I'm a writer, chemistry professor, husband, and all-around lover of the outdoors.  I'm so grateful to be living such an amazing life.

I've been a part of MenHealing for over 10 years. I have been a group facilitator for the Peer Support Groups for five years. These groups give male survivors of sexual abuse a place to discuss their struggles and to feel heard. I've gained so much from my volunteer work. 

The excerpt below is from my short memoir Chaco Canyon. I wrote the memoir after a challenging time in my adult life. I'd not realize how some of the choices I was making were motivated by my sexual abuse history. The events in the memoir took place about six years ago. I ended up having to face the consequences of my choices, and it was both painful and humbling.

I can now look back on that time in my life and see I was doing the best I could. I did not understand how my feeling of being unlovable was creating a dangerous undercurrent in my life. I have since come to see that feeling small and unworthy led me down a path of suffering. When these feelings come up, I now try to face them and acknowledge them. I don't bury them. 

My writing has become one of the fundamental components of my healing journey. I've always wanted to be a storyteller. I knew this at a young age, but I never allowed myself to follow my dreams. Now, I am listening to my dreams. Every word I put on a page is a step toward what matters most to me. 

May 2019

It’s late May and Lizzie and I are walking up Ledbetter Creek in the Nantahala Gorge. Lizzie trails behind me as I hop from one rock to the next. I carry a black plastic container. My father’s ashes are inside it.

As I stumble up the creek, I’m numb and cold. I have no place for my father. I never did. I look at the clear water pouring over the moss-covered granite. My brother and I used to build dams in this creek. My father, drunk, would stumble over and direct us to place a rock. This is one of the few places where I feel any connection to him.

I reach the waterfall. As a kid, we’d always stop here, but I’ve heard you can go further. I look up the creek for an opening in the jumble of house-sized boulders. I see it –A deep, natural tunnel that bypasses the waterfall. I race into the damp, dark hollow. Red salamanders skimpier away from my hands as I climb the wet stones. The tunnel exits at a pool. I yell down to Lizzie and tell her not to come up. She can’t hear me, but I do a stopping motion. She nods. I get the feeling she’s grateful that I’m not asking her to climb the tunnel. 

I turn and stare at the cold, clear water. For years I’ve held onto my father’s ashes, I’ve fantasized about this moment. I thought I would lose it, howl. Instead, I stand with the cold water splashing on my skin. The droplets tap out an incomprehensible message.

I search for the words. How after all this time could I have nothing to say? I sit down with my back against a large granite stone. The black plastic container sits next to me. I grab it and open it. The ashes are in a clear plastic bag. They are dark grey and small fragments of white bone are mixed in. I pull the bag out and hold it tight to my chest. All of the punishment and hardship I swallowed in the hope that my father would love me is put into my embrace. I want to open the bag and bury myself in it. I want to claw back some warmth, some goodness that I never knew.

I whisper, “You didn’t know how to be decent to me, did ya?” A resolve hardens within me. I jut my right arm out, holding the bag over the water. I stare at it one last time before I pour out the ashes. I thought a cloud of sediment would turn the water opaque, but the ashes sink to the bottom of the clear water and stick like wet concrete. A nickel-sized bone fragment gleams in the slurry. I shot my hand in and palm the fragment. I clench my fist, squeeze the bone until I think it will shatter. Aloud, I make a promise. If I fuck my life up, it won’t be because of him. It will be because of my choices.