I WAS A SHADOW, THE SILENT CHILD, NEVER SPOKEN to or touched except in anger. No “I love you”. “Bad seed,” said my mother I was Nobody’s Boy.
We moved more than 100 times before I was in my teens. We kids sometimes ate chicken feed, or chewed tar from telephone poles. But I bore the brunt. One summer my six siblings all got gifts. Not me. Not a trinket. I was Nobody.
First Mom disappeared, then Dad; so the State of California gave me a number: 10114. “Who would want to adapt you?” they said. I learned to hide the tears, the vulnerable child, beneath my warrior mask. Then my parents reappeared and jerked us kids back into a lower hell.
There were glimmers of hope. A class for the gifted. Straight A’s. An honour student. But who cared? My dad’s parting words: “You’ll never be able to hold a job and make a living!”
Even as a successful teacher, I was the hollow man. There was no way on earth for heaven to reach me, even if God Himself appeared in the sky. Or so I thought…
PRAISE FOR NOBODY’S BOY
Grover Wilcox has never stopped finding the good in people. Now facing the relentless onslaught of a life-threatening disease, he has grasped the hand of God so firmly that he communicates peace and love to other suffers. An inspiring, true story. (Steven C. Stewart, chief of urology, Veterans Hospital; professor, Loma Linda University School of Medicine.)
His faith in the “Daddy” he never had on this earth is profound. I feel honoured to be his doctor and share in the battle against the disease that seeks to end his mission on earth. (Keith Colburn, M.D. chief of rheumatology and professor of medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine.)