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January 31, 2005

Clear Vision

Naomi loved horses. She always talked about wanting to ride a phantom horse on the very top of a white cloud in a blue sky.

Naomi was a great visualizer. At twelve, she had more vision and hope than her entire family and all of her doctors and nurses put together.

Naomi was very sick when I met her, while she was undergoing chemotherapy, at the Johannesburg General Hospital. Although she had every excuse in the world not to go to school, she really wanted to learn. As a favor to the family her teacher came to the hospital a few times a week and shared with Naomi what the other kids had been learning in her absence.

One day I was at the hospital and the teacher was explaining how sunflower seeds sprout when they are placed in a moist cotton ball.

Naomi was thrilled when, after a few days, the seeds actually started sprouting.

“Mom,” she said excitedly, holding up a tiny sprout, “Please bring me a little planter with some sand when you come tomorrow. I want to plant this sprout so it can grow into a giant sunflower.”

“Honey,” said her mother. “It won’t grow here in the intensive care. It’s too dark.”

“Plants need sunlight,” said a nurse, who was adjusting Naomi’s IV medication. “Nothing will grow in here.”

“I’ll put it under this light,” said Naomi, pointing to her bedside lamp.

“It’s okay sweetie,” said her mother, patting her on the arm gently. “You can plant a whole field of sunflowers when you go home.”

“What if I never go home?’ said Naomi.

“C’mon honey,” said her mom. “Of course you’re going to go home.”

“When I see a sunflower,” said Naomi, “I feel safe and warm. I feel hugged. I bet there are fields and fields of bright yellow sunflowers along the road that goes to heaven.”

“Stop it now!” said Naomi’s mother. “You’ve got to stay positive.” This nonsense talk about heaven is upsetting me.”

I looked at Naomi as her mother turned to pin a greeting card on the board alongside the bed. Naomi shrugged. I winked at her. She winked back at me and smiled.

Naomi’s mother did indeed bring a planter filled with dirt, and Naomi planted her little sprout with trembling hands but lots of enthusiasm.

A few days later I was driving along the road when I noticed a patch of giant sunflowers in a garden. I stopped and contemplated the sunflowers. I don’t know what got into me, but I jumped the fence and picked one of the plants. The keeper of the garden, one very agitated Doberman, sent me scrambling back over the fence in a hurry. I couldn’t wait to tell Naomi the story. I knew she was going to crack up at my expense.

Later, I put the sunflower in an old wine bottle and drove over to the hospital. When I got there I was told by the staff that only family were allowed to see Naomi because she had taken a turn for the worse and in their words was ‘unconscious but comfortable’.

My friend Pat was a nurse at the hospital so I asked her to take the flower and put it next to Naomi’s bed so she could see what her little sprout was going to look like when it grew up.

Naomi did not regain consciousness for almost a week. Pat told me the first thing Naomi saw when she woke up was the sunflower on the bedside table.

“See.” she whispered. “I knew it would grow. You guys have no faith.”

Pat says Naomi then yawned, stretched and said. “Sunflowers make me feel safe and warm and hugged.” She smiled and gently closed her eyes.

She never opened them again.

Posted by trevor at 05:40 PM

January 30, 2005

Simplicity

I love the way children find simple solutions to complex problems.

During school visits I often ask children for suggestions on how to handle problems. Their succinct answers speak volumes.

"Don't push!" - Alex-kindergarten

"If you just wait for a minute, the pizza won't burn your tongue." - Alyssa - kindergarten

"Pray." - Lacy - 1st grade

"If someone sits in front of you in the movies, don’t moan, just move." - Travis - 3rd grade

"Write it down." - Jean - 2nd grade

“If you kick your foot, don’t blame the rock.” - Britt - 3rd grade

"Hug someone. Even your dog. But maybe not a gerbil. It's too small." - Nicole -1st grade

"If you have a pain, sometimes you just have to take medicine." - Caitlyn - 3rd grade

"It's okay to cry when you feel bad." - Michael - kindergarten

"Nothing is stupid. Even stupid things aren't stupid." - Callie - 1st grade

"Throw up." - Ben - kindergarten

"Ask someone to help you." - Rebecca - 1st grade

"Pick some flowers or eat cookies or something." - Raul - 1st grade

"Learn from things that happen to you, like don't mess with a bully who's already beaten you up a few times." Rhett Romain - 7th grade

"Sit alone in the restroom and lock the door." - Lisa - 4th grade

When it comes to solving problems, many people turn this simple act into a major undertaking. For some reason, we tend to dwell on our problems and build them into huge mountains that are almost impossible to move.

We walk around every day carrying Mount Everest in our minds instead of small piles of sand that we can simply sweep away.

To solve this dilemma we need only look at children. When a five-year-old child buttons his shirt, he simply grabs a button and after messing with it for a bit, feeds it through the eye in the fabric.

Once the button and the eye match up, the task is quite simple.

But if you wanted to create 'buttoning instructions for the under fives' and you needed to explain this on paper, the task might seem almost impossible to a child reading the instructions.

Yet, kids learn to do their buttons and tie their laces without much thought. Why do they do it so easily? Because they do not dwell on the mechanics of the job at hand. They just respond to their own desire to succeed.

Posted by trevor at 12:13 PM

January 28, 2005

Innocence and Clarity

I love the sheer honesty and purity that kids have before they are influenced and molded by the world around them. Their innocence and clarity in dealing with life is so uncomplicated and refreshing.

Thinking about this reminds me of my stint as a counselor at a camp for siblings of kids with cancer a number of years ago.

I led group D, a crew of eight children between the ages of eleven and thirteen.

Each child was different. Each child was special. Each child had been through the harrowing ringer that childhood cancer drags families through.

The camp was located in a challenge course arena and our task that day was to scale a climbing-wall sixty feet high.

Each person had to wear a helmet and a harness when it was our turn to climb.

The first person to climb the tower was Abi, a confident thirteen-year-old who was going through the "you-don't-have-to-tell-me-nothin'-because-I-know-it-all" stage.

He attacked the tower and climbed it in no time. Once back on the ground, his body language reflected his attitude. Cool. I'm a lot braver than you guys give me credit for.

"Hey, next time I wanna do it without that dumb harness," he said, once his feet were firmly planted on terra firma.

Abi's brother Sammy climbed next, also without any hesitation.

Two of the girls in the group sat out the exercise because they were afraid of heights. One boy got half way up and decided to come down.

I was due to climb last and although I acted as though I didn't have a care in the world, I was beginning to get a little nervous about my impending climb.

Rachel, an eleven-year-old going on forty climbed up before me. Rachel had lost her thirteen-year-old sister Jonna to cancer the year before. Jonna had been Rachel's hero. She told me when Jonna died it felt like there was a knife stuck in her heart and she couldn't get it out.

Rachel started climbing; she hovered on the rest platform that was situated about a third of the way up.

I was hooked up to the harness and climbed up alongside her. It wasn't easy. My whole body trembled as I clutched at those little wooden blocks and pulled myself up.

I climbed alongside Rachel and noticed she was crying.

"C'mon, Rachel, you can do it," I said, as I struggled to pass her.

