"Best Men" & Why I Wrote About Them

The town I live in, in Oregon, has a great Arts Center called The Hoffman Center for the Arts. I’ve had a few of my shorter essays published through their website and in a journal they produce every two years, The North Coast Squid.  They sometimes offer keywords or phrases for writers and then invite us to submit stories around those themes. Some of them are straightforward, offering up words like “gratitude” or “summer,” and it’s obvious (to me, at least) what to write about. But once a year they suggest just a color as the keyword, which can go a lot of ways.

Several months back, the color theme was “Scarlet.” In a previous post, I talked about how I used that idea for the essay “Deeper Scars” (Chapter 24 in Wreckage), but it also inspired me further to create “Life and Death” (which Hoffman also published). This eventually got folded into Chapter 29 of my book and is called “Best Men.” It’s the penultimate story in the book.

So, what do Life and Death have to do with Best Men? The “Life” I talk about is the birth of my son and the unconventional circumstances surrounding his entry into the world, with me as a single mother embarking on a journey with a mission: Break the Chain of Crazy! The “Death” I talk about is the loss of my father-in-law many years later and the opportunity we both found in a father/daughter bond that had eluded us both earlier in life. How fortunate I’ve been to have these experiences: raising a healthy and happy child and feeling the love and affection of a real dad.

At times, the grief of the reality of my childhood can feel overwhelming, even all these years later. Those early wounds are hard to overcome. But the influence of “good men” in my life – my son, my husband, my brother, my friends, and so many others are all part of the healing. I’m so grateful for them.

I may talk about therapy to work through past trauma a bit too much, but I want to give a shout-out to one of the counselors (there have been many along the way!) who suggested to me once, as I lamented the “bad men” I seemed to attract in romantic relationships. She challenged my blanket statement that “Men are lame,” which was something my best college friend and I – somewhat jokingly - routinely declared.  Later in life, this declaration wasn’t serving me so well.

Anyway, this therapist asked me what “good men” I did know. I could list several: my brother-in-law, a handful of male friends, clients, business colleagues, and my nephews. She posited: If I could maintain healthy, positive relationships (albeit not romantic) relationships with these men, couldn’t I do that with a life partner? She challenged me to look around my life for all the good, healthy, positive, supportive, and meaningful connections I already had with men. I followed her advice.

This change in perspective served me well. It helped me raise a son. It helped me recognize the goodness of my husband when he showed up. I am now much less black-and-white about the goodness/badness in all of us. We’ve all got a bit of both. As a result, my life is full of good men.

Wow.

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