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My Dad Called Me His Family's Biggest Failure At My Brother's Marine Ceremony — Then His General... — Transcript

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0:00My father told his entire neighborhood
0:02that I washed out of the Navy. He said
0:05it at the block party at the hardware
0:07store at Sunday service for 3 years
0:09running. He said it so often and with
0:12such conviction that I think even he
0:14forgot it wasn't true. By the time my
0:16brother Connor got his Marine officer's
0:18commission, the story had calcified into
0:21something close to family fact. Harold
0:23Thornton had one child who amounted to
0:25something and one who didn't. I was the
0:28one who didn't. The summer afternoon, my
0:31father said it the loudest, was the one
0:33I will never forget. He threw a cookout
0:36the Saturday before Connor<unk>s
0:37graduation from the basic school at
0:39Quantico, the brutal 8-week crucible
0:42that turns Marine officer candidates
0:44into second lieutenants. The whole
0:46street came out. Folding tables covered
0:48in aluminum trays of pulled pork and
0:51baked beans. A Yeti cooler stuffed with
0:54Miller Light. country music humming from
0:56the old Bluetooth speaker my father had
0:58never quite figured out how to operate
1:00at the right volume. I stood at the
1:02grill turning chicken thighs with a pair
1:05of tongs watching the smoke rise into
1:07the flat Missouri sky. I had driven 11
1:10hours to be there. I would drive 11
1:12hours back on Monday. I hadn't
1:14complained once. Natalie tried the Navy.
1:18Bless her heart. My father's voice
1:20floated over the yard with the easy
1:22authority of a man who had never been
1:24wrong about anything. He was talking to
1:26our neighbor Frank, who sold insurance
1:29and spent weekends coaching little
1:30league. Frank was nodding, holding a red
1:33cup, looking appropriately sympathetic.
1:36Couldn't hack it. Quit and took a desk
1:38job in Washington. You know the type,
1:40government payroll. Nobody can fire you.
1:43You don't have to do a damn thing to
1:44actually earn it. Frank glanced at me. I
1:48looked at the chicken. Now, Connor, my
1:50father continued, and his whole chest
1:52expanded on the name. Connor is the real
1:54deal Marine officer going to lead a
1:57rifle platoon. That boy is the one who
1:59got my blood. I turned the thighs and
2:02thought about the briefing I had left
2:03mid-sentence when I walked out to my car
2:06Friday morning. I thought about the
2:08strike package sitting in my queue that
2:10my staff would hold until I was back at
2:12my desk on Tuesday. I thought about the
2:15fact that I had not slept more than 5
2:17hours in a row in 12 days. I thought
2:20about the two stars on the shoulder
2:22boards of the service dress uniform
2:24hanging in the garment bag in the trunk
2:26of my rental car. Rear Admiral. That was
2:30what they called me at the Pentagon.
2:32That was what the placard said above my
2:34office door in the Navy annex. That was
2:36what 4,000 sailors and officers knew me
2:39as when my name appeared on their
2:41communication screens at any hour of the
2:43day or night. Here in my father's
2:46backyard, I was just Natalie, the one
2:49who didn't amount to much. My mother,
2:51Narin, appeared at my elbow with a fresh
2:53set of tongs and a look that meant she
2:56had heard everything and was not going
2:58to say a single word about any of it.
3:01She had been exchanging those looks with
3:02me for 38 years. She handed me the
3:05tongs, squeezed my wrist once, and
3:08walked back toward the house without
3:09making a sound. I could have corrected
3:12him right then. I had rehearsed it in
3:14the car a 100 times. I could have
3:17unzipped the garment bag. I could have
3:19called any of the 43 people in my
3:21contacts who would have confirmed in
3:23about 30 seconds exactly what I did for
3:26a living. But that was the thing my
3:28father never understood about the work I
3:31actually did. A significant portion of
3:33it was classified. The rest of it I
3:36didn't talk about at block parties. I
3:39wasn't the kind of rear admiral who
3:40showed up at neighborhood cookouts in
3:42uniform to impress people who sold
3:45insurance. I was the kind of officer
3:47whose name appeared in the footnotes of
3:49national security documents that most
3:51Americans would never be cleared to
3:53read. I had spent 20 years learning
3:56precisely when to speak and when to
3:58hold. I held. The drive to Quantico the
4:01next morning was two hours in my
4:03father's F-150. He talked the entire way
4:06about Connor, about the Marines, about
4:08the particular kind of toughness that
4:10came from real service and not, as he
4:13put it, sitting at a computer in an
4:15airond conditioned building collecting a
4:17government check. He said this with me
4:19in the passenger seat, my hands folded
4:21in my lap, watching the Virginia
4:23countryside move past through the
4:25smudged glass.
