A Look Back

As I started this book, I described a lost boy who was lonely, depressed, and always feeling sorry for himself. Then, to top it off, I was able to feel this way with 20/20 vision. The fact of the matter is, even though we did not have the money others had, our family had so much love and a safety of stability with each other.

I now find myself desperately missing those wonderful days that I so took for granted. With all the family love for each other, the beautiful nature, watching the polliwogs grow into frogs in all different stages, and having lived in a junkyard that I used like an amusement park.

I took it all for granted. I look back, and I thank God that I was once a fully sighted person. For I have had all three stages with the use of my physical eyes: fully sighted, the transition of going blind, and then total blindness.

I can honestly say no one can tell me, “You don't know how I feel,” simply because of having experienced every stage in my life. Now, I have precious memories of being able to see so many things that I took for granted, and I can honestly say I miss even the simple things that used to bore me to death.

Long after my recovery started, there was a suggestion to meditate and try to quiet the mind, which I tried from time to time. I followed guided meditation, which took us through the colors of the rainbow as everyone's eyes closed during the process.

As I was getting used to meditating, my mind started producing these colors, and they were actually more vibrant than I remember them being when I could see. My mind was producing a beautiful, deep, majestic royal purple at the deepest part of the rainbow colors, and I found it so fascinating.

This was actually working the more I did it. One more aspect of what my mind sees, at my right eye only, I will describe as a beach-ball-sized mass of tightly crumpled aluminum foil, positioned in front of my point of view. This ball has thousands of lights of different colors continuously projecting out, as if the ball of aluminum foil is unfolding from the inside out.

There are continuous flashes of lights and colors that I am pretty used to now, but if I focus on them, they can be entertaining at times. Meditation music also has a deep effect on me, as it somehow touches my heartstrings.

My favorite is the gentle music with the thunderstorm in it. This particular sound file takes me back to my childhood, when I could see, when there was beautiful nature all around me that I took for granted. Looking through the eyes of my mind, I was viewing, in amazement, the colorful fall leaves on the floor of the woods on the other side of the pasture.

As I was walking through, I saw the streams of sunbeams shining through the tree branches, illuminating almost all of the different colorful leaves. Then, as I exited the back of the woods through the back meadow, I came to the body of water we called the swamp, at the low part of our property.

I had made a raft with an old house door, with tire tubes tied to the underside to keep it afloat, and I would guide it with a broken branch from the tree. I remember sitting on the raft and looking down through the water. It was about a foot deep, but it was the most crystal-clear water I ever remember, and again, also on this floor, the beautiful colorful leaves were resting at the bottom, just for me to look at in amazement.

I am writing this because I vividly saw these things in my meditation today. These memory scenes are almost 60 years old, but I really enjoyed them. The beautiful leaves memories are factual, but because of learning meditation, this next one I made up for myself.

I decided to create my peaceful place. At the far end of the junkyard was a black 1960 Chevy sitting there with the hood up. Behind it was another woods with a path in it. I started walking down the path. It was not too far when I came upon a tree close to a running stream.

The trunk of the tree seemed to have a defect at the bottom, almost as if one wide root was sticking up to give me a chair-like place to sit, with the trunk of the tree being the back of the seat. The stream looked beautiful, and I could clearly hear the steady water running continuously down its path.

Sitting there quietly, gentle wildlife started showing up and even coming up to me entirely unafraid. A deer came up to me to give me a sniff, but then walked on. On the other side of the stream was a beautiful grassy meadow, with woods behind it. I could look to my right, looking back up the path to see my dad working on a car with a torch.

Watching my dad work on cars was always peaceful for me. As I looked back toward the meadow, the 23rd Psalm came to me, dictating from my heart to my head.

As I was leaving my dad’s place on March 8, 1979, he called out my name before I closed the door. I said, “What?” My dad said to me, “I love you, Danny.” As I closed the door, I said, “Yeah.” My dad died during that night.

The next morning, my mother discovered the Holy Bible opened up to the 23rd Psalm on the kitchen table. I am sure this was the last thing my dad read. I will cherish these words, as my dad was trying to show me the way. For he was a man of action more than words, and I was surprised when he said that he loved me that night.