I heard the kids on the ground thirty feet below egging us on. That's when I made the mistake of looking down. I instantly felt faint and dizzy. Although I wanted to help Rachel, all I could think about was myself. I didn't want to fail in front of the children. If I didn't continue climbing right there and then, I wouldn't have made it. Honestly, climbing up that tower is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. The climb was a lot more difficult than I had ever expected.

I hit the top and signed for the belay guide to release the rope so that I could repel down. I had made it to the top and I wanted off that tower as quickly as possible.

As I repelled down, I passed Rachel. Her whole body was shaking as she clung to the tower. She was sobbing loudly.

"Rachel, you want to come down?" asked Cheryl, the belay guide who was controlling Rachel's harness.

"I don't know," sobbed Rachel. "I think so."

"But you can make it,"

And so began Rachel's painful climb. The more she climbed, the harder she sobbed. She froze just twenty feet from the top of the tower and started to shake. She could not climb another inch. Her fingers, white at the knuckles barely held on. She was crying so hard I that could see her tears falling down and bouncing off the tower.

Rachel was stuck in that position for almost fifteen minutes. She couldn't go up and she couldn't come down. To help her, we all stood back from the tower and yelled encouragement. Abi suddenly broke away from our group and sauntered over to the foot of the tower. He put his hand up to his eyes to block the sun and squinted up at Rachel. He then said something that sent chills down my spine. I will never forget that moment as long as I live.

"Rachel!" he yelled. "Do it for your sister. Do it for Jonna!"

The power of his suggestion seemed to stop time. Everything in the universe appeared to pause for a second.

Then suddenly, I saw Rachel heave her body forward and sobbing hysterically, she began to climb. Rachel did not hesitate for a second. She climbed the last twenty feet with sheer heart and soul, never stopping once.

When she reached the top she turned and looked down at us. I will never forget the expression on her face. The look of joy and triumph will be an image frozen in my mind forever.

Once she had repelled down, we all crowded around her and hugged her. Some of the kids cried with Rachel. I did too. Abi, who thought girls were the enemy and wouldn't dare touch one with an extremely long stick, sidled up to Rachel and put his arm around her.

"I knew you could do it," he said warmly and sauntered off toward the cabins.

(Hi Rachel and Abi – I hope you are both well and flourishing. Thank you for restoring my faith in mankind. Thanks also to all the kids (who are now pretty grown up) at Camp Grey Dove for some of the best times I can remember.)

Posted by trevor at 06:30 AM

January 27, 2005

Where Are They Now

To bring a little laughter into my life I decided a while ago to write a new book. It's called "Where Are They Now?" While writing the book I traveled far and wide and to many exotic locations (inside my head) and interviewed fairytale and Mother Goose Characters that we love and hate. I wanted to know what they were up to and where they had been. What an incredible journey. Look for new interviews with different characters each week right here on my blog.

THE THREE PIGS

Contrary to popular belief, none of the Three Pigs were actually eaten by the big bad wolf. Pig #1, the oldest of the three brothers told me the whole 'eaten alive' myth was just a fairy story. I visited with the Three Pigs at a local eatery in North Palm Beach, Florida where they all live and work.

I believe that you three are equal partners in a very successful company. Is that right?

Pig #1: Yes, we have a hurricane proofing company here in Florida.

Hurricane proofing?

Pig #2: We build homes that can withstand gale force winds, tornadoes, typhoons, that sort of thing.

Pig #3: Yeah, we coined the phrase TwisterPruf. As in, "Don't delay, TwisterPruf your place today." You know the ads on television? Oh, by the way, if you mention TwisterPruf in your interview, which we hope you do…

Pig #1: Enough with the marketing already #3. He wants to know about our lives and what we've been up to since the "incident."

Pig #3: What incident?

Pig #1: You know, the "thing" we never talk about.

Pig #3: Huh?

Pig #2: The "wolf" thing.

Pig #3: I don't want to talk about it.

Pig #2: Precisely.

Have you guys ever thought about therapy?

Pig #1: What do you mean?

Well, obviously the "incident" you won't talk about has profoundly affected your lives.

Pig #1: Well, we did talk to some social workers after "it" happened, but that's when #2 lost his marbles for a while.

Lost his marbles?

Pig #1: Well, he started having a complex about being a pig.

Pig #2: C'mon #1. I didn't lose my marbles. Everyone knows pigs are associated with mud and smelly food waste. People think we stink. I just wanted to prove a point.

Pig #1: Well, Pig #2 started a perfume company...

Pig #3: Which failed miserably...

Pig #2: You must admit the name was pretty cool.

What was the name?

Pig #2: Calvin Swine.

There is a pause in the conversation. Nobody speaks for a few minutes. Then we all burst into laughter. We laugh hysterically for a full two minutes. Pig #3 interrupts.

Pig #3: How did marbles get into it?

Pig #1: What?

Pig #3: You said #2 lost his marbles. What exactly does that mean?

Pig #1: It's a phrase. You know. Like he lost his mind or something.

Pig #3: But it doesn't mean a darn thing. It has no reference point. Marbles. What do marbles have to do with anything?

Pig #2: You know #3, this 'Pig's Guide to Philosophy' course you are taking is getting a bit much. You can't read something into everything.

Pig #3: Well, I don't want to be a construction worker all my life. I'm looking for a bit of meaning here.

Pig #1: Like the time you deconstructed 'Swine Lake' looking for a deeper meaning. Get over it. You're in construction #3. Not deconstruction. TwisterPruf has made us rich.

Pig #3: Yeah, but there's more to life.

There seems to be a difference in the direction you are all taking at the moment. Are the three of you close? Are any of you married?

Pig #1: We're very close and we stick together like swill to a blanket.

Pig #3: What...?

Pig #1: Let it go #3...

Pig #3: Swill to a blanket...?

Pig #2: We do have differing opinions sometimes, but we made a huge mistake in the past and we're not going to do that again. It nearly cost us our lives.

What was your mistake?

Pig #2: We didn't work as a team to face our problem. We decided to live in separate houses and each handle a common problem separately. We were pig headed and each one of us thought we knew better. That's when the whole 'wolf' thing went down.

Pig #3: Pig-headed. Hah!

Pig #1: Strength in numbers. That's what we learned.

Pig #3: Team work. That's what it's all about.

Are any of you married? Are there any kids?

Pig #1: I was.

Pig #2: I am.

Pig #3: I won't.

Pig #2: I have a little piglet.

Pig #1: He's a little porker.

Pig #2: It's just baby fat #2. He'll grow out of it.

Pig #3: Cute kid. Takes after his uncle pig #3. Give him a hammer and he'll deconstruct anything in sight.

Pig #1: You're a bad influence on him. You tried to read Lord of the Flies to him the other day. They kill a pig in that book and put his head on a pole.

Pig #3: It's just symbolic. We can learn from that.

Pig #1: They put an apple in that pig's mouth you know. So stereotypical. You should read Pygmalion to him. That's a good book.

I can't complete this interview without asking a final question. where do you all go from here?

Pig #1: Things are looking good for us. The wolf population is dropping dramatically...

Pig #2: That's one species whose acceleration toward extinction does not bother us...

Pig #3: And there are more and more kosher people in the world and a growing number of Muslims...

Pig #1: And none of them eat pork or bacon or baby back ribs.

