fence, remaining perfectly still. One oversize Big Red kangaroo rises from its sprawl on the ground. He stretches himself upright, then laboriously rolls forward on its front paws to nibble on the tufts of brown grass. Observing me, he slowly paddles his way over to inspect the newest occupant of its pen.
The nickname given to any male kangaroo is either ‘boomer,’ ‘buck,’ or ‘jack.’ Sitting alone in an animal enclosure as a seven-year-old, while penned in by a beast on a comparative size scale as large as wrestling great Andre the Giant, I would also accept the use of the term ‘scary mother fucker.’
Scrambling to my feet, I then stand frozen. I swallow large measures of palpable fear as the animal sniffs at my cheek with its sizable, quivering nostrils. It is a disconcerting feeling, while it takes all my youthful willpower to not have my knees buckle and collapse. At seven, this is like staring death in the face.
Holding my breath, I desperately attempt not to flinch as the roo perches in front of me.
The other kangaroos in the ‘mob’ stand up and move into position to back up their ringleader. If my legs were not two sticks of gelatinous whale blubber sheathed in sausage casing, I might have run. There is no telling if this is the right thing to do, but it was one of the two options available to me on the table. The other one is cowering where I am and die.
The Big Red slowly leans forward and gently taps me on the chest with his paw. Barely a glancing touch, but still a well-intentioned threat. The native animals of Australia are still bullying the colonialists a good 200 years after we thought we took over the land. Humans may well be the most intelligent species, but no one sits down on a toilet seat and simply ignores an inland Taipan nestling in the water of the bowl, no matter how well developed our brains are.
What am I supposed to do against this animal? Defend myself? I could not fight my way out of a wet paper bag if I had on steel capped boots, a swastika tattooed on my forehead, and holding an M-16.
The kangaroo staring me in the face terrifies me.
Guest Post
What was my motivation for writing an inspiring memoir?
An unspeakable tragedy that, for 13 years, crushed my life with the weight of grief, suffering, and guilt heavier than the stone Zeus forced Atlas to carry on his shoulders for eternity.
And a tragedy that still crushes my life to this day, carried on by the evil in the hearts of many people in places of authority who are more than willing to stand by and do nothing will the abuse of an innocent child continues unabated.
So I was inspired to write the type of subject material that will have a reader falling out of the chair laughing. Because apart from writing about struggle, I include enough humor to also make a reader laugh until they cry.
Most days I wake up before the sun and lie in bed and dream of how better everything would be in this world if everything was destroyed. Wiped out. Annihilated. How years of frustration have brought me to a point where I no longer care if I was to die tomorrow, or preferably if everyone on earth was to die.
There is nothing that I see in people that makes me think any of them are worth saving. There are mornings where I hate the entirety of humanity that much.
And then I get out of bed, shower, and go to work where I willingly sweat, strain, and break my back to help complete strangers recover from devastating spinal cord injuries, even as the rest of the health system works to invalidate and disenfranchise them.
Because, even as much as I cannot stand the life that the evilness on this earth has given me and my son. I will never stop showing him how much I love him by doing the only thing that gives me hope that one day we too will find that one person who will sacrifice to help us.
Have you ever had a moment of suffering or loss and looked around for help or guidance on how to deal with it? Don’t bother. This world has become a planet of self interest. Selfishness. People now expect something in return for doing a good deed for someone else. Society has lost respect for humanity.
And yet people will want me to feel guilty for pointing this out. I used to feel guilty. In my first life. But for every one admirable thing someone could point to, to show the kindness of humans, I could point to a dozen others to expose their wickedness and cruelty.
So why would I write a memoir to illustrate how little hope I consider there is for mankind? Because if I can even help one person, from making an innocent choice that could lead them down a path that will only end in the same unspeakable agony that I have in my life. Then I have done enough.
Whether or not there is a heaven or hell, I will have done enough to hold my head up and look any other human squarely in the eyes while I still walk this earth and state, “prove to me you are my equal.”
If you think that is arrogance, then let me explain a very simple fact about life. Cancer does not pay heed to arrogance. Spinal cord injuries do not care about arrogance. Death and disease have no concern for a person’s arrogance, selfishness, or avarice.
What it demonstrates is my commitment.
Anyone who does not know this is not someone who thinks of anyone other than themselves. While there will be difficult occasions in any human’s life, that everybody needs the help of another. And this is a sad time to realize that the only people worthy to be in your life are the ones who will stand by you during hard times.
A person will only come to fully understand this when they enter their second life.
Review
🌟🌟🌟🌟
As someone who always feels like the odd one out in any group, I found myself relating to the author's wondering about his place in his own family and in life.
I love the author's unassuming manner and dry wit. He doesn't think himself the only person capable of telling a story, nor does he think he is the best storyteller. But only he can tell a story in his unique style, and surely he is the best one for the job of telling his story. He finds the humor in even a life-threatening situation such as his battle with the kangaroo.
I also relate to the author's thoughts regarding society's treatment of people who are struggling psychologically. People learn early on that it is best to keep feelings such as depression or anxiety hidden. Reaching out for help is seen as a sign of weakness and may well be met with ridicule rather than an offer of assistance.
I relate to the bullying the author endured at the hands of his so-called "friends."
"It is hard to trust when all you have from the past is the evidence as to why you should not," he notes.
Truer words were never spoken.
Those who were well-liked and not bullied won't understand why those of us who endured both physical and psychological abuse as well as "jokes" whose sole purpose was to make someone feel unwanted and subhuman have trouble trusting, even decades after the incident.
I was dismayed when the author made an unfunny and unfortunately all too common joke about "the diabetes from her weight problem" regarding a contentious border agent between the US and Canada. Not bullying people should include not bullying heavy people, who are frequent targets of hatred simply because of their size.
Being heavy does not cause a person to develop diabetes. Diabetes is caused by one thing: having the genetic trigger for the disease. A person without the genetic trigger will never develop diabetes, regardless of their size. People of all sizes can develop diabetes. One cannot eat oneself into diabetes.
A person's size is dependent on multiple factors, including genetic predisposition, endocrine disruption, medications, and a history of weight cycling. In other words, when you see a fat person, you are probably looking at someone who has a long history of dieting. You cannot know what or how much they eat. You don't know how active they are. You do not know their medical history. Please don't stigmatize a person's body or medical conditions.
If not for this passage, I would have gladly given the book five stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I try to get comments published as quickly as possible. I don't always reply to comments on my blog, but I do try to visit as many people as possible when I participate in blog hops and I share links where possible to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and such so others can discover your work. I do read and appreciate your comments.