4:27He was not wrong that I spent time in
4:29air conditioned buildings. What he
4:32didn't know was that those buildings
4:33held the classified intelligence systems
4:36and communications networks that
4:37coordinated real-time military
4:40operations across three active theaters
4:42simultaneously. M
4:44>> what he didn't know was that 3 nights
4:46ago at 2:00 a.m. Eastern, I had been on
4:49a secure line for four straight hours
4:52authorizing a surveillance package over
4:54the South China Sea that would directly
4:56protect the lives of the people sitting
4:58in this truck with me. We pulled up to
5:01the Quantico security checkpoint. My
5:03father was out of the truck before I had
5:05fully unbuckled, striding toward the
5:08gate with the energy of a man who was
5:10finally coming home. He produced
5:12Connor<unk>s family guest passes and
5:14held them the way people hold
5:15credentials they have been waiting their
5:17entire lives to show. Harold Thornton,
5:20he announced to the young Lance Corporal
5:23at the gate. Father of second lieutenant
5:25Connor Thornton, graduating today from
5:28TBS. He gestured back at me with his
5:30thumb, not bothering to turn. She's just
5:33along for the drive. Doesn't have a
5:34pass. Where should she wait with the
5:36civilian day staff? The Lance corporal
5:39looked at me. I was in dark slacks and a
5:42lightweight blazer, a civilian bag on my
5:44shoulder. I looked exactly like what my
5:47father had just described. The lance
5:48corporal's eyes moved down to my left
5:50hand where I had unconsciously touched
5:53the edge of my ring, a heavy gold band
5:55with an anchor and two stars. Something
5:58shifted in his expression. I gave the
6:00smallest possible shake of my head. He
6:03straightened, cleared his throat, and
6:05directed us through without another
6:07word. My father walked ahead, already
6:10pointing toward the parade ground,
6:12oblivious to everything that had just
6:14happened 12 in behind him. Inside the
6:17administrative building, my father
6:19positioned me at the back of the family
6:21assembly area near a folding table set
6:24up with water pictures and plastic cups.
6:26He indicated it with a short proprietary
6:29gesture. Make yourself useful, Natalie.
6:32Hand water to the guests coming in from
6:34the heat. Lord knows you've had enough
6:36practice fetching things in Washington.
6:39He adjusted his collar and turned toward
6:41the parade ground without waiting for a
6:43response. I stood beside the water
6:46table. 14 months ago, I had delivered a
6:49posture assessment on Pacific Command to
6:52a room that included the Secretary of
6:54Defense and the chairman of the Joint
6:55Chiefs. Last spring, I had been the
6:58senior officer aboard a guided missile
7:00destroyer running combat readiness
7:02drills in the East China Sea. Right now,
7:05I was standing next to a plastic picture
7:07of ice water in a beige hallway at
7:10Marine Corps Base Quanico because my
7:12father needed something to do with his
7:14disappointment in me, and carrying water
7:16was the best use he could imagine for
7:18the hands that had commanded carrier
7:21strike groups. My encrypted phone pulsed
7:24into the interior pocket of my blazer.
7:26Two short vibrations, then a third. The
7:28pattern meant seventh fleet. I set the
7:31pitcher down and walked to the end of
7:33the hallway where a stairwell door cut
7:35off the noise from the gathering
7:37families. I answered on the second
7:39pulse.
7:40Thornton, Admiral, this is Commander Yun
7:44aboard Fitzgerald. The voice was
7:46compressed and precise across the
7:48encrypted line. We have confirmation of
7:51vessel movement across the exclusion
7:52boundary, requesting authorization to
7:55move to intercept posture and shadow. I
7:58looked at the beige cinder block wall in
8:00front of me. A Marine Corps values
8:02poster was taped just below eye level.
