These are the memoirs of a man who never lived. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Part 1: Outrageous Fortune

To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

I grew up under the thumb of a particular kind of tyrant.

When I was fourteen years old, my father came into the house one Saturday morning and ordered my older brother and I to wait for him in the car. As a general rule, getting Dad's attention was a bad thing; I can't think of a single time in my teenage years where I actually wanted my Dad to pay attention to me, because that usually meant a beating was about to ensue.

Frantically whispering to each other about deeds we may have done to incur his wrath this time, my brother and I climbed into the back seat of our Jeep Wagoneer. My hands began to shake, and a small voice in the back of my mind whispered "This is it. This is where he takes us out into the woods, kills us, and hides the bodies." Perhaps that seems to you a bit melodramatic, but it was - for me - a *very* real concern.

As Dad entered the garage, the hushed conversation stopped, and we both stared expectantly out the window as he got in and pulled the vehicle out of our long driveway. We rode in silence up Utah's Highway 89 about 5 miles, almost to the Baker Reservoir turnoff. Without warning, he pulled the car onto the shoulder and shut off the engine. We sat there, no one moving or saying anything, for several minutes. I hardly dared breathe, some irrational part of my brain thinking that if I stayed small enough, quiet enough, inconspicuous enough - maybe I'd escape his wrath this time.

Calmly as you please, my father turned around in his seat and made eye contact with me. The disgust on his face was plain, and quickly became more annoyance as his eyes flicked away from me and settled on my older brother. *Maybe it was Ben this time,* my heart quailed in vain.

"You're both old enough now that I thought you should know," he began. "I don't love you - either of you. I never have, and I never will. As far as I'm concerned, you're not my sons." This pronouncement delivered, he turned back around, started the car, and drove home.

To this day, I have no idea what prompted the event, but I feel no shame in saying that I was glad that the worst thing that happened to me that day was to have my father tell me he never loved me. I'd once seen him beat my brother Ben senseless for eating the last Otter Pop in the freezer - he'd apparently been saving it for himself for later, something he neglected to tell anyone else. It was simply part of the every day tyranny of our lives: learn to anticipate every thought Dad has in his head, or suffer the wrathful consequences.

When we piled out of the car on our return home, nerves jangling from the rush of adrenaline that came from every interaction with my father, I looked at the door to the house and saw my mother standing there. In her haunted eyes I saw a shadow of the same fear, the same dread that had filled me on our departure. I did my best to give her a smile through the overpowering urge to vomit as my adrenal system crashed.

I won't pretend to understand what drives a man to do the kind of things my father did to his children, but I can say - with no hint of sarcasm - that many of the things I've been able to accomplish in my life have been made possible because of the strength that was beaten into me from an early age.

But this strength - the kind of strength that comes from beatings and oppression - is not enough to drive one forward; without a foundational faith - a cause, something to believe in - this kind of strength turns only inward, consuming the one so strengthened under the weight of its passion. For that other kind of strength - the internal fire that was able to make the steel malleable, to enable me to mold and shape that strength into productive channels - I must thank that woman who met us on our return from that fateful car trip.

Many people, when they hear about the things my father did to us (and to her) assume that my mother was a weak woman. They could not possibly underestimate her more. Sometimes, certainly, I wonder what might have been different in my life had my mother made the choice to leave him; but never would I suggest that it was weakness that caused her to stay with him. On the contrary, it took a far greater strength than I've ever seen another human being directly exhibit.

There are lots of things I will share about my mother over the course of these stories, but the kernel of them all is this: she showed me - from an early age and throughout my life - how to face the consequences of your choices. There's really not an option in this life - if you've sown the wind, you WILL reap the whirlwind. However, it takes that inner fire to not only survive the reaping, but make it your harvest, and grow strong from its buffeting winds.

I can distinctly remember a moment, later in my teenage years, that will illustrate the kind of woman my mother was. My parents own a small gun safe with an electronic lock; when you put your hands inside these indentations, and curled your fingers around the outer wall of the safe, you could feel the series of four buttons on each hand that comprised the "combination." The setup was such that an outsider could not see your fingers, so you wouldn't have to expose the combination of switch presses and releases that triggered the lock.

Just in case the owner should ever forget the combination, there was a small, tubular pin tumbler lock. We kids discovered that if one were to walk around the carpet dragging their feet - so as to build up a static charge - and touch the exposed metal of the tumbler lock, the ensuing spark would temporarily short-circuit the locking mechanism, allowing one to pull the safe open.

I'll not sugar coat things - I was a very angry, very depressed teen-ager. I still strongly suspect that I have been functioning with undiagnosed Type II Bipolar Disorder for most of my life. I tell you this - not as an excuse - but merely to frame what is to come. You see, I had used the static shock trick to open that safe, and had taken a gun and some ammunition out, with the intent of killing myself.

As I sat on the second-story porch of our home, taking what I thought would be my last look at the beauty of the world, and wondering why none of it ever touched the dark places inside me, I heard the screen door slide open. My mother came out and sat next to me on the white metal bench, looking out at the same view.

"I prayed for you," she said. I turned, puzzled, and she expanded on her thought. "Before you were born, I mean. As each of you were born, your father used to joke 'well, we know who the mother is, but who is the father?' Well, I prayed to Heavenly Father to send me a son that would be dark haired and dark skinned, like my family." Tears in her eyes, she choked on the last words: "You give me hope, son." Then she stood, and went back inside.

I gave her hope. With all the anger, the bitterness and sorrow that were eating me from the inside out, I was giving HER hope. I began to consider the selfishness of the act I was contemplating, and realized how unfair it would be to her - and the few other people in my life that had expressed love to me - if I were to give up now...and I swore I would never be so weak again.

I don't think she ever knew what she had averted - but that was the part that made it so profound. She may not have known how much - or how to help - but she could tell that I was hurting, and reached for something that might give me strength. I never gave up again.

And so it is today - as I face the jeering crowds, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" - that I stand perhaps bloody, but unbowed. Because of the steel beaten into my bones, and the fire set alight in my heart.