Hallman's Voices

My son is a talented classical guitarist, and he recently began playing for us as we opened our Christmas Eve presents. Seeing everyone’s happiness and gratitude for their gifts filled my heart with joy.

It was especially remarkable that my son could join us. He had been unwilling or unable to attend most of our family gatherings for too many years.

His mother’s sudden death when he was 10 years old. Then, four years later, a life-changing frontal lobe traumatic brain injury that resulted in poor decision-making. Years later I was relieved to learn his permanent loss of executive decision-making was classified as a developmental disability as it happened before he was 18.

He became eligible for food and housing benefits that eluded him after seeking legal emancipation at 18. I had faithfully prayed for 30 years, awaiting God’s time for my prayers to be answered for all concerned.

Recently, two unique life-changing events changed our lives from continuing to be apart. We succeeded in having a legal guardian appointed after he was judged a danger to himself and others. Then psychological testing validated his inherent high level of intelligence and significantly decreased executive decision-making. The latter, thankfully, qualified him to live and be given medication in a monitored adult group home.

His future began to look good. Then we were officially notified he was, once again, agitated, unable to care for himself, and was being taken to the nearest hospital.

This time, his legal guardian was successfully able to request involuntary admission for toxicology and treatment. His drug of choice, marijuana, had been laced with illicit drugs. He was started on medication that was monitored by physicians and staff where he resided.

Things subsequently had gone well enough for him to accept our invitation for Christmas Eve.

Being a talented classical guitarist, he enjoyed and pleased everyone present before dinner with some of his favorite Mauro Giuliani classical guitar concertos.

My eyes welled with tears seeing his joyful smiles when receiving several sought-after “claps.”

Afterward, he voluntarily stayed with me to clean up the mess from wrappings, ribbons, and boxes.

Then he politely asked,” Dad, will you give me a ride home?”

I happily agreed and decided to drive him in my beloved old 2005 V-90 Volvo fishing/clamming rig, which had 180,000 on the odometer.

We heard sounds from under the car approaching the Highway 26 tunnel going east. They sounded like a dragging branch. The nearest safe place to pull over was the first exit off southbound 405.

We listened to a loud clunk. It was not a branch. What the heck could it be?

I stopped, put on the flashing red caution lights, and carefully got out of the vehicle to inspect the tires on the driver’s side. Cars whizzed by, sometimes too close for comfort. The tires were fully inflated.

I then went around the trunk to check the passenger side. I was flabbergasted by what I saw. The entire tread of my delaminated right rear tire was lying several feet away up an embankment. Some tire casing remained on the rim of the bare wheel resting on the pavement.

The vehicle was undrivable, and arthritis in both my wrists made this a job for a tow company on Christmas Eve.

Still, in a positive mood from our family gathering, I hoped a call would quickly get us on our way.

Wrong.

The first call informed me it was a busy night and the expected wait time was 45 minutes or more.

The wait inside the V-70 provided an excellent opportunity for a rare heart-to-heart conversation with my son while a few semi-trailer trucks noisily passed by closely.

My son found a chocolate bar in his backpack. Then he recalled that I gave him chocolate kisses as a childhood treat.

“Dad,” he kindly offered, “would you like half of this?”

“Yes, you bet,” I said enthusiastically. “Thanks.”

We quickly finished the chocolate.

I mentioned it was a special treat for me to give him a Bible he asked for when Lent started. He gratefully acknowledged reading it.

I felt exhilarated.

“Having you at our house tonight and listening to you play the classical guitar pleased me,” I said. “I hope the running shoes, clothes, and other gifts were to your liking.”

And then my son astonished me.

“Dad you must love me a lot because you do much for me.”

I nearly came to tears, having not heard anything close to that for so many years before my prayers to God were answered in his time and for his unknown reasons.

My deep Christian faith optimistically rejoiced that it may have been a time to test and strengthen my humility.

I gathered myself.

“Raymond,” I said, “I love you as my firstborn and only son more than you will ever know.”

We discussed enjoying vacations, skiing, the beach, and his past guitar gigs.

After an hour and a half, my second call for help had a great answer – you are next in line.

I told my son we were up next.

We stood outside – cars and trucks passing by us in the dark – a grateful father and his son.

No words needed now.

We simply hugged.

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In an effort to further our role as a community voice and teacher, the Shelton-Mason County Journal is partnering with Tom Hallman Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who wrote for The Oregonian in Portland, with a series of community voice stories that will occasionally appear in the Journal. Our first few stories will be from Hallman’s students, but it’s our hope that as you read these stories, it will inspire you to write about your own life and submit those stories to the paper so we might print them and give rise to the many voices of the area.

Please feel to contact Journal Editor Justin Johnson, [email protected], or Tom Hallman, [email protected], any time with questions and to learn more.

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Meet Tom Hallman Jr.

More than 40 years in the business have taught me that readers are bombarded and overwhelmed with facts. What we long for, though, is meaning and a connection at a deeper and more universal level.

And that’s why the Shelton-Mason County Journal will be running, occasionally, stories from students who are in my writing classes, which I’ve been teaching for the past 20 years in Portland.

I take great satisfaction in helping so-called nonwriters find and write stories from their lives and experiences. Most people don’t believe they have what it takes to be a writer. I remind them if they follow their hearts, they will discover they are storytellers, as we all are at our core.

These stories have nothing to do with the news of the day. They do, however, have everything to do with life.

If you are interested in telling your story, I’d like to hear from you.

Tom Hallman Jr.

[email protected]

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Tom Hallman Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. He’s worked at The Oregonian for several decades and has published several books. His journalism and nonfiction narrative stories explore the significance of moments big and small and their effect on a life.