Pig #2: As far as the three of us are concerned, it's a matter of sticking together...

Pig #1: Keeping our business profitable by staying lean and trimming the fat when necessary...

Pig #3: And going 'hog wild' when the occasion occurs.

At this point, I realized that my interview was turning into a pun off and I wrapped it up.

Posted by trevor at 01:53 PM

Treasure Map

I am truly blessed. I have reached my dreams and found a purpose in my life. It didn’t happen by accident though.

Research shows that 90% of people polled in a recent study said they had no purpose in their lives.

What a sad statement. The majority of people on this earth sit around waiting for some divine moment when their 'mission' will become clear to them.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, most people drag themselves through life without any purpose at all.

As life passes them by, they become depressed and afraid that their lives will end before they have done anything meaningful.

Trying to find 'direction' in life can be extremely difficult. Times like these are some of the hardest anyone can endure. I believe it doesn't have to be that way though.

Against all odds, especially dyslexia, I reached my childhood dream of becoming an author. In the process I discovered my mission in life. That is to help kids deal with the problems they face on a daily basis. (Most of the 30 or so books I have published deal with this issue in one way or another. Mostly the hurdles I faced as a kid.) In the process of reaching my life-long dream I discovered that finding a purpose in life is like pinpointing a destination on a map. We need to know where we are going before we begin our journey.

It's like going up to the ticket office at a train station and saying, "I'd like a first-class ticket please."

The reply you will hear is, "Where would you like to go?"

Identifying your true purpose works the same way. Many people want to change their lives, but very few know what they want out of life. And because they feel they have no particular purpose in life, they wander around feeling discouraged, unsatisfied and sad.

Robin Williams in the movie 'Dead Poet's Society' teaches his students the phrase "Carpe diem - - seize the day". If you feel you have no direction, it is time to 'seize the day' and use it to plan your future. Writing down goals is one of the most powerful tools we can use to make this happen.

My grandmother and her brother Isaac went through the awful pogroms in Poland when they were young children. Their house was burned to the ground and my great-grandmother died in the dirt alongside the road as the family fled from the soldiers.

When the trouble first started in Poland, my great grandfather wrote down the word 'London' on a piece of paper and drew a smiling stick-figure picture of Isaac and my grandmother next to it.

Uncle Isaac kept the piece of paper with him wherever he went.

Times got even worse in Poland and to save their lives my grandmother and her brother Isaac were put in a crate and placed on a cargo ship.

Soon after leaving port, the sailors on board discovered that their cargo was a little different from what they had expected.

The bewildered kids were hauled out of the crates and questioned. There was a language barrier and much confusion. My Uncle Isaac pulled out his piece of paper and held it up for the sailors to see.

I’m told his gesture was greeted with lots of laughter and great warmth from the sailors.

The children were well taken care of during the entire journey and deposited safely into the hands of relatives in London.

It's all very well writing down your goals, but how does one identify one's true purpose and find genuine direction?

One of the best things you can do is to write what you would like someone to read at your funeral. List the qualities for which you would like to be remembered by your family, your friends and the world. This eulogy becomes a blueprint of your true purpose in life.

Sometimes when I lose my direction I remember an exercise my 9th grade English teacher, Paul Klingman, gave us at King Edward 7th High School. (Mr. Klingman was an incredible teacher and I realize some twenty-five years later how much he helped me to define my purpose at an early age. Thanks Mr. Klingman!)

He asked us to answer these questions in essay form.

Who are you?

What would you like to do with your life? (Focus on one thing that gets you excited. A direction that would motivate you to get up in the morning, work hard all day and enjoy every minute of it.)

What can you do to enrich your life, inspire yourself and affect those who share the world with you? .

Most of the successful people I have read about have one thing in common. They all write down their goals. They do this so they can physically see where they are going. (Because I’m dyslexic, I actually map out my goals in a graphic flow chart. This helps me to get a good overview of the big picture. It’s a road map to my goals and dreams.)

Many people who have reached their dreams actually tape their goals to the fridge or above their desk so they are always aware of where they are headed.

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen actually wrote out a plan for the book they were producing called 'Chicken Soup for the Soul'.

They planned for many sequels, television shows and even a movie before the first book was even completed! Well, guess what? They had thirty rejections for the book, but they kept on following their roadmap to success and it worked!

Millions of Chicken Soup books have been sold and ten publishers came back to them and said, "Wow, we're sorry, but you guys really knew what you were doing. We’ve changed our minds. Can we please publish your work.” (Canfield and Hansen were offered 2.8 million dollars from one publisher who had previously rejected them and they replied, "No thanks." Their company is worth over $100 million today.)

Using a road map to find direction in your life will help you to discover your true ‘purpose’. It really worked for me.

Posted by trevor at 01:21 PM

January 26, 2005

My Lonely Dancer

I love looking back through my old writing and sketch journals. I found this entry and thought I’d share it. I guess reading over the entry taught me a lesson about uninvited intrusion and judging other people before we know anything about them:

May 28th.

A loft in New York City. My painting studio. Hardwood floors. White walls.

My watercolor sketches, half-finished, were strewn across the floor. Some were taped onto the empty walls.

Bright paint swam in glass jars on the window sill. The colors seemed to ignite as the sun glanced into the window and inquisitively touched the bottles.

The doorbell rang. It was the package I was waiting for.

Finally I would be able to get a good look at my lonely dancer.

I had been watching her for weeks. I spotted her in the abandoned brownstone across the street. Sometimes she danced. Sometimes she just stood resting against the window.

Her dancing was magnificent. Never have I seen such fluid movement. She twisted and turned this way and that. She was so comfortable and totally in tune with nature.

She particularly liked stormy nights. For some reason the weather must have fueled her. On evenings filled with lightning and thunder, she danced so passionately I thought she might rip herself apart.

But mostly it was simply ballet. Her white full-length dress sweeping across the empty floor in dance after incredible dance.

She must have been given special permission to be there because the building was condemned. The whole floor was hers and I know she loved the space.

I opened the package. A Sharper Image telescope.

I felt like a spy, but I wanted to paint my lonely dancer, and I needed to see her clearly.

My eyes don't see very well over long distances and even my glasses aren't that sharp, so I ordered a telescope.

I glanced out of the window. She was dancing.

I set up the telescope.

I held my breath.

I closed one eye and peered across at her.

I could hear a symphony in my head and everything was happening in slow motion.

Then the dancing suddenly stopped.

I looked up not believing what I saw, then bent down and looked at her again.

The girl was not a dancer, although her moves were so incredibly ballet-like.

She was an old lace curtain, dancing in the New York City wind.

Posted by trevor at 04:09 PM

January 24, 2005

Defining Moment

Yesterday I saw a movie that rocked me to the core! Hotel Rawanda. It showed how one person can make an incredible difference against all odds.

It made me think long and hard about the purpose of my life. The movie was a humbling experience for me and it quickly brought me down to earth. (Considering that I arrived back from Dallas yesterday after a sold-out showing at the premiere of my animated video at the USA Film Festival.) Talk about getting knocked off one’s high horse.

Hotel Rawanda was shot outside Johannesburg, my hometown. Seeing the beautiful African kids in the movie made me pull out some photographs I took recently in a tiny village in South Africa and then hand-tinted. (The pictures, shown above and below, were taken at a small crèche in Morgan Bay in the Eastern Cape.)