8:04The word integrity was printed in bold
8:07at the top. Granted, I said, maintain
8:10visual contact. Do not engage unless
8:12fired upon. Keep me updated through the
8:14duty watch. I'll be out of primary comms
8:17for approximately 90 minutes. I, Admiral
8:20Fitzgerald, out. I clicked off and stood
8:23in the stairwell for a moment, letting
8:25the weight of what I had just authorized
8:27settle into my shoulders the way it
8:28always did. Then I breathed evenly
8:31around it, the way I had learned to do,
8:33and went back to the hallway. My father
8:36was holding court near the entrance to
8:38the graduation hall, talking to a group
8:40of Marine families with the confidence
8:42of a man who had earned his place among
8:44them. I heard him say my brother's name
8:47three times in the space of 30 seconds.
8:50Once he spotted me approaching, he
8:52pointed to the far back corner of the
8:54hall with the precise directness of a
8:56man assigning a servant to their
8:58station.
9:00Stay back here and keep out of the way.
9:02Connor<unk>s family has the front seats,
9:04and you don't want to crowd the aisle.
9:06He turned back to his audience without
9:08missing a beat. Now, my son, the Marines
9:11got into him what the Navy couldn't get
9:13into his sister. The graduation hall was
9:16dressed in Marine Corps colors and the
9:18kind of iron spine dignity that makes
9:20the air feel different the moment you
9:22walk across the threshold. Rows of
9:24chairs faced a raised platform draped
9:27with the colors of the core. Families
9:29were finding their seats, the quiet
9:31collective hum of pride and anticipation
9:34filling the space like a held breath. I
9:37found the back row. I sat against the
9:40wall next to a fire exit which was where
9:42I always positioned myself in any room I
9:44entered. Old habit from 20 years of
9:47threat assessment. From here I had a
9:49clear view of the entire hall. I watched
9:52my father settle into the chair three
9:54rows from the front. My mother beside
9:56him, her hands folded in her lap, her
9:58eyes finding mine briefly across the
10:00room before she looked away. I watched
10:03my brother march in. Connor was tall in
10:06his dress blues. his cover sitting
10:08perfectly level, his eyes fixed forward
10:11with the focused flatness of someone who
10:13has been trained to hold themselves
10:15together in public. He looked exactly
10:17like the recruiting image of what a
10:19Marine officer was supposed to look
10:21like. And standing in the back row in my
10:23civilian blazer, I felt nothing but
10:26pride for him. He had worked hard. He
10:28had earned what was about to happen. I
10:31was genuinely completely glad he was
10:32here. I just wished for one single hour
10:36of my life that my father could find
10:38enough room in his pride to let it hold
10:40both of us. The commanding general of
10:42Marine Corps combat development command
10:45walked to the podium. A fourstar, his
10:47uniform, a dense landscape of ribbons
10:49and citations. He possessed the
10:51particular quality of very senior
10:53officers, the ability to quiet a room
10:56simply by adjusting his posture. He did
10:58it now. The hall went still as water in
11:00a held glass. He spoke about the
11:03officers being commissioned that day. He
11:06spoke about the calling of those who
11:07chose to serve and the responsibility
11:09they were about to take on. And then he
11:12paused in a way that was slightly
11:14different from the rhythm of the rest of
11:16his remarks.
11:18Before we begin the formal
11:19commissioning, he said, "There's
11:21something I need to address." He looked
11:24up from the podium. His eyes moved in a
11:27slow, deliberate sweep across the hall,
11:29across the front rows, across the
11:31platform, across the dignitaries seated
11:33to his left. He moved past my father,
11:36who straightened slightly in his chair
11:38with the anticipatory posture of a man
11:41rehearsing the expression he would make
11:43when singled out. The general's gaze
11:45continued moving. It reached the back
11:48row. It stopped. The silence that
11:51followed lasted perhaps 3 seconds and
11:53felt considerably longer. He was looking
11:55directly at me, at the folding chair
11:58against the fire exit door, at the
12:00civilian bag on the floor beside me, at
12:02my untouched water program in my lap.
