WPSU's This I Believe

I believe in eating my convictions. When I was twelve, I stopped eating meat because I liked animals and didn't want to hurt them. My grandmother saw this decision as a personal betrayal.  

I sometimes forget I have an older sister. She passed away before I was born, but that doesn't mean I don't have a sister. I didn't know about her until I was 12 years old. But now I think of her often.

Shortly before we moved to the United States from Kirgizstan, on New Year’s Day, my dad pulled me aside and told me we had to go visit a “special little person.” My dad took a deep breath and told me about the short life of my older sister.

I believe heavy metal.
 
When I was 12 years old I saw Metallica’s music video for the song, “One.” The video mixes gritty black and white band footage with excerpts from the film Johnny Got His Gun about a hospitalized soldier who lost his arms, legs, sight, hearing, and speech to a landmine. Over this footage, “One” goes from lament to unstoppable barrage.
 
I believed this song.
 

When I was growing up, I fought constantly with my parents over making my bed in the morning. An after-breakfast check-in was routine at my house. My mom or dad would walk down the hall, check each room, and call from upstairs, "Stop whatever it is you're doing and come make your bed." It was a chore that I simply did NOT like, and so I avoided it. I thought it was absurd to make my bed every morning. It was counterproductive. What could be the benefit of straightening a bed in the morning that would inevitably be undone that evening? This puzzled me for a long time.

Just a few years ago I was a stereotypical teenager. Everything was about "me." I wasn't interested in anyone else or their needs. I often neglected my family because time with my friends seemed more important. Family dinners were a burden and vacations a punishment.

For many people, April 15 is TAX DAY! April 15 for me, however, has a different significance…

In 1982, I moved to a small mountain town in Colorado. I thought I’d found the perfect place to live. But there was one thing missing. No public radio. I used to spin the FM dial searching for the voice of the community.  All I would hear was canned music or talk programs packaged somewhere far away and made local only by the commercials injected.

On a rainy morning when I was ten, my neighbor Mr. Lovett invited me into his home for a woodworking project. Above his fireplace sat an ornate eagle carved by Mr. Lovett himself. Its wingspan was wider than I was tall. I remember wondering how long it took him to make that eagle.

Mr. Lovett guided my block of wood under the scroll saw until it morphed into the rough outline of a duck.