The movie and the pictures of these wonderful children reminded me of a defining moment in my life.

It happened when I was in the army in South Africa. I was walking through a field hospital filled with kids from small rural villages who had been brought to a clinic for treatment from the army medical corps.

I was walking down the center aisle and caught sight of a little boy who was about five years old sitting on the edge of one of the hospital beds. I looked into his huge brown eyes as I walked by and then noticed that he had no legs. Instead I saw dirty bandages wrapped around two stumps. The boy had lost his legs in a landmine accident on the Angolan border.

As I walked by, he put his hands and said “Sir, can you please hold me.”

The Sergeant Major, who was walking alongside me, grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the child.

“Romain,” he grunted. “Leave him alone. You can’t get emotionally involved. Believe me, you’ll be sorry.”

As I walked away, the little boy spoke again. His voice tugged at me from behind.

“Sir, can you please just hold me tight.”

Something happened to me that moment that I will never forget. My life changed instantly. It felt like a hand came out of the sky, reached inside me, and flipped a switch in my soul.

I pushed the Sergeant Major’s hand away and I turned and picked up the little boy. I have never been held so tightly in my life.

The boy put his head against my chest and he started to cry. His tears ran down my neck and inside my shirt. I held that boy with my arms, my heart and soul and every ounce of compassion in my being. I never wanted to let him go, ever.

I continue to hold him in my heart as I write books and create videos designed to help kids get over the obstacles they face in their daily lives.

Posted by trevor at 08:39 AM

Posted by trevor at 08:24 AM

January 20, 2005

Dinner

Are you sure it's my turn to fix dinner?

(I will be at the USA Film Festival in Dallas over the next few days for the screeening of my animated video "Bullies Are A Pain In The Brain. I will be speaking after the show for those who can make it. Look for a new blog entry here on Sunday.)

Posted by trevor at 06:42 AM

January 19, 2005

I was eight years

I was eight years old. My father took me fishing. It was spring and the leaves on the trees were a million shades of fresh green. We found a perfect spot on a secluded beach and set down the huge blanket my mother had given us. She also packed us lunch and an afternoon snack. I snooped around the immediate area while my father set up. When I got back from my exploring I found everything ready. Two folding chairs were set up facing the lake. Two fishing poles were loaded and ready to go.

My father cast my line for me and rested the fishing pole on a y-shaped twig he’d cut from one of the trees. “Now don’t take your eye off that pole,” he said. “The minute it moves, you grab it and jerk it like I showed you.”

He threw in his own line and rested it on another y-shaped stick. Then he opened the newspaper and settled back into his chair. Within thirteen seconds I was bored. I drew patterns on the sand around the chair with my shoes. Then I leaned far back on my chair and tried to see if I could see any stars in the deep blue sky. I knew the stars were there somewhere. Suddenly I lost my balance and fell over backwards. I paddled with my arms trying to keep my balance. It seemed to take forever. I hit the beach hard and winded myself. For a second I couldn’t move. I’m paralyzed, I thought. People will feel sorry for me. Now maybe Dad will buy me the Turbo Autoloop Car Set I’ve wanted forever. And Geraldine van Buuren, will never tease me about the wart on my finger again. And Grandpa won't make me carry wood from the shed to the basement anymore.

I looked at my dad, hoping he’d rush over and comfort me, tell me it was all right and that he’d love me even though I was handicapped. And he’d give me things to prove it. But he didn’t move.

He lowered his newspaper slowly. “You’ve got to be very quiet when you’re fishing,” he said.

Before he could lift the newspaper again, my line jerked so hard, that it pulled the pole right off the stick and almost into the water. My father jumped up and grabbed the line. My back healed instantly and thanks to the marvels of nature, I was no longer a paraplegic. My father grabbed me by the collar and pulled me over toward him. “Here, reel it in,” he said, excitedly. “It’s your first fish.”

I was scared and elated. I grabbed the pole and clumsily reeled in the line. The line got tighter and tighter until it was almost impossible to reel anymore. Then I jerked the pole back and suddenly the line gave. I thought I’d lost the fish, but I’d actually pulled it right out of the water. It landed at my feet flipping and jumping as it gasped for air. I was horrified.

“All right,” yelled my father. “Now put you foot on it and lets get rid of the hook.”

The fish looked at me. I knew it was scared. I raised my foot and placed it gently on the fish’s body. The fish jerked away then suddenly jumped toward me. I screamed and ran. My father grabbed the fish and brought it over to me. It was squirming in his hand. Mouth gaping. The hook had ripped through the inside of the fish’s mouth and was sticking out of it’s cheek. I took two steps back.

“Look, it’s easy,” said my father, ripping the hook out of the fish’s mouth. My stomach turned. I wanted to be sick. He threw the fish into the ice chest and quickly closed the lid. “Good work son, one big fat bass for dinner,” he said, sitting down and picking up the paper. (My father smiled, but not his normal smile, this one was made up for me.)

He caught two more fish. One on his line and one on mine, which I refused to reel in.

Soon after he caught the second fish, we packed up and got ready to go home. Before we left, nature called and my father disappeared into the bushes for a few minutes.

Wanting to take another look at the fish. I opened the chest and peeked in. All three fish were lying on top of the ice, their silver scales glinting in the late afternoon sun. I closed the chest and sat on it. I gazed out at the lake. It was a crimson-tinted mirror in the setting sun. It was hard to believe that hundreds of fish were swimming around under that mirror. I wondered if our fish had brothers or sisters.

I stood up, opened the chest again, grabbed one of the fish and ran down to the water’s edge. I threw the fish as far as I possibly could. I watched it tumble through the air and shatter the lake as it broke the surface. Then I ran back, grabbed the other two fish and threw them into the water too.

“What was that?” said my father, as he pushed through the bushes. I looked at the lake without answering. He followed my gaze, his eyes finally resting on the three fish floating on the surface some twenty yards from the beach.

My father did not say a thing.

He picked up the chairs and poles and walked toward the car. “Do me a favor pal, go and empty the ice out of the chest,” he said, over his shoulder.

I took the chest down to the lake. It was so heavy I had to carry it with two hands. I opened the chest and tilted the ice into the water. I stood up. The fish were still floating on the surface. I picked up the chest and ran back up the beach toward my father. Just before we got to the trees, I turned and took one more look at the lake. A sudden movement caught my eye. There was a ripple around the fish. I held my breath. Slowly one of the fish rolled over and with a lazy flap of its fin disappeared under the surface. Within a few seconds the other fish followed. Then the ripples were gone and the lake became a mirror again.

I sat silent in the car on the way home.

“You okay?” he said.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, on the verge of tears. “I kind of feel bad.”

“Feel bad for those fish, huh?” he said.

“No,” I said. “I feel bad about disappointing you.”

“You didn’t disappoint me,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I had the same reaction with my dad when I was a kid. I still have a problem taking the hook out of the fish’s mouth.”

“They why did we even take this trip?” I asked.

“Because, for ages, you’ve been talking about going on a fishing trip like other kids and their dads and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

We both cried on the way home.

I wish you hadn't have passed away so soon. I really miss you dad.

