The Flog – The Fabry Log

I was writing the story I’ve been given today, rolling along, mining the relationship of two different characters, when a memory that is not my own flew past and I followed.

He thought of the handful of times his family had even taken a vacation when he was little. He vowed that would change when he was married and had a family, but it hadn’t. What was learned early on stuck.

I wasn’t satisfied with his memory and I didn’t want to use something from my own experience. I wanted something fresh. Which took me back to Fripp Island in the summer of 1994, I think. Walking the beach, looking for Pat Conroy, and finding a sand dollar. I kept it as a memento of that stroll.


A memory of his brother at the beach flashed through his mind. The boy laughing at him for thinking he could spend a sand dollar at the local grocery.

That feels real to me. An older brother capturing a snapshot of naivety and laughing. Innocence, pure and unhindered by commerce and the rules of finance, bartering the heart and being crushed.

If I had that sand dollar today, I would not save it in a Zip-lock bag. I would invest it, spend it on something that will last.

Maybe that’s why the thought sparked. We all have sand dollars to invest, things unmade by human ingenuity, worthless rocks or wood or clay, but priceless still. Memories waiting to break through the laughter and tears and pain.

A rabbit trail from where I was going with the story, but a good one.

Some of you know I write fiction and nonfiction in addition to my radio/voice work. I’m expanding my horizons and have begun secretly collaborating with a certain computer company to come up with new technology that will aid marriages.

Specifically, this device will help in the following cases:

1. I’ve fallen out of love with my spouse.

2. My spouse does things that irritate me and I can’t stand it anymore.

3. My spouse is sick.

4. My spouse is not the same person I married.

5. I’m not happy in my marriage and I want to be happy.

6. I love my spouse, but I’ve met someone else I love more.

7. Marriage is too hard, I want to quit.

8. I wasn't prepared for all the pain and hardship.

9. I have no hope for my marriage.

The program is fully functional and available in a beta version. Our hopes are that married people who are experiencing any of the nine situations above will be able to move forward together rather than splitting up.

The new device will be called…


Drum roll, flashing lights, music up…


** ** ** The iDo. ** ** **


Smaller than all of the other “i” devices, actually invisible, the iDo, with the patented “iCommit” operating system, will help an individual stay with their current marital situation so that true happiness might be achieved in the long-run.

Patterned after painstaking integrated systems software research, the iDo uses the experience of couples who have been married for decades who have said it was worth the struggle to stay together and work through differences rather than running from the marriage.

The iDo is the most innovative technological breakthrough in history and is being offered FREE for a limited time. Simply use the voice activation program at your marriage ceremony and mean it. And when you experience any of the nine situations above, reboot the iDo through verbal or non-verbal recommitment to the original voice command. (For maximum effectiveness, use the iCommit program with God prior to using the iDo with your spouse.)

The new iDo. Good for your marriage. Good for your heart. And it takes no space on your hard drive.

(For a fictional look at this technology in action, read A Marriage Carol , a Christmas story for anyone who's ever fallen out of love.)

I woke up this morning thinking about success because my life FEELS so far from it. When I compare, I always lose, whether I pick a person who seems more or less successful than me because...well, they're not me.

Here's my new definition:

Success is becoming who you were created to be. It's not measured by externals, income, home size, newness of cars, awards or praise from others. It's not measured by my happiness or ease of life in the current situation. If I am allowing God to change and conform me every day into the image of his Son, then I am moving tward becoming who he created me to be. That is success.

My marriage, parenting, my work, play--all of it will be enhanced by this exercise of allowing God to change and mold me.

The better word for this, of course, is "faithful." Am I being faithful to the call of God on my life--to walk where he says to walk, to run when he bids me to follow. Will I have the kind of faith that shows God I really want him more than I want "things" or "an easy life?"

Success is not something I achieve, it's something I submit to.

Success is not having to know the plan and allowing God to work however he wants to work.

Success is realizing I don't have a better plan.

Success is surrender.

Today the third brother will be laid to rest in the fertile West Virginia soil he loved. We commit him to this rich, loamy harbor, meant for pumpkins seeds and cantaloupe that grew under his tender care. He is no stranger here.

The three brothers knew that death would come, that in the cycle of life there is this cold season when leaves turn and fall and trees become barren sentinels on hillsides. This is the way of the earth, the way of every farm. They did not know it would come for the three of them within the span of one year. Death does not give notice.

Unless the seed falls and dies, there is no life. Grass withers and flowers fade. This is the way of it. They knew that and lived in light of it.

These three did not seem old to us, those of us who watched them grow. Though hearing and eyesight and teeth failed, though joints ached and hearts slowed and blood pressure rose, they seemed able to spring from each setback, delay each fading moment that told us the end was near, or at least coming.

My memories of Uncle Johnny are vivid and encompass bowling lanes, foreign to me in childhood. I would never have learned to score a game had it not been for his instruction. He was more excited than I when I broke 100. I remember long, rubber boots up to the hip, and his tall, lanky body wading deep in the creek, into dark crevasses I would never go for fear of snakes or creatures that might lurk within those shadows. But he with seine in hand captured minnows and crawdads, wriggling and fighting as he brought them into the light, and in the capture provided bait for a day of fishing at the pond. Life for life, taking from one tributary to give to another.

I remember his voice at the front door in the evening, his unannounced arrival. I recall his delight at the offer from my mother of a piece of cake or pie, and long, humorous games of Rook. Uncle Johnny would instruct me, oh so carefully and subtly in the presence of my parents, our competitors, not to play a particular card in my hand if I happened to possess it. A wink and a nod and a smile could be interpreted many ways, however, and I was not always adept to his guidance. He taught me through his laughter that games are not always to be won. And that we learn more through losing, at times, than we do through winning.

There is one scene, a harrowing and fearful affair, when Uncle Johnny climbed aboard a mini-bike and took it for a ride, and in the end, it took him for one because he did not comprehend the brake/gas schema of the vehicle. He roared toward us, picking up speed as he raced downhill, toward the hickory nut tree and those gathered to watch. At first I thought it was funny, that look on his face, that white-knuckled fear and the way he bounced over the uneven terrain. Then, when he laid the bike down in the grass so hard the handles broke, the fear was mine, he had transferred it to me as he stood and smiled and walked away unscathed.

Of course he was not unscathed by life or loss. He had known hardship in his youth with his mother’s death. He had lived through lean days without much food and watched the Depression kick into full gear until it roared at him over the uneven terrain of his own life. I never connected any of this with his casual demeanor. He was simply Uncle Johnny. A tight-lipped character ambling through the story of our lives, smiling and enjoying the scenery.

And now the three of them are gone, John, Robert, and William Fabry. All three are planted firmly in the fertile soil of the hearts and memories of those who love them. They are not strangers here.