12:05Something moved across his face in
12:07sequence, confusion, then recognition,
12:10then a tight controlled expression that
12:12in a less senior officer might have read
12:14as fury. My father had noticed the
12:16direction of the general's attention. He
12:19turned in his chair and found me in the
12:21back. He made the sharp downward motion
12:23with his hand that meant stay where you
12:26are and be quiet. The same gesture he
12:28had used on me since I was a child. The
12:31universal Thornon family signal for you
12:33are not the point of this. The general
12:35stepped away from the podium. He
12:38descended from the platform and walked
12:40down the center aisle with the
12:41unhurrieded certainty of a man who had
12:43walked into many rooms that needed to be
12:45corrected and had never once hurried the
12:47process. As he approached the third row,
12:50my father rose rose from his chair with
12:52a broad smile and his hand already
12:54extended. General, sir,
12:57Harold Thornton, Connor<unk>s father,
12:59it's an honor. The general did not stop.
13:03He moved past my father with the smooth
13:05indifference of a man walking past
13:07furniture. My father's extended hand
13:10hung in the air for a full two seconds
13:12before he let it fall. He turned,
13:15watching, his expression moving through
13:17surprise and confusion, and then
13:19something that I could see from 40 ft
13:20away, the first dim, terrifying flicker
13:23of a man, beginning to understand that
13:25he has made a catastrophic mistake. The
13:28general walked to the back of the hall.
13:30He stopped in front of me. I stood.
13:34He came to attention and delivered a
13:36salute that carried 23 years of his own
13:38service behind it, precise and
13:40deliberate and completely publicly
13:42unambiguous.
13:44Rear Admiral Thornton. His voice filled
13:47the hall without effort, the way only a
13:50fieldtrained voice can, reaching the
13:52back corners without strain. When my aid
13:54informed me you might be in attendance
13:56today, I confess I didn't anticipate
13:58finding you sitting next to a fire door.
14:01The control in his voice was absolute,
14:04which made the weight of what he was not
14:05saying about it all the more audible.
14:08What happened next was something I had
14:10witnessed in ceremony before. I had
14:12never had it directed at me. The newly
14:15commissioned Marine officers at the
14:17front of the hall,
14:19140 of them, Connor among them, rose
14:22from their chairs in a single motion.
14:24The sound of 140 sets of heels coming to
14:27attention simultaneously was a crack of
14:30sound that moved through the building
14:32like a physical pressure wave rolling up
14:34the walls and into the ceiling and back
14:36down again. Good afternoon, Admiral. One
14:40voice made of 140. I watched my father's
14:44face from across the room. I watched the
14:46color leave it. He sat back down slowly,
14:49the way a man sits when his legs have
14:51stopped cooperating. His mouth opened,
14:54it closed. He looked at the general, he
14:56looked at me, he looked at Connor, who
14:59was standing at the front with his
15:00class, his ceremony composure entirely
15:03gone, replaced by something raw and
15:05bewildered and increasingly devastated.
15:08The general turned toward my father, his
15:10tone was measured and precise, not
15:12theatrical, not unkind, simply factual
15:15in the way that facts become unbearable
15:17when they have been ignored for too
15:19long. Mr. Mr. Thornton,
15:22your daughter designed and coordinated
15:24the intelligence architecture currently
15:26protecting Marine units in three active
15:29deployment zones. The officers in this
15:31room have trained against threat
15:32packages that her staff assembled. Two
15:35nights exa a 200 hours. She authorized a
15:38civil operation in the South China Sea
15:41from a stairwell on this base while she
15:44was between duties serving your family.
15:46She does not push paper in Washington,
15:48sir. She keeps these Marines alive. My
15:51father covered his face with both hands.
15:54The sound that came out of him was
15:56something I had never heard from Harold
15:58Thornton, who was not a man who made
16:00sounds like that. He was a man of
16:02controlled silences and performative
16:05certainty and the brittle dignity of
16:07someone who has built his entire
16:09identity around never having been wrong.
16:11The sound that came from him in that
16:13moment was the sound of all of that
16:15coming apart at once. Everything he had
16:18built falling inward like a structure
16:20that has been hollow for years and has
16:22finally run out of time. The parking lot
16:25at Quantico in July is flat and
16:28featureless and the heat comes up at you
16:30from the asphalt invisible waves. I
16:33found my father sitting in the passenger
16:35seat of his truck with the door open and
16:37his feet on the ground and his hands
16:38resting on his knees doing nothing. He
16:41was still holding his cap. He was not
16:44turning it. He was simply holding it.