Posted by trevor at 06:50 PM

Despite The Odds

Thirty-two years ago this week, Mr. Ulrich Lowe told me I was not talented enough to join his art class.

(Names have not been changed to protect the guilty!)

Posted by trevor at 06:46 AM

January 18, 2005

Forget The Problem

I met an amazing artist the other day who hardly paints. I asked her why. “I’ve got too many problems,” she moaned. “I don’t have time to be creative.”

I felt really sad after talking to her because I know a bunch of people who would give anything to have a fraction of this woman’s incredible talent. What little art she has done is stunning.

Thinking about how we sometimes let ‘problems’ consume us reminds me of my grandfather Ted. (Mentioned in the previous entry.)

Ted was a farmer and I spent many summer holidays following him around the farm as he went about his business.

One day I noticed a long thin line that ran through the dust on the side of a cornfield. "What's that?" I asked, pointing at the line.

"It was made by a dung beetle," said my grandfather. "Dung beetles are amazing little creatures. They lay their eggs in a ball of cow manure and they roll that ball along with them wherever they go. And no matter what gets in their way, they always reach their destination. Dung beetles seem to have a built-in compass because the line they travel is straight and true. An interesting thing happens when the beetles encounter an obstacle though. These determined little beetles will try and try to get up, over or around the obstacle, and when they do, they continue in a perfectly straight line to wherever they are going. That dung beetle is an incredible creature and we can learn a lot from it."

"What can we learn from a beetle?" I asked.

"Well,” He replied, "You'll never see a dung beetle sitting around and crying because it can't get over an obstacle. The beetle doesn't whine about how tough it is to get where it is going. Or how hard life is. The dung beetle doesn’t give up or blame God for putting a rock in it’s way to ruin his life. It tries every option until it figures out how to get around the problem, even if it means going miles out of its way to get there. The beetle does not deal with the problem at all. He ignores it completely and works on where he is going, not what’s stopping him from getting where he needs to be."

My grandfather was right; problems can be solved if we focus on the solution, not the problem itself.

Many of us worry about problems until we are physically ill; but they sit happily in our mind eating at our enthusiasm like a cancer.

What we need to do is stash our problems in the 'out' box in our mind. Then forget about it and start working on the solution.

Posted by trevor at 09:29 AM

January 16, 2005

The Difference You Make

I have told this story many times and in light of the state of the world, I’d like to share it again.

Hope is a like an all-terrain 4-wheel-drive vehicle that can help you plow through your tough times and out the other side.

Here is an example that demonstrates the sheer power of hope.

I was lying on the bed in the hospital with a nine-year-old young man named Victor. Victor was dying of bone cancer. We were talking about life in general when Victor turned to me and said, "What's going to happen when I die?" I was about to answer him when his mother jumped off the chair and rushed over to the bed.

"You are not going to die," she yelled. "We have spent three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which we don't have, to keep you alive. You will not die!"

"Okay," replied Victor. "I will not die. If you say so."

Ten minutes later his mother left the room and I turned to Victor. "We're all going to die one day," I said. "I'm going to die, my mom's going to die, and you’re going to die."

"I know that," said Victor. "I'm not stupid."

“Then what do you mean?” I asked.

“I want to know what’s going to happen when I die?” he said, calmly.

“Well, I believe people go to heaven,” I said. “Different religions believe different things, but I believe we go to heaven.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Victor, thoughtfully.

"Well," I said. "I'll tell you what. If you die from this disease and you're still a kid, when you get to heaven, ask for my grandfather; his name is Ted."

Victor looked at me as if I were crazy.

"My grandfather died many years ago, "I said. "But he was the most amazing guy. Everybody loved him and he was one of those grandfathers you just want to hug. I'm sure he's up there doing wonderful things, especially helping kids. Kids loved him. Just ask for him when you get there. He’ll get you checked in and I’m sure he’ll get you a good room. He knows a lot of people."

"But how will I find him?" yelled Victor. "About a thousand people died in the war. That's a lot of people up there you know."

"How about 12 million people died in the war," I muttered.

"That's worse," He yelled. “I'll never find him!"

"Relax, It’s okay," I said, calming him down. I tore a piece of paper out of my journal and drew a picture of my grandfather. I gave him the picture and watched a smile spread across his face.

“That’s my grandfather Ted,” I said, pointing to the picture. “He’s really nice. Memorize this picture so you’ll be able to find him when you get up there.”

"Thanks," said Victor. "I'll tell him you said hi."

"Tell him to come down here and spook a few people who owe me money," I said.

"No way," said Victor. "I'm not asking him that."

Victor took the picture of my grandfather and stuck it on the corkboard above his bed where all his get-well cards were pinned.

As the Doctor of Mischief I teased Victor and drove him nuts. Each time I went into his hospital room and messed with him, he threatened to tell my grandfather when he saw him.

Victor collected sports trading cards and I would pick up one of the cards and say, "Wow Victor, a Michael Jordan card. This guy is one heck of a soccer player."

He would get all red in the face and stammer, "He plays basketball. You're teasing me. I'm going to tell your grandfather when I see him, okay." And he'd point to the picture of my grandfather.

Every time I went into the room and teased him he would point to that picture of my grandfather.

Finally, when I walked into the room, he would point to that picture of my grandfather before I could even say a word.

I’m very sad to say Victor died 6 months later and his parents asked me to deliver the eulogy at his funeral.

I was honored to do so and planned to do a stand-up comedy style memorial 'celebrating' Victor's life instead of a eulogy mourning his death.

I was shocked when I got to the church because it was an open casket ceremony. I did not want to see Victor lying in his casket. I wanted to remember him pointing at the picture of my grandfather with his mischievous face.

I skirted around the coffin and went into the sanctuary.

The open coffin was wheeled in and placed alongside the pulpit. The priest delivered the sermon and asked me to deliver the eulogy.

I went up to the pulpit and eulogized my friend Victor, all the time trying not to look at him lying in the coffin alongside where I was standing.

I told the congregation about all the crazy things Victor had done during his battle with cancer, like putting a snake in the bedside table and scaring a nurse half to death.

I told them about the time Victor borrowed an idea from an Irma Bombeck book and put apple juice in his urine sample container. When the nurse came to collect the sample he said, "Look it's all milky" and he held up the bottle for the nurse to see.

"Sure is," she said, squinting at the container.

"Well I'd better pass it through again," he said, quickly opening the container and taking a sip.

The nurse screamed and Victor almost choked with laughter.

As I completed this story the congregation burst into uncontrollable giggles.

"Yup," I said. "Victor was one in a million. He changed the way I look at life and he changed the way I look at death."

Then without realizing it, I looked over at the coffin and I froze. In the coffin I saw Victor lying comfortably amongst a pile of satin pillows. He was dressed in a black tuxedo with a red bow tie. He looked so peaceful. He was lying with his hands resting on his chest and around him in his coffin were all his childhood toys.

His dad had polished up his baseball mitt, which lay on his stomach cradling a brand new baseball.

His collection of teddy bears sat along the edge of the coffin looking at him sadly.

His mom had ironed his softball outfit and it lay in the coffin clean and pressed.

I am so glad I glanced over at Victor because he looked so calm and comfortable. He did not appear sad or in pain.

