Thank You Hugh!

There are rare moments in time where people come into our lives—even if only for a short while—that change us forever. They are often the people who believe in you when no one else does…even when you don’t believe in yourself. These are the people who end up influencing us the most.

Today, I said farewell to one of my influential people: Mr. Hugh Ambrose.

I came to meet Hugh in a most awkward and random way. But our chance meeting proved to be one of the most influential moments of my life.

In the Fall of 2009, I was fresh out of college and floating aimlessly about with what seemed like an utterly worthless English writing degree. I had dreams of becoming a writer but knew how dismal my chances were at ever succeeding in that endeavor. So I started applying for job after job—practically anywhere. None of the jobs excited me but I knew they would at least afford me a paycheck. But to my dismay, I still couldn’t land any of them.

One hot day towards the end of that first summer after graduation, I found myself sitting out on my parents’ deck under the shade of an umbrella. My forehead looked blistered with beads of sweat as it hung over the yellow pages of the phone book. I furiously paged through it to see if any businesses or names jumped out as prospective employers. The more pages I flipped through, the more hopeless I became. “What if I never find a job anywhere?” I wondered. “What if I’ve just wasted four years of my life in school only to wind up broke and living with my parents forever?”

Then I came to the “T” section of the yellow pages. I slowly drug my index finger down the left page and then the right. That’s when I saw it. A single listing under the heading “Technical Writer.” The name Ambrose Inc. with a phone number next to it was all that was listed. Something inside told me this just might be it.

I picked up the phone and hesitantly dialed the number. Of course, no one answered. A brief greeting followed the unanswered rings and then that prompting beep to leave a voicemail. I paused for a moment not knowing what to say or if I should say anything. I had dialed the number so quickly I hadn’t though at all about what I would say if someone answered. But I was desperate. So is started talking. What followed was thee most random message I have ever left anyone in my life. I don’t recall my exact words, but they were something to the effect of, “Hi. This is Lacey Middlestead. I just graduated from Carroll College with a degree in English Writing. I want to be a writer. And I need a job. Any job. I’m a hard worker and I’m willing to do anything.”

And that was pretty much it. 

I hung up the phone feeling like a complete idiot. I was certain that not only would he not call me back but that he would spend the rest of the week replaying my message as a source of entertainment. A few days later though, I received a most unexpected phone call as I was pulling onto my parents’ street.

The man on the other end of the phone said he was Hugh Ambrose and that he’d been very impressed with the tenacity of my voicemail. I was speechless. He told me he was working on finishing a book about World War II and had a bunch of taped interviewed with veterans that he needed transcribed in a hurry. He asked me if I was interested. 

“Oh absolutely!” I said. 

“Can you type well?” he asked.

“I can type like the wind,” I answered. “In college all I did was type essays so the faster I typed, the sooner I got to go to bed,” I joked.

 

In that moment, that amount of money sounded like a million dollars to me. But he could’ve paid me in pennies and I would’ve said yes. 

And that is how I landed my first job out of college.

A few days later I met with Hugh at his house and he handed me two boxes filled with cassette tapes to transcribe. It was a daunting task and my deadline was only about a month away. I scurried home that day to get started immediately. I had a meltdown within a few hours because it was such slow, tedious work. I didn’t see how I’d ever get done. But I’d made a promise to a man who took a chance on me. Who believed in me. I couldn’t let him down. 

For 8 hours a day, nearly 7 days a week over the next month I sat upstairs in one of my parents’ spare bedrooms with big headphone clamped on my ears and my fingers clicking away on my keyboard. Word by word I worked my way through the interviews….often laughing out loud at some of the veteran’s stories and lightheartedness. I learned a lot about World War II that month and was enlightened to how war effected each of the veterans differently.

Even though it had seemed impossible in the beginning, I finally reached the end of my final tape and hit the stop button on my cassette player. I had finished.

I emailed the transcriptions to Hugh, sent him my hours and boxed the tapes back up. A few days later I returned the tapes to Hugh. I don’t remember hardly anything that we talked about. But I remember meeting his wife and daughter. I repeatedly offered him my gratitude before leaving his house. And thinking back, I can’t help but remember feeling like my work with him wasn’t entirely finished.

 In 2010, Hugh’s book, “The Pacific” was released in print. It immediately crept up the New York Times bestsellers list to #7. I couldn’t get my hands on a copy soon enough. I remember picking up a copy of it at Hastings and thumbing through the first few pages. And there, in the acknowledgements, was my name listed. Even though I hadn’t written a single page of that book, I felt honored beyond words to be included. 

 

I learned he was doing a reading and book signing at Lewis and Clark Library and my mom said she’d go with me. I remember sitting in the back of a small room at the library a few days later next to a reporter scribbling notes onto a tiny notebook. My mom and I listened to him read for a while and then everyone lined up to get their book copies signed. When my mom and I finally made our way up to him he recognized me immediately. I congratulated him and then introduced him to my mom. I remember him looking at her and smiling saying, “Your daughter is going to go on and do great things. I knew that the moment I heard her voicemail. It takes a lot to put yourself out there like that,” he said. Then I handed him my book to sign and shook his hand.