16:46The way you hold something when you've
16:48forgotten what you were supposed to do
16:50with it. He couldn't get the key into
16:52the ignition. I drove us home. The
16:55Virginia Hills unrolled in the evening
16:57light and neither of us spoke for the
16:59first hour. Connor and my mother were
17:01somewhere behind us in a rental. My
17:04mother had held my face in both her
17:05hands in the parking lot and cried
17:07without making any sound, and I had held
17:10her back. And then I had gotten into the
17:12truck and started driving. My father
17:14looked out the window for 60 mles. Then
17:17he said very quietly, "How long?" It was
17:21not really a question. He knew the
17:23answer was going to be the full length
17:24of the silence between us. 20 years, I
17:28said. He nodded once, like a man
17:30absorbing a verdict. We got home after
17:33dark. The house smelled the same as it
17:35always had. Old wood and motor oil and
17:38my mother's gardinas from the porch
17:40planters. I sat outside because that was
17:42what I always did when the house felt
17:44too small to hold everything in it.
17:46After a while, the screen door opened
17:48with its familiar metallic groan and my
17:51father came out. He had a bottle of
17:53bourbon in one hand, the good bottle,
17:55the one he kept sealed for serious
17:57occasions, and two heavy glasses in the
18:00other. He poured without saying
18:02anything. The crickets were very loud. A
18:04light was on in the kitchen across the
18:06yard. I threw away every letter you
18:09sent. His voice was rough and low, like
18:12he was pulling the words out of
18:13somewhere that hadn't been opened in a
18:15long time. Every promotion notice, every
18:18citation, Narin would put them on the
18:21table and I would take them to the
18:22garage, he stopped. The bourbon caught
18:24the porch light. I needed you to be
18:27failing. I needed it badly enough that I
18:29made it true in my own head. And then I
18:31made sure everyone around me believed
18:33it, too. Because if you were succeeding,
18:36if you were actually doing what it
18:38turned out you were doing, then I had
18:40spent 30 years building the wrong child
18:43up and tearing the right one down, and I
18:45couldn't find a way to live with that
18:47truth. I looked at the old oak tree at
18:50the edge of the yard. Your letters, he
18:53said, I put them in the shop furnace
18:55without opening them. I knew what was
18:57written inside, and I couldn't let
18:59myself read it. I had sent 41 letters
19:02over 20 years, handwritten, because my
19:05father had always said handwritten
19:07letters were the only kind that counted.
19:09I had written them on deployment, on
19:11leave, on the night I made admiral,
19:14sitting alone in my quarters with a
19:16bottle of sparkling water because I
19:18didn't drink and nobody from my family
19:20was on the phone. I had written about
19:22promotions and commands and the
19:24particular beauty of the Pacific at
19:26first light from the deck of a ship. I
19:28had written them and sent them and
19:30waited, and eventually I had simply
19:32stopped waiting and kept writing anyway
19:35because it seemed important not to let
19:37him win that completely.
19:3941 letters in a furnace in a garage in
19:42Missouri. Dad. I turned toward him. He
19:45was an old man. I had spent so long
19:48being shaped by his contempt that I had
19:50forgotten he was just an old man who had
19:52been afraid of his own daughter's
19:54success because it proved something
19:55about himself he could not face. I
19:58didn't need you to see the rank. I never
20:00needed the stars or the salutes or any
20:02of it from you. I needed you to see me,
20:04just your daughter. That's all I ever
20:06wanted. He put his face in his hands and
20:09cried the way men cry when they have
20:11held everything back for too many years
20:14in rough wrenching waves with his whole
20:16body in it, his shoulders moving like
20:19something was being broken loose. I put
20:21my arm around him and he was smaller
20:23than I remembered. Parents always are.
20:26when you finally stop being afraid of
20:28them and start being able to see them
20:29clearly. We stayed on that porch for a
20:32long time. The bourbon sat mostly
20:35untouched. The night cooled around us
20:37and the stars shifted overhead and
20:39somewhere in the middle of all of it,
20:41the silence between us changed quality.
20:44It went from the silence of estrangement
20:46to the silence of two people who are
20:48finally in the same room. [snorts] In
20:50the morning, my mother made biscuits and
20:52my father sat at the kitchen table with
20:54the coffee already poured and waiting.
20:57He stood up when I came in. He pulled
20:59out the chair beside him. He said good
21:01morning in a voice I had not heard from
21:03him since I was very small, a voice
21:06without the armor in it. At church that
21:09Sunday, when the pastor mentioned
21:10Connor<unk>'s commissioning, my father
21:12rose from his pew with both hands on the
21:15back of the bench in front of him,
21:17steadying himself, his voice carried
21:19clearly to the back of the sanctuary.