Then suddenly my life changed, because Victor was lying in his coffin and in his hand he was holding the picture of my grandfather.

His mom came up to me after the funeral and told me I had done more for her son than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars because I had given him hope.

At that moment, I understood the power of hope. It also became plain and clear to me what a difference each and every one of us can make, often, without even realizing it.

Sometimes we simply need to listen to what people are asking for instead of telling them what we think they need to hear.

Never underestimate the power of ‘the difference’ you can make in someone else’s life.

Posted by trevor at 11:17 PM

Unique Recycling Idea #1

(An ode to Quentin Blake - my illustration hero and inspiration.)

Posted by trevor at 09:11 AM

January 15, 2005

A Quick Sketch

A quick sketch during my morning tea relating to the previous blog.

Posted by trevor at 11:14 AM

Time To Smile

Today I found some pictures of myself during the “disco” days. I laughed so hard I almost cried. What scares me is how cool I THOUGHT I looked. At the time I imagined I looked like John Travolta. NOT!!! I hate to think what my prom date must have thought. How embarrassing! (No wonder I did not even get a goodnight kiss on the cheek.)

I must say it felt so good to laugh after spending the last few days with a shawl of sadness wrapped around my soul. (See last two blogs.)

I always find that humor can make a huge difference during tough times. A few years ago I stopped in at the hospital, after an interview, to do my rounds as the Doctor of Mischief. I was wearing a suit, which I don't often do. (Writers look very uncomfortable in suits.) I came out of the elevator on the third floor and entered the children's oncology wing. Nobody was around except for 12 year-old Emily.

Emily was standing dead still in the hallway with a strange look on her face. I came up to her and asked if she was okay. She didn't reply. She just stood there rooted to the spot. I crouched down in front of her and asked if I could help her. A sudden look of horror crossed her face as she opened her mouth and threw up all over me. It went everywhere. Projectile style. Down the front of my suit, onto my shoes and even into my pockets.

Needless to say there was nothing for me to change into, so I ended up wearing nothing but a washed-out pale yellow hospital gown that tied up with two flimsy ribbons in the back. Of course the nurses made fun of my hairy legs and everyone laughed.

But the laughing didn't stop there. On that day I chose to wear the ugliest under-shorts in the world. I cringe thinking that I must have looked a sight as I dashed down the hospital hallway, the gown flapping open behind me, exposing bright red under-shorts with white polka dots, as I headed for the parking garage.

The next day a 12-pack of plain white boxers was anonymously delivered to my house. The unsigned note said, "Please wear these when you visit the hospital. Your polka-dots made the grannies blush."

For months afterwards, Emily burst out laughing whenever she saw me. She would just point at me and laugh until tears ran down her cheeks. "You make me feel better," she would say and then squeal with laughter.

I know laughing made her feel better. Her mother told me time and time again how that incident was brought up during tough times throughout her treatment and suddenly the tension would dissolve as everyone burst into laughter. (At my expense thank you very much!)

We've all heard the saying 'laughter is the best medicine' because it is. Norman Cousins in his book ‘Anatomy of an Illness’ tells us how laughter was his main medicine in defeating a crippling disease. Cousins believed that stress from his intense and compulsive desire to succeed caused his illness. After watching comedy shows Cousins discovered that he felt a lot better. The more he laughed the faster the symptoms and pain disappeared.

This might sound crazy, but have you ever found yourself smiling about something amusing, even at a funeral or a serious occasion? I have, and that smile or giggle made me feel a lot better. You feel better because laughter triggers a powerful response in your body. The action releases endorphins in your brain which give you a 'natural high' and you begin to feel great. This trigger turns on your respiratory system, which experiences the kind of stimulation you get when you work out.

Laughter is a natural pain relief tablet that needs no prescription. It works like this. You are stressed and tense because of the tough situation you're in. The more tense you are, the worse your headache, backache, heartache and pain become. So, you take a dose of humor from a book, a television show, a comedian or even the thought of your 80-year-old mother-in-law wearing lingerie. Then you laugh your head off. Instantly you begin to relax because you can only laugh when you are relaxed. (Did you know that it's almost impossible to laugh unless your body is perfectly relaxed and in turn, the more you relax, the less you worry.)

As my brother Steve always says, "So your roof is leaking, your car is so old your kids ask to be let out a block away from school, granny got married to the twenty-year-old newspaper delivery guy and your water-heater sounds like it has rocks in it. With all that going on why make things worse by being miserable? Laugh. It's darn funny.”

Sometime, the world is so crazy you've just got to laugh.

Posted by trevor at 11:05 AM

January 13, 2005

I pondered in front

I pondered in front of a blank journal page for a long time yesterday thinking about how I could pay a visual tribute to Lebo (see yesterdays' blog entry). Tired of waiting for me to create some sort of forced or trite profoundness, my favorite ink pen took over and drew it like it was.

Posted by trevor at 09:47 AM

January 12, 2005

With A Heavy Heart

A tiny new star appeared in the early morning sky at dawn today. Two year old Kealeboga (Lebo) passed away suddenly in Mafikeng, South Africa last night. Lebo was a part of our family and never completely well during his two years of life. Lebo and I had a special bond and I am so glad I got to be with him in Johannesburg last month. My heart breaks for his mother Mercy, his father Eddie and his big brother Donald. Lebo, your struggle and your rare smile will never be forgotten.

I love you boykie.

Tsamiapiele Kleinboet.

Ouboetie Trevor

Posted by trevor at 11:32 AM

January 11, 2005

Balance

If every day was a good day and bad things never happened, life would be very different and extremely boring.

After days and days of rain, we appreciate the sunshine a lot more. After a long, cold winter, spring and summer are so much more enjoyable.

A while ago, late one evening, I experienced nature's balancing act while visiting the Children’s Hospital here in Austin. Because cancer does not know the difference between day and night, there is always something happening at night in the hospital.

I walked down the dimly lit hallway and went into the kitchen area where parents with children who are in the hospital have the opportunity to make coffee and prepare snacks.

Two mothers were talking softly and drinking coffee. One of the mothers was white and her husband was a wealthy surgeon. The other mother was Mexican American and there was no father in the picture. The family was so poor that the doctor actually paid for the taxi ride that brought her child for treatment.

I said hello and, not wanting to interrupt their conversation, asked where the children were. The mothers directed me to room 312. (I still remember the number.)

I peeked my head around the door and saw both kids sitting in one bed reading a book together. It was a beautiful and touching sight. In the dim light, I saw two beautiful girls hooked up to tubes with their arms around each other. One of the girls was reading aloud to the other. They were subconsciously stroking each other’s bald heads with unconditional affection and understanding

This was an incredible demonstration of how nature balances joy and sorrow, happiness and sadness, rich and poor. Here was one well-off six-year-old and one underprivileged six-year-old from completely different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, both terminally ill and both sharing this devastating burden together.

That night I realized that sometimes, going through a tough time is an important balancing component in one's life.

If you plough through the bad patch you'll find it's only a matter of time before the fulcrum of life makes an adjustment and swings your life toward happier times.

Without light, there would be no dark. Without pain, there would be no pleasure. Without death there would be no life. Without failure there would be no success.

