The Bloom | Reflecting God's Greatness

The Bloom

From a heart encased in concrete and steel to a life beginning to open.

Blooming isn't becoming

someone else.

It's allowing what has been there

all along to emerge.

I have begun to bloom into who I was always intended to be.

Twenty-six years ago, a little boy named Sammy lost his teddy bear. The trade name for the bear was Wembly, but Sammy named him Baby.

Baby had disappeared somewhere along his family's journey home from an outing. I came across the story, in an obscure post on a nascent piece of technology called 'the web'. And something about that little boy's loss caught my heart.

I didn't know Sammy. I didn't know his family. I had no idea where Wembly might be or whether there was anything I could do to help. But I became involved.

What followed was a rather extraordinary adventure involving strangers, an expanding search across the country and even across the Atlantic, and a remarkable collection of people willing to help a little boy find something he loved.

There wasn't a grand plan. No particular expectation of success. I simply saw something that mattered to someone else and wanted to help.

In January 2001, the Humboldt Independent published a story about the adventure, complete with a photograph of Sammy and his family.

Looking back now, I recognize something in that experience that I didn't recognize at the time. A glimpse of the person I was always intended to be.

Not because finding a teddy bear was some extraordinary accomplishment, but because of the freedom with which I had allowed myself to care, to become involved, to reach beyond the crumbling boundaries of my own life and connect with people I had never met.

The Rest of The Story

Then came September 11, 2001.

My brother-in-law Brian was murdered in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

When I reached out to Sammy's family afterward, Toni Hood said something I have never forgotten: "What fresh new hell is this?"

There was no adequate answer.

My wife Cathy struggled with grief and alcohol in ways far more complicated than any single event can explain. Alcohol eventually consumed her life in 2021.

I carried the consequences of September 11, silently, for more than twenty years, living with PTSD that went undiagnosed for most of that time.

There were other losses. Other disappointments. Other responsibilities. More reasons to anticipate the worst, prepare for disaster, and protect myself against whatever might come next.

I became very good at protecting myself, or so I thought.

I had spent much of my professional life solving problems, managing risk, anticipating contingencies, and making plans. From computer programmer to Director of e-Commerce, those skills had served me well. I could recognize a problem, identify its moving parts, and develop a strategy to deal with it.

But living isn't quite the same as managing a project.

Somewhere along the way, I began applying those same instincts to everything. Relationships. Love. Loss. The future.

I desperately clutched whatever emotional crumbs came my way, hoping they might provide some sustenance, some security, some peace.

And beneath all that planning and protecting, I was frightened. I had built walls around my heart. Concrete and steel. Layer upon layer.

By the time I found myself at the abyss in 2022, I could barely recognize the man who had once become so joyfully involved in the search for a little boy's teddy bear.

But he hadn't disappeared. I just hadn't yet learned how to let him out again.

In September 2022, on the shore of a small pond in New Jersey, I surrendered my life to God.

That surrender did not instantly make me an easy man to live with.

Or an easy man to meet.

Or, for that matter, an easy man to be.

I was still angry. Still frightened. Still hurting. Still inclined to anticipate every possible catastrophe and develop seventeen contingency plans before breakfast.

But something had begun.

That autumn, I was led to South Dakota, where a remarkable series of encounters began opening doors I hadn't even realized were closed.

In November, I met Katie, a practitioner of the John Barnes approach to Myofascial Release.

I had come looking for help with a body that had endured more than its share of pain. What I encountered was a rare human being whose presence, compassion, insight, and extraordinary restraint helped me begin recognizing something far beyond the physical discomfort that had brought me to her.

She helped me see the concrete and steel surrounding my heart. Not by tearing down the walls for me. Not by insisting I change.

But by creating a space in which I could begin recognizing what I had built, and what it might mean to live without needing those defenses quite so desperately.

The Rest of The Story

When a friend at a new church mentioned something I hadn't known, I was skeptical.

I was eligible for VA healthcare.

Forty-four years after my honorable discharge from the United States Air Force, I had somehow stumbled upon a benefit I didn't know I had earned.

My previous experience with the VA suicide hotline had done little to inspire confidence in the system.

And years embracing the persona of a Jersey boy, I approached my first appointment in Rapid City with a definite attitude.

The VA? In Rapid City, South Dakota?

What are YOU going to do for ME?

My appointment was December 2, 2022.

My new primary care provider was Sabrena.

Her nurse warned her that this guy was angry.

She prayed before coming in to meet me. And she came anyway.

What neither of us could have anticipated was the connection we would make during that first hour.

I had spent twenty years in my second career as a Special Education teacher, much of that time working with children on the autism spectrum. Sabrena was the mother of three children, two of whom had received special education services.

There it was. The thread. Not my medical history. Not my anger. Not my long list of grievances with the healthcare system.

Children.

Our mutual love for children who needed someone to see them, understand them, and advocate for them.

My armor began to crumble. By the end of that hour, we were both in tears.

And I had begun to trust her.

The Rest of The Story

Ten weeks after my cardiac stents were placed, I hiked Black Elk Peak with a childhood friend. Nine miles, round trip.

Despite my cardiologist previously wondering how I was still walking around, I was now walking across the Black Hills, climbing toward the highest point in South Dakota.