 That was the last time I saw Hugh.

Two days ago I learned of Hugh’s passing and was completely stunned. I hadn’t known him hardly at all but I knew instantly I had to attend his funeral. He was one of the first people to believe in me. He made me believe there was untapped greatness in me just waiting to come out. I had never forgotten him or the confidence he instilled in me. 

Hugh’s service was held at my own church—the church I was baptized into just over a year ago. I found it all rather ironic. I sat alone at the service watching people around me dab at their eyes with tissues. It seemed silly to me to tear up seeing as I’d barely known the man. But I did shed a few tears. 

The world lost a great man this week. I didn’t feel the loss as much as many of the other people in the church did, but I felt a great deal of other things. Our priest often reminds us at church about how we pass by the baptismal font every time we come to Mass to remind us of our shared eternal life with Christ and the forgiveness of sins we receive through our own baptisms. We pass by the font again when we leave as a reminder of how our baptism sends us out into the world to continue God’s work. When I blessed myself with holy water in leaving Hugh’s service today, I prayed for peace for Hugh and his family. And I prayed for God’s peace for myself, as I go back out in the world to continue the work I have been called to---my writing. The written word is something Hugh and I will forever share. And without his belief in me all those years ago…without him taking a chance on me when no one else would…I may not have found the courage to continue pursuing my dream. 

Peace be with you always Hugh…Thank You…and God speed. 

Power of the Gym

When most people think about a writer hard at work, they imagine them sitting hunched over a desk, eyes unblinkingly squinting ahead, as they furiously clack away on a keyboard. But the truth is, the work of a writer begins long before that. I have come to realize, in fact, that writers actually work every minute of every day. We spend our lives as observers, intense feelers, and dreamers. We notice the dimples in the newly poured concrete sidewalks and think about how we can add that detail into the short story we’re working on. We soberly drown ourselves in the despair of a lost love because we know that fully feeling that loss is the only way we’ll ever be able to effectively write about loss. And we dream. We dream of the day when all of our words finally draw open everyone’s eyes fully to see us for who we really are without judgment or misconception.  Writers, perhaps, work longer and harder hours than anyone else on earth.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” 

For reasons unbeknownst to me, this quote popped into my head this morning at about 5:45 a.m. when I was lifting weights at the gym…..see what I mean about working 24/7! It comes from a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus and just so happens to be engraved on the pedestal that the Statue of Liberty stands on. It was completely random thought---and yet—it was fitting.

Right after my church and the Montana mountains, the gym is one of my holiest of sanctuaries. It’s where I get to disappear for an hour each morning and lose myself in the sweat and music pounding through my ear phones. It’s a place filled with all manner of sights, sounds and smells that are calming to me in ways only fellow gym rats can appreciate. There’s the fierce look in the runner’s eye as they pound out the miles on the treadmill even as the sweat trickles down. There’s the clanking noise of plates being transferred on and off weight machines. There’s the musty smell of sweat that lingers in the cycling room after a full class. The gym is full of determination, stubbornness, and hope.

In the outside world, things and relationships fall apart every day. At the gym, everything that is broken is slowly pieced back together again in a profoundly stronger way. While people frequently disappoint and abandon you in your personal life, the gym waits patiently for you to return to it each week. The only one you ever disappoint is yourself when you don’t show up for your workout. The gym doesn’t care if your hair is frizzy, you’re donning oversized sweats and all of the sun spots on your makeup-free face are exposed. The gym won’t judge you for being tired or thinking about other places…it’s just grateful you showed up and tried. When you’re all out of tears to shed, the gym draws sweat beads instead that rid the body of the weakness your sorrows wrought. The gym gives you back just as much, if not more, as you put into it. Tell me how many relationships you have where that happens?

I go to the gym five days a week whether I’m having a good week or a bad one because either way everything seems better and more possible by the time I leave. I go to the gym when I feel sick or weak. I may not run very fast and the weights I lift don’t add up to many pounds, but I’m always stronger on the inside even if it doesn’t reflect externally. 

Much like the Statue of Liberty, the gym calls to the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Like immigrants, gym goers each bring with them their own unique stories and goals for a brighter future. But all of them, all of us, are all ultimately seeking the same thing—FREEDOM from the elements of life determined to weigh us down. 

My Way

I’ve been struggling the last couple of weeks to pick out all of the ceremony music for mine and Andy’s upcoming wedding. Like most of the other wedding details, I’m driving Andy crazy by taking so long to reach a decision. I know I’m just being a perfectionist and most any music I pick will fit beautifully with our day. But……….it’s the music for our wedding!!!

All of my hemming and hawing about wedding music though has got me thinking a lot lately about music in general and the powerful influence it holds over our lives. Music can lift us up from low places, inspire us and make us cry. Like poetry or dance, music can tell stories in a unique way—stories about our lives and who we are. Music help us relive memories that time slowly pulls away from us as the years meander by. As a writer, I naturally tend to focus more on the lyrics of a song than the actual tune, but when the two elements are combined they generate a work of art so beautiful you can’t describe it……you can only feel it.