Nature has an incredible built-in balance system to keep the world on an even keel.
With such a wonderful, natural equalizing device available to us, why do we always tend to become so terribly unbalanced?

It's rather amusing but sad to note that most of us are not happy unless we're unhappy. It's incredible that even when ninety-nine percent of our lives are going well, we concentrate on the one percent that isn't. We ignore all the wonderful things that we should be so grateful for and we throw all our energy into that one percent. We obsess about that one percent. We freak out about that one percent. We let our lives be ruled by that stinking one percent!

We ignore all the amazing things right in front of our faces and we focus on the bad stuff.
To help me balance out the tough times, I slide my mind across the fulcrum and tip that one percent to where it belongs. I always try to let the great things in my life help me to balance the not so great things.

Posted by trevor at 06:50 AM

January 10, 2005

Only one word and

Only one word and four pictures flowed from my pen and brush today. My heart continues to cry.

Posted by trevor at 03:59 PM

Monster In The Closet

The monsters that live in closets and under people's beds are obviously born in our imaginations. The more we worry about the monster, the bigger it gets. The same happens with our problems. The more we fear them, the worse they become.

When I was in the army, we had to stand guard at the ammunition depot a couple of times a week. For some reason, I always had the 2am to 8pm shift. (We all had to do two years mandatory military training when I got out of high school.)

The ammunition depot was surrounded by an inner barbed- wire fence, a walkway and then an outer barbed-wire fence.

The depot was in the bush some miles from the base and unless the moon was full, it was a pretty dark and quiet walk.

The perimeter beyond the outer fence was made up of dense scrub, large bushes and trees. On each of the four corners were spotlights that were supposed to light up the walkways but they didn't do a very good job.

One night, my guard partner, Bruce and I were walking the beat.

It was a particularly dark night, and we were on high alert because of an unusual amount of terrorist activity in the northern part of South West Africa called the Caprivi Strip.

At eighteen years of age, we were all aware of the enemy and how they were going to kill our wives and girlfriends. (The South African Military propaganda machine had brainwashed us well.) We were eager for action and ready to blast anybody who put his or her face near our depot.

As we rounded the corner closest to the guardhouse, something caught Bruce's eye. He grabbed me and pointed. My heart nearly stopped. Up in a tree about twenty yards from the gate sat a man.

We both fell to the ground and assumed an attack position pointing our rifles at the man.

"Halt," I said stupidly. How could the man halt? He was already halted. He was sitting in a tree for goodness sake.

"Come down, or we'll shoot," I barked.

There was no reply. The man did not move; he just sat there. Bruce and I became very nervous. It was more than that--we were petrified. Even though I had just completed basic training at 4th Field Regiment, I was not ready to shoot anyone.

I kept my rifle trained on the man while Bruce radioed for help. I remember it so clearly.

"Four zero, four zero, this is two zero, my signal strength, over."

"Yours good, mine over," came the reply.

"We have an intruder off the perimeter who will not respond,"

"Why didn't you say so, fool?" cried the voice.

"I did," said Bruce.

"Hang on, I'm coming," came the reply.

Two seconds later, Alan White appeared crawling up behind us.

"Where?" he urged.

"There," I pointed.

"God, you're right," said White. "What the heck are we going to do?"

"Should we shoot him?" asked Bruce.

"Are you crazy?" said Alan White.

"Why?" I asked. "He might have grenades."

Alan White got back on the radio and called the battery Sergeant Major. Pretty soon he arrived. He started yelling at the man in the tree, but got no response.

"Should we shoot him?" asked Bruce.

"Are you crazy?" said the Sergeant Major.

"Why?" I asked. "He might have grenades."

The sergeant major got back on the radio and called the camp commander.

In no time we had all sorts of people lying on the ground deciding what to do.

The man was too far in the bush for us to see what he was carrying. With the use of flashlights it was determined that he had a bazooka, two rifles and at least six grenades.

We did nothing but wait. It was decided that if the man moved one inch, we would blast him to smithereens.

It was close to dawn and the commander called for a searchlight.

As we waited, I spotted at least two other men with rifles far off in the trees, but I said nothing for fear of starting a third world war.

Almost twenty men rushed up behind us with a huge mobile spotlight. The generator kicked in and the giant light suddenly illuminated the entire area. The enemy was immediately visible.

My heart almost stopped. The man sitting in the tree laden with grenades and a bazooka was not a man. Or a woman. Or even human. It was only an army uniform that one of the soldiers had hung in the tree to dry after he washed it.

Posted by trevor at 12:20 PM

January 09, 2005

It's Not Over Until It's Over

I have met so many people who were just about to do great things when they simply gave up because the going got a little too tough. I have a friend who ran a marathon, but just couldn't finish. Little did he know that the finish line was just four blocks away. He trained for more than a year, day in and day out, only to give up with less than a half a mile to go.

The town of Kimberly in South Africa is famous for its diamonds. In the early 1900's thousands of people rushed to the area to dig for these sought-after stones.

One fellow gave up everything he owned and moved to Kimberly to get rich. He spent all of his savings buying equipment and began his search. For months and months he dug and sifted soil.
After almost a year he moved 13,000 wheelbarrows of earth without finding one single diamond. The man was so despondent that he sold his equipment for a few hundred dollars and moved away.
The person who bought his claim continued digging in the same spot and two days later picked up one of the biggest diamonds ever discovered. It weighed 13 carats and marked the start of the Kimberly Diamond Mine and DeBeers Diamond Company.

It's human nature to give up when the going gets tough, but it's during those tough times that giving up is the very last thing we should do.

A while back, I was visiting an elementary school to give a motivational talk. As I waited to be introduced to the crowd, I took a seat among the children in the auditorium.

The boy I happened to sit next to was a happy, healthy-looking young soccer player named Michael. (Hi Michael.) Although I didn't know it then, I would come across him again in the very near future.

As I sat down, I told Michael that I'd be watching him and he'd better not sleep during my talk. He gave me a token smile and nodded his head.

The next time I saw Michael he was in the hospital. He had just been diagnosed with cancer. Many of the parents at his school, knowing my involvement with children suffering from cancer, asked me to call on Michael to offer him support and cheer him up.

Gone was the bubbly kid I had sat next to in the auditorium. He was replaced by a bald boy who was reacting badly to chemotherapy and throwing up all over the place.

I introduced myself to Michael's mother who smiled and told me she knew exactly who I was. A few weeks earlier Michael's grandmother had died, and at the funeral, Michael had read a poem from one of my books. She recognized me from the picture on the back cover.

Over the next few months, I visited Michael at the hospital and watched his condition fly up and down like a roller coaster.

One morning I went to visit him with some drawings I had done for him. I walked into the hospital room and stopped dead in my tracks. All the linen had been removed from his bed and one of the nurses was sitting in the bedside chair with her face buried in her hands.

I honestly thought Michael was going to make it and the empty bed froze my heart. I was stunned. I felt the blood drain from my face.
In total shock, I walked over to the nurse and put my hand on her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" I asked, softly.

"No," she replied. "I have one huge hangover. I will never drink Tequila again."

"Where's Michael?" I stammered, pointing at the bed.

"Oh, he's gone home," she said. "His white counts are way up and he's doing great."