A friend took a photograph. At the time, it was a photograph of a remarkable day. I didn't yet understand what else it might become. Nor did the journey suddenly become easy.

In 2026, one of those coronary stents fractured, requiring another trip to the angio lab, further treatment, and another reminder that even the repairs sometimes need repairing.

There have been other medical challenges, other frightening diagnoses, and other moments when the future has seemed terribly uncertain.

Healing, I've discovered, isn't necessarily a straight line. Neither is restoration. And neither is blooming.

In April 2024, I was called back to Rapid City for nuclear testing to stage another recurrence of prostate cancer, that first entered my life twenty-four years earlier. I was frightened. Not mildly concerned. Terrified.

There were Lake Mead quantities of tears. Anger. Fear. And conversations with death doulas as I contemplated the possibility that I needed to begin preparing for the end of my life.

I stayed at a hotel for a week of back-to-back: bone scans, PET scans, CT scans, ultrasounds,

It was there that I found myself repeatedly returning to the photograph from my hike on Black Elk Peak.

The photograph that showed a man who, ten weeks after having coronary stents placed, had hiked nine miles through the mountains to sit in wonder at the beauty before me. And something occurred to me.

If THIS isn't a contemporary image of God's greatness, what is?

Look at what the Lord has done in my life.

The Rest of The Story

I've retired five times in four years. Either I'm still struggling to get it right, or more likely, God yet, has work for me to do.

My most recent incarnation is as a baker at Nanna's House. I had a two hour audition for the job on a Wednesday, and was back at work on Thursday apologizing that I couldn't work on Friday because of my upcoming cardiac stent repair. As I wrapped up work on Thursday Nanna, tentatively asked if she could pray with me. Not only did I say yes, I welcomed what felt like a new home.

Joanna, (Nanna) the owner and master baker at Nanna's House eventually encouraged me to display my photographs in her new, much larger, retail space.

I retrieved two racks, filled them with the cards, and set them out.

Something began happening.

Conversations

The Rest of The Story

I've begun recognizing something else. There have been angels along my path for a very long time. Not necessarily angels with wings and halos. People.

Some arrived at precisely the moment I needed them. Some stayed for years. Some appeared briefly, offered something I didn't even realize I needed, and continued along their own roads.

Keelin held out her hand and opened a door.

Katie helped me begin recognizing the walls around my heart and introduced me to the possibility of allowing them to tumble.

Sabrena listened when others hadn't, helped save my life, and shared a faith that encouraged my own.

There have been many others. Their stories are theirs to tell, not mine.

What matters isn't a list of names. It's what I have begun to recognize through these encounters.

At Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary, I encountered words that have stayed with me: LOVE. COMPASSION. TOLERANCE. FORGIVENESS. For myself and all others.

For much of my life, I was far better at extending those gifts to others than allowing myself to receive them.

Now I'm beginning to understand that the two belong together. I can love someone without clutching desperately at the relationship. I can care without needing to control what happens next. I can give without demanding a return.

And I can allow myself to be loved without treating that love as something I must somehow earn or protect against inevitable loss.

I am not always successful.

I am still learning, but I am learning.

I need only be present, offer what I have, and allow.

Not long ago, I attended a Fourth of July celebration in Piedmont, South Dakota. I was looking for a little small-town Americana. Flags. Families. Fire trucks. Old cars. People celebrating together.

I photographed whatever caught my eye. Among the images was an old truck, with an eighteen-wheeler in the background. I didn't set out to photograph a metaphor. I was simply doing Mike stuff.

Only later, looking through the photographs, did I begin recognizing something in that image. Restoration.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about restoration. My body has undergone repairs. Some have worked wonderfully. Others have needed additional attention.

I've tried to repair relationships, recover from losses, and make sense of years that sometimes seemed to leave more damage than understanding.

But restoration isn't the same as erasing the past.

It doesn't mean becoming brand-new. It doesn't mean that every dent disappears, every scar fades, or every brokenness can be returned to the way it once was.

An old truck has a history. Its years are part of what it is. And whether beautifully restored or still wearing the evidence of its travels, it can have value, purpose, and another road ahead.

So can I.

But blooming is something more.

A flower doesn't bloom by becoming a different flower. It opens. It allows what has been there all along to emerge.

I think back to the stained-glass image I encountered in a hospital chapel: a flower rising from dry and barren rock. And I think of the words that became the beginning of this journey:

I have stood at the edge and teetered into the abyss, and it is the grace and love of God that has lifted me up, as if from dry and barren rock, and caused me to bloom.

I am not restored to some imaginary, unscarred version of myself. I am not finished healing. I haven't mastered trust, rest, waiting, or allowing. And I certainly haven't stopped making plans.

But I've begun to recognize the predominant purpose of God's plan and that I don't need to know where every road leads.

At Pathways, I encountered a reminder attributed to Helen Keller: "A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn."

Well, I'm turning. DANG IT, I'm turning!

And somewhere along that road, I've begun to recognize the person who once reached out to help a little boy find his teddy bear. He was there all along. I don't have to become someone else. I have only to continue learning to live, love, trust, and allow.

I have BEGUN to bloom into who I was always intended to be.