I was replaying a scene in my mind the other day from the movie, Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. There’s a part in the beginning where his band auditions at the legendary Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee for Sam Phillips. After beginning to play a popular gospel tune of the day, Mr. Phillips interrupts Johnny and the boys to ask if they had something more original to play. 

“If you was hit by a truck and was lying out there in that gutter dying and you had time to sing one song….one song that people would remember before you’re dirt….one song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on earth….one song that would sum you up, you tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing………..or would you sing somethin’ different?” Phillips asks. 

I think at some point in all of our lives we come to know what that one song is. That song that would let God know how we feel about our time on earth….the song that sums us up. And I think knowing that is important. We can go our whole lives thinking that people understand us, respect us and will remember us. But I think the reality is far from that. Each of us has our secret loves and desires, demons we wrestle with, crosses we bear, and regrets we never make peace with. Those are the kinds of things that, even the boldest of writers, struggle to ever express. But they’re also the things that are the most important to know about someone—even if it is after their time here is done. Knowing those things can transform everything we ever believed about someone—and no doubt, for the better. That one song can accomplish the things we spend years, if not our entire lives, trying to achieve. 

What’s that one song for me? That’s easy. “My Way” by Elvis Presley. 

The song, “My Way,” originated as a French song called “Comme D’Habitude” (“As Usual”) written by composers Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibault. They took it to French pop star Claude Francois, who tweaked it a bit and recorded the song in 1967.  The French version tells the story of a man living out the end of his marriage, love killed by the boredom of everyday life. Singer/Songwriter Paul Anka later discovered the song and rewrote the lyrics as “My Way.” His lyrics changed the meaning to be about a man looking back fondly on a life he lived on his own terms. Anka pitched the song to Frank Sinatra who first recorded it on December 30, 1968 and it quickly became one of his signature tunes. Elvis Presley began performing the song in concert during the 1970s. His live performance of the song featured on his October 1977 TV special was released as a single several weeks after his death and screamed right up the Billboard Charts to #5 and also became a certified Gold recording. 

While I’ve heard Sinatra’s version of the song, Elvis’ will always reign supreme in my mind. You can both see and hear it in his performance of it that Elvis didn’t just sing that song, he lived it. The words cut right into the very corners of his own life. And over the years, I’ve realized that they cut right into my life as well.

In my 28 short years I’ve come to realize and embrace who I am and how I want to live my life. And all of that has been done in MY WAY.

It takes guts to plot a course for your life that goes against convention. It takes guts to reach for more than what is “supposed” to fulfill you and make you happy. I’ve lived with judgement and feelings of resentment from many because I’ve put my writing career ahead of getting married and starting a family. But I know that being a wife and mother would never be enough for me. Anyone can become a spouse or parent but not everyone has what it takes to be a writer. I know now that being a writer is my calling from God and at the end of my life I believe I will be more fulfilled for having done His work.

Living a full life I think means constantly reinventing yourself, challenging yourself and growing yourself into far more than your or anyone ever dreamt possible. When I was little my parents told me I could grow up to be anything that I wanted. So I became a ballerina, a writer, a long-distance cyclist, a left wing in hockey, a motocross racer, a mountain sled rider, a wake surfer, and a cupcake baker. And just think…..I’m only 28 years old. My point is, as C.S. Lewis put it, “you are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” Never limit yourself by what you’re told you should be. Ask yourself what you COULD be.

Regrets? I do have some. But as Elvis sang it, “not enough to mention.” I’ve always done what I felt I had to do. I’ve loved people unconditionally and because of that have been told my love is overbearing. I’ve stood side by side with friends determined to walk through hell with them only to watch those same people leave me in ditches to rot when I most needed them. I’ve believed in and supported people who were at every turn in my life telling me I wasn’t good enough, wouldn’t make it, and should just turn back. It is for all of those naysayers that I get up each day with a beating heart and full lungs determined to keep going. I’ve forgiven people---not once or twice—but as many times as they needed until they finally turned it all around. I entered into a faith feeling largely alone and unsupported. But I was called and wasn’t afraid to answer. And most importantly, I’ve made horrendous mistakes that make me fear the next life. But I believe that God intended each of those missteps in His grand plan of leading me to righteousness. 

I’ve always lived my life according to my own rules knowing that in the end it isn’t about what the rest of the world thinks about me. It’s what myself and the good Lord above thinks. 

When I’ve used up all the talent and energy I’ve been blessed with and pass from this life, “My Way” is the song I want played at my funeral. That is the song to sum me up. Catholic funeral rules be damned, I will still make sure my last appearance in this life is done my way. And I do believe that many unexpected visitors will make an appearance that day….if for no other reason than out of respect for my guts, my tenacity, my persistence, and my ability to love and forgive. 

I’ve always been willing to take the blows it seems….but I’ve always done it My Way.