MY PUBLIC APOLOGY to my family for any misunderstanding I have created.
Dear Dahlins. I love you.
This blog is my story! A symphony. It is the story of a little nine year old kid who was left at Salton Sea. It is the story of an 11-year-old who nearly dies when his leg is severed at the McElliot's pool. It is the story of broken arms, horse play, pranks, cross-country travel, kick the can, lots of fun, and even more laughter.
I have never considered and would never have chosen a different family or a different childhood.
I love us.
Something I read today said, "Everyone touched by a piece of music hears it differently. The composer hears it in the chamber of his imagination. The audience hears it with their senses and emotions. The members of the orchestra hear it most clearly..." filtered and specifically mixed through the sound of the instrument they play and "...the instruments closest to them."
It's like watching a movie. Two people can see the exact same film at the exact same time and yet come away with two completely different interpretations.
We were all there. We saw many of the same events and heard some of the same music, yet heard it through the discerning ears of our particular instrument that allows us to come away with very different interpretations.
This is
my symphony of stories - a song mixed through
my grid of senses and emotions. You might have composed it different. As members of the cast and orchestra you might have played it different and certainly heard and saw it through your ears and eyes which are very different from mine.
The events are recited with the embellishments of creative spit and polish. The emotions, however, are mine and are portrayed here through the eyes of this little boy with accuracy.
My life was the music of yearning to belong and the wanting of acceptance. It is a grand symphony of redemption and of forgiveness―
the story of yesteryear and not today. I have never hated any one of my neighbors, I have never hated mom or dad and I have never hated any of you. All I wanted was to feel loved. I apologize that my struggles painted you in a bad light or made you feel like I was blaming you for my hardships or made you feel responsible for my faults.
This redemptive chapter was supposed to be 10 years down the chronology of this blog in the life of Markie D. Instead, I'm going to share that now out of sequence by assuring you that my song has changed! I was indeed a mess. I was broken, insecure, disconnected and desperately trying to find the meaning of life and love.
This drove me to my knees. I prayed. I cried out to God. I wanted a relationship in the universe that was deep, meaningful, and significant. God reached down from heaven in His infinite wisdom and grace and changed my life. Whole. Complete. Forgiven. Full. God took a very hard and numb heart and replaced it with one that was new and pliable. God made it possible for me not only to feel loved, but also to love and to love greatly.
God put tears and tenderness back into my emotions.
I love you and love the times when we get together and tell stories and laugh. You are tremendously important to me and I hold no grudges. This part may sound a bit weird, but I owe a great deal of debt to all of you. I look on my childhood now as one of the greatest gifts given to me (and even orchestrated by God Himself on my behalf).
My youthful feelings as an underdog gives me empathy for the weak and the oppressed. I hate racism―I hate bullying and have stood up for underdogs at great personal risk to myself.
My reaching out and contemplating the deep things of the human psyche at a young age equipped me to be a good listener; to care about other people's feelings and to contemplate the deep matters of the heart and of the human condition.
It has also provided me with the ability to laugh at myself. Laughter
IS good medicine.
C.S Lewis wrote. "Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny..."
To give even more away... For me to claim that we were "America's most dysfunctional family" is facetious. The whole point is to show that
every family has its faults and failings, it flaws and shortcomings. The grass is not greener on the other side. The universal human condition is one wrought with problems. It happened in our house and it happened in the houses of those next door and across the street. People will suffer disappointment and hurt. The greatest emotional pain is usually inflicted by those closest and most intimate.
Yet, if there is hope and healing and reconciliation and forgiveness for someone like this little boy, there just might be a chance for healing and wholeness for just about anyone―it is possible.
I beg you please, not to confuse the ramblings of a hurt and lost child so many years ago with who I am today.
I will continue to tell my story... and ...
1) I'll be careful not to paint anyone in a bad light.
2) I have many positive qualities for each of you that I carry with me that are worth sharing―so people would know that none of you are evil monsters (stupid kids doing stupid things―maybe, but not evil bullies).
3) People don't like plain-wrap stories―we were never a plain-wrap family.
AGAIN, forgive me for making some of you feel defensive if I have crossed some unspoken boundary―this was never my intention only a means of moving the symphony of my emotions to an amazing crescendo, which would otherwise, be nothing more a simple melody on white keys (white bread and non-fat milk).
This is my story. This is my song.
Let's make music together!
Love baby brother.
Tony
Karl
Kris
Kurt
Erick
Mary
Mark
Karin
Bob
Pinky
AND our Favorites....
David and Lisa
Dad and Mom
The Biologicals
sidewalk repair 1965 