21:22"We are proud of Connor," he said. "And
21:24I want this congregation to know that we
21:26are proud of Natalie. She is a rear
21:28admiral in the United States Navy. She
21:31has been serving this country for 20
21:33years and I have spent that entire time
21:35telling anyone who would listen that she
21:37had failed. I was wrong about
21:39everything. I am saying that now
21:41publicly because she deserved to hear it
21:44in public a long time ago. The silence
21:47in that church was the kind of silence
21:49that means people have actually heard
21:51something. Time passed after that the
21:54way it does, not in dramatic gestures
21:56but in accumulated ordinary moments. My
21:59father called every Sunday. The calls
22:01were sometimes short and occasionally
22:03awkward, and that was all right. He was
22:05learning how to know me. I was learning
22:08slowly how to let him. 3 months later, I
22:10stood at a podium at the Naval Academy
22:12in Annapolis to deliver remarks to the
22:15incoming class of midshipmen. The sever
22:18was silver behind the chapel. The
22:20October air was sharp and clean. I
22:22looked out at the rows of young faces,
22:25the ones who had not yet been told by
22:27anyone what they would or would not
22:29become, and I thought about every back
22:31row I had ever been assigned to, every
22:34water pitcher I had ever carried, every
22:36letter that had been read by Fer instead
22:38of by the man it was meant for. In the
22:41front row sat my father in a new
22:43button-down shirt, his hands clasped in
22:45his lap, watching me the way he should
22:47have watched me for 20 years. I started
22:50talking.
22:52I told them that the work which keeps
22:54things from falling apart does not
22:56always look like heroism from the
22:58outside. I told them that the people who
23:00hold everything together are often
23:02standing in the back of the room or
23:04answer a phone in a stairwell or turning
23:07chicken on a grill while someone else
23:09explains to the neighbors why they never
23:11amounted to anything. I told them that
23:14integrity is not loudest when everyone
23:16is watching. It is loudest in the
23:18moments when no one is, and you do it
23:21anyway. I told them, "The truth is
23:23patient. It waits. And when it finally
23:26speaks, it speaks for everything that
23:27was silent before it." When I finished,
23:30my father was on his feet. I could see
23:32him from the platform, an old man in a
23:35button-down shirt, standing up for his
23:37daughter for the first time, both hands
23:39raised and pressed together above his
23:41head, in the way people express
23:43something, for which applause is not
23:45quite enough. I let myself feel it, all
23:48of it, finally, without managing it or
23:50holding any part of it at a careful
23:52distance. Outside the sever moved under
23:56the October sky, and the academy chapel
23:58stood against the treeine the way it had
24:00for over a century, and would long after
24:02all of us were gone. My father hugged me
24:05in the parking lot, a real hug, the kind
24:07that holds both the weight of what was
24:09lost and the tentative shape of what is
24:11being rebuilt in the same arms.
24:14Go back to Washington, he said. do your
24:16job. Just answer the phone on Sundays. I
24:20told him I would. On the drive back up
24:2295 with the city lights rising on the
24:24horizon, I touched the ring on my left
24:27hand. Two stars, 20 years, a thousand
24:30back rows and a thousand mornings of
24:32holding what I carried inside a space
24:34small enough not to spill on anyone
24:36else. I had spent my whole career
24:39learning to be the person who kept the
24:41lights on when no one was watching. It
24:44turned out the same discipline that made
24:46me good at the work was the thing that
24:48had kept me from my own family for
24:50decades. The deep professional habit of
24:53protecting other people from the weight
24:55of what I knew, even when that
24:57protection was quietly destroying
24:59something more important than any
25:01mission. I had learned something finally
25:04in a beige hallway at Quantico with a
25:06plastic pitcher in my hand. The
25:08strongest thing I ever did was not the
25:10strike package or the 2 a.m.
25:12authorization or the posture briefing or
25:14the 20 years of silent endurance. The
25:17strongest thing I ever did was walk into
25:19that church on Sunday morning and let my
25:22father say my name out loud and decide
25:24standing in the pew beside him that it
25:26was enough to start with. I kept driving
25:30north and for the first time in a long
25:32time I was not driving away from
25:34anything at

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