LIFE BEFORE CHRISTMy life before the Lord Jesus Christ was empty and hollow; there was always something missing. I did not feel this way until I was 16 years old. Up until that time I loved my life overall. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t some hiccups along the way. I was part of a nuclear family. I felt so blessed, though I didn’t realize at the time that I had a mom and dad who took care of all our needs. Money was probably always tight. But being a child I never had any worries that there would not be food on our table. That being said, there was a time when a couple of my friends invited me over to eat supper with them. I was probably about 12 years old at the time. The mom served us pork and beans for supper. Back then, I’d like to eat! (and I still do like to eat!). Now the portion size was small, and I gratefully ate that portion, but it didn’t take a genius to know that these people were sharing what little they had with me. So when I was asked if I’d like seconds I gratefully replied, “No thanks mam, I’m full.” I then took my right hand and making a circle on my stomach sign indicating that I was indeed full and said thank you again to the mom. Then I new that there were a lot of people around me, in my world, that were barely getting by. And though we were not rich, indeed far from it, I came to realize that we were not as poor as I thought.I grew up as a child watching the two greatest center fielders to ever play the game of baseball. One year in the 50s the Willie Mays ‘Giants played the Yankees with Mickey Mantle in the World Series. I was about five at the time and dad had bought our first television set. At the time they were no night games only day games. So I got to watch the games in the afternoons, and this helped formed the love I had of baseball. As I grew a little older, I added football and basketball to my childhood resume that I craved to play. Every time I could I would get out with my friends and play these sports in corresponding order of the games to their seasons. I had an almost insatiable desire to play these sports or watch them on TVNow this had worked pretty good for me until one eventful day in 1965. That day my father died on the Rhinelander golf course and I was there. That day changed not only my life, but my mom’s life, my 12-year-old brother’s life, and my five-year-old sister’s life. At the time my father was the district attorney for Oneida, County.All of a sudden my uncles, a couple of my older male cousins (I was 16 at the time my father passed) and the priest of our family all told me that I was to be the man of the family.. I had never cried back then, because as my friends said at the funeral home, when I was smiling as a greeter, that I was in shock!And then my mother said that we were leaving Rhinelander and going to live in Appleton, Wisconsin. Now someone had taken away my dad and my mom had just taken away my Camelot. It was a double dingdong! I felt as though someone had just hit me with a sledgehammer and I had fallen down and couldn’t get back up. Another dose of unreality hit me and was with me for many years and that was because I had seen the face of my father when he was dying from a massive heart attack. I had the fear that I would have a heart attack also.When I was in my late 20s I was playing fast pitch softball one night and in one of my best games (I was three for three.) I was having an anxiety attack that mimicked a possible heart attack and so I was afraid, and I asked the team manager if there was someone that could take me to the hospital because I thought I might be dying of the same illness that caused my father’s death. After a thorough exam, the doctor said there was nothing wrong, that I just had an anxiety attack and issued me some Valium.Now, from the time that my father died until 1983, which is the year in which I got born-again, I did very little if anything to help the family that was left to me to guard, protect and provide. As my mother said about me, “ I can’t get him to do anything.” Some sins are bigger than others. The word of God says honor your father and your mother, so that your days will be long upon the earth. I am writing this last paragraph, though painful it is to recount, in the hopes of helping someone that may have a similar situation in their house. If you are a home loafer as I was until I was 30, you may think that this is a good thing for you. Think again! God is not mocked. And out of love I say this that it would be really to your best interests to start with helping your parents with rent money and food money. Make yourself useful around the home. Do some dishes without being asked. Mow the lawn or shovel some snow. Go shopping for your mother. Don’t put any demands on your mother or father. Listen to them, for they have words of wisdom from their years. Be a blessing to them, and never a curse. In short, love them!Read more about this authorRead less about this author