As I am nearing the end of this expression in this book, a scripture just came to mind to describe what my dad was expressing to me.

The whole family feels that he knew it was his last day here on earth alive in this physical body. My dad was the most loving and influential person ever in my lifetime. He was unconditional love and unconditional acceptance. He was the love and trust that I missed desperately for many years.

I take comfort in knowing where he is now, and I look forward to reuniting with him in heaven when it is my time to go.

Self-Esteem and Recovery

As my book clearly explains, I had deep low self-esteem issues right from the start. I looked at and wondered about a scripture in the Holy Bible that, at first, was very confusing to me.

How was I supposed to gain from this scripture? I thought, was this confirming my feelings of low self-esteem as a boy? “Am I less than everyone else?” When I became humbled after the accidents, I chose to look at the first step, admitting my powerlessness. I had no choice but to be in a lowly state of mind.

The position I was in at the bottom gave me this new starting point that I needed at the time, with my surrender and finally accepting the reality of my situation.

I noticed throughout my recovery that God’s principles are different and upside down from what I had learned in my physical upbringing thus far.

I had no idea that lifting someone else with a word, a phrase, or a good deed would change things in my life. In my self-centered world, this concept would not even come to mind, to think of others first.

I would now like to share another guiding principle in my life that I had in reverse order: self-centered, other-centered, then God-centered. This was my lifestyle and my focus until God reversed them for me in recovery. I needed to learn that God was first, then to have healthy fellowship with others, then finally me, within a self-caring lifestyle.

The change started to happen to me when I was sharing my experience, strength, and hope with others and, unknowingly at the time, was helping my fellow members. I now knew this, as there were so many other members around me that helped me in a way only God could do, whether they knew it or not.

I also experienced other members approaching me after I shared to say, “Thank you for sharing, you have helped me so much.” I found that lifting other people up in healthy fellowship was a true blessing to me.

I did not know that this effect was going to happen. It was a surprise to me. My wife also indirectly helped me out with this concept, as she informed me that the little things in life, “do unto others,” mean so much in this giving way. Something as simple as getting a napkin and handing it to her first before I take mine.

At a restaurant, I would ask the waitress her first name to lift her up at that moment. And when meeting someone, being the first to say, “How are you?” and then being available to listen. These things were new to me in my life of recovery, and it felt wonderful.

There are many more ways to get out of myself and to lift others, and I enjoy discovering them. For I now know the contrast of both of these worlds. I have spent enough time inside of myself and found it to be the hardest, loneliest place I know, and I choose not to go there anymore, as best I can.

As I live my life placing God first, I find freedom and liberty to choose to come from love in my daily living. My God has now allowed me to know that it is from Him and not myself, as I am living the dream. Again, I thank God for all that He has brought me through and blessed me with in this life.

The Things I Took for Granted

Doing the Dishes

I had six siblings as a child. My mother was tough. She had to be. While our dad worked two jobs just to keep food on the table for us, my mother needed to keep us kids in line, teach us, provide for us, and discipline us.

She did assign chores to us, but in my selfishness, it seemed to me that I was the only one who had to do the dishes every night, and I hated doing the dishes. With my mother’s authority, I had no choice. Within the boundaries of her love and discipline, I did them.

Looking back, I do not think it was every night. It just seemed that way at the time. Now, let us go back to the accident that blinded me. I am in a fully dependent state as I lay in the hospital bed with both legs in traction, and my sight is gone. I am alone, lonely, and powerless.

One of the first things that came to my mind was, “I wish I could go back to do the things that I used to complain about.” I now realize that my life and all the events in it I definitely took for granted.

Now, here I was. My whole world had changed, and I had no idea whether I would be able to do anything that I used to do ever again. Then, a scene came to my mind of doing the dishes for Mom.

I suddenly yearned so deeply to be able to do them again, as it was part of my basic foundation of her love. I honestly thought that I might never have the possibility to ever be able to do the dishes again as I had done them for her. Therefore, in recovery, my attitude about doing the dishes has turned to the opposite extreme.

