February – March 2005
When South Ridge Church moved its worship services to the YWCA, something seemed to awaken in everyone. The building wasn’t grand or fancy, but it was full of light and song. The music lifted through the rooms and made even the plain walls seem to glow. The church began to grow quickly, and before long, the pastor announced that the worship team was looking for new singers and musicians.
I didn’t think much about it at first. No one in our family played an instrument, and I had no plans to sing in front of people. So when Mother said, calm as could be, that she was going to try out as a singer, it took me by surprise. Father just smiled in that quiet way of his, proud and amused all at once.
It was no small thing for Mother to make such a choice. We had been raised in the Church of Christ, where music was sung without instruments and any other kind was thought to be wrong. For years, that belief had weighed on us, especially on her. To see her let go of that guilt and walk forward into something new—it was like watching a bird freed from its cage.
The services at the YWCA had a life about them that I’d never known in our old church. Where one felt like a funeral, this felt like a celebration. Mother was nervous, and I could see the burden of old teaching still clinging to her shoulders, but she went anyway. Long ago, she’d sung in little garage bands with her friends, singing songs by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I could almost see her back then, hair loose, microphone in hand, singing her heart out like Mick Jagger himself.
When she made the team as a backup singer, she was overjoyed. South Ridge didn’t sing many hymns, mostly mainline evangelical songs—Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, that kind of thing. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was free again, doing something she loved
Faith and Drywall
My mom joining the worship team sparked long theological talks between my dad and me while we worked on the house. We’d be on ladders or holding up cabinets, drywall dust hanging in the air, tools clinking as we talked. The discussions were never heated; they were patient, thoughtful, and steady—much like our work.
We talked about everything—the meaning of sin, what really happened when Adam fell, what it meant to be human. The Church of Christ doesn’t teach the idea of human depravity, the belief that we’re born with a sin nature. For my dad, much of what we discussed sounded familiar yet carried new shades of meaning. We realized early on that if we wanted to understand each other, we had to start by understanding our words. So we took the time to define them together, patiently comparing what each of us meant when we said things like grace, sin, or salvation.
It wasn’t about winning an argument; it was about finding common ground in language so that we could meet somewhere in the middle. Slowly, as we talked and listened, we both began to see things in new ways—each conversation adding another layer, like drywall going up piece by piece around us.
Cold, Mice, and Chaos
February came cold—for us and for every other living creature trying to stay warm. Especially the field mice. They found their way into the house, scratching through vents and skittering across the floors at night. The cats—Buffy, Blackjack, and Oreo—were absolutely useless. They’d just watch the mice walk right past them.
“Some help you are,” I’d mutter, and they’d shoot me a dirty look as if I was the problem.
One especially cold morning, my dad brought Sonny into the house. Sonny was a white Labrador retriever, all muscle and energy, his tongue hanging out like he was perpetually smiling. He was always happy, even when he was in trouble—mainly because he never understood that he was in trouble.
The moment Sonny saw a mouse, he lunged after it. Chaos erupted. The cats scattered, Charlie jumped up on the couch barking, and Sonny tore through the room like a bull in a china shop, knocking over tables and anything else in his way. We panicked—half afraid he’d break something, half angry when he inevitably did. None of us found it funny.
Sonny wasn’t allowed in the house after that. We just bought mouse traps.
But Sonny came to represent something deeper about my parents. They refused to give up on him, no matter how destructive or exhausting he was. He was hard to love, but they were determined to stick it out—just as my dad had once refused to give up hope that Dale, our neighbor, might leave us in peace. That resolve would be tested soon.
Runaway Dogs
Toward the end of February, the weather eased. My mom let Sonny and Maxwell out in one of the fields to stretch their legs. But the moment the gate opened, Sonny bolted straight toward Dale’s property, and Maxwell followed. My mom jumped into the Explorer and drove down the road to round them up.
When she pulled into Dale’s property, she found the dogs running in circles, tails wagging, oblivious to boundaries. She got them both loaded into the vehicle without incident, but when she turned around, Dale and his wife were standing on their porch, glaring, cameras in hand, taking pictures of her. She didn’t say a word—just got in the car and left.
Later, when she told us, she said it struck her as odd. My dad agreed. Of all the things to take pictures of, why that?
The Fall
Sonny tested everyone’s patience that winter. We’d been warned he was a handful, but it was still hard not to give up on him. The day everything changed, my mom was trying to get into her vehicle when Sonny saw a deer. Before she could react, he took off. The leash wrapped around her leg, yanked her off balance, and she fell hard.
She cried out in pain and yelled for my dad. He rushed to her and drove her to the hospital while I stayed home to look after the animals. The doctors said her ankle was broken badly enough to require surgery. They put in a screw. She stayed in the hospital two days.
For the first time since we’d had him, Sonny seemed to understand he’d done something wrong. He kept his head down, eyes avoiding anyone’s gaze. My parents kept him outside in the wash house after that. He eventually went back to his usual self—energetic and clueless—but for a brief moment, it felt like he understood.
Signs and Thunder
We picked my mom up from the hospital on March 6th. The day felt normal enough when we left. But when we got back home, it was as if the world had changed in two hours.
The right-of-way leading up to the farm was lined with bright yellow No Trespassing signs nailed to the trees. They were impossible to miss—black lettering on yellow plastic, stark against the dull gray of early March. Dale had drawn cartoon caricatures of my dad on them, surprisingly well done. I had to give him credit—he was a decent artist. The drawings made the whole thing feel more like a prank than an intimidation attempt. The kind of thing you’d expect from teenagers toilet-papering a house, not from a grown man.
Some of the signs had phrases scrawled across them: “Find another way.” “Can you hear the thunder!”
“Can you hear the thunder?” I thought. What did that even mean? Were we supposed to be intimidated by that? It reminded me of The Rock’s old catchphrase—“Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” It was so bizarre it was almost funny.
One sign had a box of staples and a screwdriver nailed to it. Dale had claimed once that my dad accused him of stealing those items—how he got that from “bathroom fixtures” was anyone’s guess.
We stood there, staring. My mom hunched over, head in her hands, crying. “Why won’t he leave us alone?” she kept saying through tears. I looked at my dad and saw the anger in his eyes—the kind that comes from helplessness. The more she cried, the angrier he became.
Whatever goodwill my dad had because they were once friends was now gone. In that moment, I could see something change in him. He had held onto the hope that Dale might one day let things go—that maybe the tension would fade if we just tried to live in peace. But watching my mom break down erased that hope. He knew then that Dale would never stop, and that the situation would only end if he made it end.
He brought her inside, settled her on the couch, and made sure she was comfortable. Then he called me into the kitchen. His face was set, jaw tight.
“It’s time,” he said quietly. “I’m going to press charges for pulling the gun on me.”
We took pictures of the signs and called the police. Later we were told that Dale was arrested for brandishing a deadly weapon on March 23rd.
I felt relieved. I’d wanted that moment for months. My dad, though, looked distant—lost in thought. Once the decision was made, he never spoke of it again.