The Pavilion

I was finally fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a writer.  When I was a teenager, I used to stay up all night writing.  My mother would come into my room to wake me up for school and there I was stretched out on my bed, pen in hand, scribbling away – we didn’t have computers in those days.

“Haven’t you been to bed yet?” she asked.

“No, I wanted to finish this first.  I’ll go in a few minutes.”

“It’s time to get ready for school.”  Sleep or no sleep, she always made me go.

But I put my writing aside for thirty-five years while I entered the world of business.  The funny thing about writing, though, whenever I got down, or too angry at the world to talk about it, I wrote about it.  My love for writing fiction was gone, replaced with stories about life – inspirational, uplifting stories.  It was cathartic.  And healing.

I stored all my work online, in the cloud.  Big mistake.  My account was hacked, and a book I was working on was stolen, turned into an eBook, and was being sold on several unscrupulous websites.  It was a devastating blow – my spirit was broken.  I had just finished it – the first draft of my first book – it was my baby.

I closed my computer, took my dog to the park, sat on a picnic table under the pavilion, and while Sadie played out in the field, I yelled at God.  It felt wonderfully cathartic, and God didn’t seem to mind, so I kept yelling, getting out the anger and frustration.  How could I be so stupid to store my work online?  I had taken every precaution to secure it, but nothing online is completely secure.  And how could God let this happen to my work?  The articles that were stolen were written for Him and about Him.  They were to be included in a book.

At the time I believed my only option was to start over – to write them again.  But that thought was overwhelming.  Starting over meant I had to write them differently so I wouldn’t plagiarize myself.  The idea of me plagiarizing me was preposterous.  My articles were copyrighted, of course, and I hoped rewriting them wouldn’t be necessary, but I really didn’t know and anticipated the worst.  At that moment I decided there would be no book; I didn’t want to write another word.  So I asked God to help me give up on my dream of becoming an author, and to give me some sign that He was okay with my decision to stop writing.

It was only a minute or two later that I heard the music.  It sounded far off, but it was getting closer.  I turned around and saw two young men walking towards me, each playing an acoustic guitar.  They were playing a classical piece that sounded lovely.  I invited them to sit with me under the pavilion where the acoustics were amazing.  As I listened to them play I was transported back in time to when I was an adjunct music professor at a local community college.  It was the happiest time of my life and I was enjoying every memory these college boys were bringing back to me through their playing.

The sound of a motor that got louder as it came towards me brought me out of my reverie.  It was Nathan approaching in his cart.  Nathan worked at the park and he and Sadie, my black lab, had become good friends.  He was trying to get her to ride in his cart with him, but she wasn’t having any part of it.  So he played in the field with her instead, chasing her up and down, trying to catch her, but her tail kept slipping through his hands.  The more he tried, the harder he laughed.

Walking out from the pavilion and into the field, my back towards the boys, they segued into a song that sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t recall what it was.  And they began singing.  “No boys,” I thought to myself, “Please don’t sing.  Just play.”  And Sadie slipped through Nathan’s hands yet again.  He slipped in the mud and fell on his backside and was laughing uncontrollably.  And as I stood there listening to the beautiful melody being played perfectly on guitar, their singing got more and more off key and my ears could no longer handle the discord.  I, too, began laughing uncontrollably.

Sadie came to me and let me know she was done playing.  Nathan had to get back to work.  After thanking the boys and wishing them well, Sadie and I went home.  Though no longer in the dark place I was in before going to the park, I dreaded going back to my computer.

Checking my email account, I saw that a message had arrived from my friend, John.  Before leaving for the park I sent him an email informing him of the theft.  He responded with two words, “Fix this!”

How could I fix this?  The internet was so vast.  And yet again, my mind drifted back in time to when I started my career in IT as a computer technician.  I built several networks and some of those jobs were extremely difficult, but I successfully figured them out on my own.  I knew nothing about copyright infringement, but it was time to figure it out.  There was a plethora of information available on the internet about copyright law and how to remove stolen content.  It wasn’t easy; I had to write dozens of emails, file numerous complaints, and send Cease and Desist letters to the website owners that were selling my work.  Copyright infringement is a very serious matter, even on the internet, and within 72 hours my stolen content had been removed from all of the offending websites.  It was the victory I needed.  But I will always be searching the internet for my work.

Through this experience I have found a new inner strength, and a resolve to rewrite the articles that will one day become part of a book that I never wanted to write.  But having my work stolen was a wakeup call – those articles were a part of me and losing them to a thief felt far worse than any ridicule I could ever receive from telling my truth in a book.  You see, I’ve been to heaven, seen God and Jesus, and was miraculously healed of the illness that almost ended my life.  For years I was afraid to admit that publicly, assuming no one would believe me.  And yet, it was the very thing God had asked me to do.

It took some time, but I can now see the positive in my negative experience.  All it took was a little music, some bad singing, a fall in the mud, and a dog that didn’t want to be caught, to relearn that laughter is still, and always will be, the best medicine.  And with a little help from God, I learned I can handle anything and come through it victoriously feeling positively happy.