Although Michael went through two bone marrow transplants and a near fatal fungal infection he never gave up on himself.

I share that story with many people because it's so important to remember that it's never over until it's over. We shouldn't give up on ourselves or anybody else because good things may be just around the corner.

Posted by trevor at 01:40 PM

January 08, 2005

The Winds Of Time

I was sketching the picture above for a new book I am writing and it reminded me of my wonderful grandfather.

It happened one summer. I was spending my vacation helping my grandfather fix fences on his farm. Although I was only fifteen, he let me drive the truck through the woods and across the open fields to where the fences needed mending. During the winter, the cattle would use the fence posts to scratch their itching bodies. They would bend and push the fence posts right over. Sometimes the poles would even snap.

It was while mending a broken fence pole that my grandfather had the heart attack. He was in front of me, walking back to the truck after we’d been struggling for ages trying to wrap some barbed wire around a new pole we’d sunk.

The wire had cut and scratched both of us and we were looking forward to getting back to the truck for some Cokes we had in the cooler.

One second his powerful six-foot frame was striding through the spring grass ahead of me and the next second he was lying on the ground gasping for air. I couldn’t believe, how just a few seconds out of sixty-eight years of life, had suddenly aged him ten years. He looked so old and afraid. I’d never seen my grandfather afraid.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. A powerful surge of adrenaline jerked my muscles into motion. I left my grandfather lying in the grass and I ran. First one way, then the other. Then I stopped. I wasn’t sure which way to go. My heart was sending surges of blood into my head. I started crying. I didn’t want him to die. Spending summers with my grandfather got me through life. I didn’t want the days of sitting in the barn and talking about the old times to end. I still wanted to hear stories about the time he and his family escaped from the old country. I could listen to those stories a thousand times. I didn’t want him to go. We still had so many things to talk about.

Then I got angry. Grandfathers weren’t supposed to die when their grandchildren were only fifteeen. I ran back to where he was lying. He was clutching at his chest. His face was drawn back, hideously distorted with pain.

I tried to lift him but he was too heavy. I grabbed his feet and dragged him towards the truck. There was nothing else I could do. I had to save this magnificent man and the only way I was going to do that was by getting him to a doctor.

The adrenaline and fear of losing him must have given me strength I did not normally have, because once we reached the truck, I managed to lift him and half push, half roll him onto the seat.

Even though I was only fifteen, my grandfather had taught me to drive and I drove through the field and bounced across every bump I had so carefully avoided earlier that morning. (While teaching me to drive, he playfully slapped me on the back of the head every time I hit the slightest bump. That wasn’t important anymore.)

I got back to the house and honked the horn madly. As I was about to jump out of the truck and run for help, my grandfather reached up, and with the last bit of strength left in his body, grabbed my shirt collar. He almost choked me as he tried to pull himself up.

"I'm not ready to go" he whispered. I looked at his face. The sweet, kind face that meant so much to me. Those warm eyes that told me stories and listened to my stupid crazy ideas, were slowly fading. The light in them was gone.

Later at the hospital, a terrible pain hugged my soul and squeezed me until I found it hard to breathe. I felt so helpless. If only I could have borrowed some time from the end of my life and given it to him, I would have. I wanted him around for a long time, but my love for my grandfather was no match for the nature of the universe.

That night, while I was asleep, a major heart attack stole the last gasp of life from his very being. The hand of fate reached down and carelessly grabbed his soul, wrenching it painfully from his body. At that moment, his eyes closed forever.

The breeze took my grandfather’s last sigh and carried it through the whispering trees into the winds of time and along with it went my childhood.

Posted by trevor at 08:57 AM

January 07, 2005

Perfect

Have you ever given up on something because you couldn’t do it perfectly? I know so many people who won’t write, paint, sew and make jewelry simply because they fear their work might not be one hundred percent perfect in their eyes.

So many brilliant creative people are sidelined because they want their work to be brilliant and if it isn’t, they feel like creative failures.

A quick look at nature will show you that most things are not perfect. Have you ever seen a perfectly round stone? Have you ever seen a perfectly straight tree? Have you ever seen a movie where a lion kills a beautiful young buck or a cheetah kills a magnificent old giraffe? In nature nothing is perfectly symmetrical or fair. But for some reason, nature manages its system perfectly.

Very few people have a perfect face or a perfect body and even if they do, time will create imperfections over the years.

It is important to do things as perfectly as you can, but striving for complete perfection will only make you miserable.

I learned a great lesson while illustrating a book for a large publishing company. It was my first book for a major publisher and I was petrified that I was going to make a mistake. So, I tensed up and painted the illustrations as perfectly as I could.

The publisher wasn't happy with my paintings. I was devastated and tried again. This time I worked even harder to do the perfect watercolor illustrations. They still didn't like what I had done.

Finally, they got a colorist to do a sample illustration using my line drawings. They sent me the sample and asked if I minded if someone else did the coloring of my book. I took one look at the sample and thought, "Wow, the style is so nice and lose. Darn, I can do that."

While speaking to my mother on the phone, I doodled with my paints and duplicated the style the colorist had produced without even realizing what I had done. (That picture is shown above.)

It looked really good. I did a few more samples and quickly sent them off to the publisher. Guess what? They loved it.

I realized I was trying too hard to be perfect instead of just painting the way I normally paint. I really suffered and worried about messing up. The stress and pursuit of perfection almost cost me the opportunity of doing my own watercolors with one of the biggest publishers in the world.

Posted by trevor at 09:35 AM

January 04, 2005

Dare To be Great

I love tea. I often do my best thinking while drinking tea. This morning, while drinking a cup of my favorite Five Roses tea (supplied by my mum in South Africa), I thought about my late dad. My father was a wonderful watercolorist and when I was a kid I wanted to be an artist just like him.

When I was in high school I applied to enter the art school division at King Edward the Seventh High School where I was a student.

I will never forget the day my father received a letter informing him that I would not be accepted in the art school program because I wasn't talented enough.

I did not pick up a pencil for almost twenty years after receipt of that letter.

About twelve years ago, the advertising agency I was working for went out of business and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. My neighbor Michael Ciasullo was a wonderful artist and I often went next door and watched him paint. (Unfortunately, Michael has since passed away.)

One afternoon I came home from visiting Michael and picked up a battered old tin of Crayola watercolors that someone had left at my house. I discovered something amazing that day. I can paint.

Since then I have written and illustrated over 30 books for children, enjoyed a couple of one-man art shows and continue to exhibit my paintings to this day.
For twenty-one years I suffered because someone told me I wasn't good enough.

During those years, I felt a deep frustration and could never quite understand this creative pain within. Now, my painting is a wonderful source of relaxation and meditation for me and as part of my books, accounts for a large percentage of my income.

While talking to kids across the country and around the world I always say, "Never ever let anyone else tell you whether you are good enough. If you believe you can do something, follow the advice from Nike. "Just do it!"

Posted by trevor at 09:19 PM

January 03, 2005

While having tea this

While having tea this morning I drew this picture.
I later realized that with the help of my pencil, I am
sending love and hope to all of those people affected
by the Tsunami. My special prayers are for all the children
affected by this disaster, even those watching it on
television miles and miles away.

Posted by trevor at 04:22 PM