As I stand in front of the kitchen sink doing the dishes, I think back to that scene in the hospital bed, and I thank God that I still can do them, for He has given it back to me. If anyone wants to complain about doing the dishes, they have probably never had the ability to do them taken away.

I will never complain about doing the dishes again, and I even volunteer to do them, even when we are visiting guests and family.

Back to Mayberry: Keep It Simple

The Andy Griffith Show was, in my opinion, the most important television influence in my life. I find myself attracted to the Andy Griffith Show’s values and would sure like to live a simple hometown life like that.

As my parents were too busy to offer constant guidance to us, I believe I learned many life values from The Andy Griffith Show. I came to find out about a year ago that the actor who played Opie had the same birthday as me, only his is a year earlier. Whenever my wife and I watch the show together, I think she gets tired of me saying, “Opie should have been me!”

Therefore, it fits very well now to understand why I related to these values, as I placed myself in practically every episode.

I’ve always wanted to write about the show and what it did for me, so now is a good time, as it is getting late in my life.

My older brother taught me how to use a rifle about the time that “Opie the Birdman” aired, and yes, I accidentally shot a bird just to see if I could do it.

I did not have the same results as Opie did on the show, though. I had deep remorse over it, and my dad did not even know about it. I still feel bad about what I did over 50 years ago, as I knew it was wrong.

A Medal for Opie

“A Medal for Opie” was another one that hit me hard. The magic scene, with the camera angle of Andy looking down at Opie and Opie looking up at him, was the most powerful for me. Andy said, “I just want you to know that I’m disappointed in you.”

I had a dad just like that. In fact, if you asked any of my six siblings, they would all agree that it would have been easier to be spanked by him rather than have Dad say that to any one of us. As my wife says, “No one makes shows like that anymore.”

Opie’s Hobo Friend

Another powerful episode to me is “Opie’s Hobo Friend,” with Buddy Ebsen. The hobo knew what he knew, and he lived his life accordingly, as living this way was his intention. Opie then looked up to him as he watched his way of life, desiring to be like him.

Andy took responsibility for Opie by presenting the hobo with the truth, expressing the difference between right and wrong on Opie’s behalf. The hobo then turned and sacrificed himself for the sake of Opie and his future behaviors by pretending that he stole Aunt Bee’s purse, which put him in jail.

Again, the scene when Opie looked up at him and asked, “Did you really do that? Did you steal Aunt Bee’s purse?” Then the look that the hobo gave back to him is priceless. Opie got it, and so did I.

The difference between right and wrong expressed in this episode gave me a huge learning lesson in life.

Andy Discovers America

This episode helped me with my time in school, as I was probably the kid who, for the most part, did not want to be there in the first place.

It helped me recognize my motives for doing things for my own reasons.

Because what Andy did, like so many times, was whatever it took to turn a wrong into a right.

Instead of forcing the schoolwork onto Opie and his friends, he pointed to their interests until it became their own idea.

Opie and the Spoiled Kid

This episode affected my outlook toward my values, and even though we did not have much as far as material things, the lesson in this show gave me the concept of, “Not necessarily to have what I want, but to want what I have,” which to me can be a key to happiness.

Bailey’s Bad Boy

Then there was “Bailey’s Bad Boy” with Bill Bixby. I saw enough enabling in my life to know that there was something wrong with it, but this episode gave spiritual direction to a young man who needed to grow up in spite of the adults who were enabling him.

The character that Bill Bixby played took responsibility for his own actions and, for the first time in his life, wanted to be accountable and was able to stand up for himself instead of being enabled by his rich father and his legal team.

This episode helped me with my identity, as I had choices to make throughout my future life on my own.

Andy on Trial

Barney was trying to impress a young college girl with his bragging, but it backfired on him. As I tried to impress my friends, I found myself bragging and embellishing the truth. I said many things I should not have said, and I tried to keep up with what I did say that was not true.

In the trial, Barney was humbled, and the truth came out. I then found the phrase: “Humble yourself before you get humiliated.” To me, the lesson in this episode is that it is better to use the truth in any given situation.

Through tough learning experiences, I now love the phrase, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”