The Flog – The Fabry Log

I took my son, Colin, on a trip west to California. This was his 10th birthday trip, something Andrea and I have done for each child—a time away alone to bond and talk and just have fun. His birthday was in December and that it took me six months to make this trip is a testament to life and all the stuff that’s happened in the past few weeks.

Colin wanted to go to some “theme park,” and there are many in California. But after looking at some of the options and knowing how much Colin likes movies, we opted for a Universal trip. I had a lot of angst about buying the “front of the line” ticket or the cheaper one. We opted for a multiple day pass and a “back of the line” ticket. We took the guided tour twice. We rode the Jurassic Park ride at least three times. That was our favorite. We also saw the trained animal show twice and the jokes were just as funny the second time around.

While we stood in line, I couldn’t help but think of what we saw on the tour. I had plenty of time to think. There was the set for Psycho that was still there, right next to the set of the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It was all Styrofoam and candy canes. We saw the lake and beach houses of Jaws. It was all so tiny, but it looked so big onscreen.

When we drove through the towns that had been constructed to show the Old West or some European burg, it struck me again. The front brickwork and the details on everything from Spartacus to Desperate Housewives looked great. Manicured lawns. An ideal setting.

However, for much of these sets, the front of the homes/stores were the only things that looked real. Everything behind them was plywood. In fact, the exploratory vehicle in one of the Jurassic Park movies wasn’t metal, it was made of wood and painted to look like metal.

When we attended a special effects presentation with fake blood, greenscreen technology, and camera tricks, the curtain was pulled back even further. What seems to be real, is just an illusion. What looks lifelike, is fake.

At one point in the presentation, a few statues were pushed forward and a member of the audience was given a chance to have her picture made beside Frankenstein and Bigfoot and Dracula. Just as the person taking the picture clicked the shutter, the statue sitting in a rocking chair bolted up and scared the living peanuts out of the poor woman. I knew one of them would come to life, but I wasn’t sure which one.

In Hollywood, dead things come back to bite you and the shiniest things that seem real are really not. There is no life in them. The window panes are candy glass and the chairs are made of balsa wood. Punches thrown never connect, but they sound like they do. Even beauty is air-brushed.

Don’t get me wrong. I had as much fun as my son did. Probably more. But what I enjoyed wasn’t the façade. It was true and good and right and pure. The smile of someone who loves me. A hug and a race up the escalators and almond butter on gluten-free tortillas.

We drove to the beach Saturday evening then looked for a hotel to end our stay. We drove east and thought we’d found one, but they had shampooed the carpets recently or used some strong cleaning agents and it only took 5 minutes in the room to let us know we couldn’t stay there. The outside of the hotel was beautiful. The pool was nice and clear. The room was tastefully decorated. But it wasn’t safe for us. It wasn’t home.

I’ve spent some of my life chasing façades, buying into the nice exterior. The older I get, the more I long for what’s real.

I received a cool present for Father’s Day. And I mean “cool” in the sense that it’s supposed to keep me cool on hot days in the studio at the Cactus Compound and Detox Center.

In Tucson, we’ve seen the temperature shoot through 100 degrees more than a few days so far. I don’t care how dry the heat is, it feels like a blast furnace outside. The winter is heavenly, of course, but on these hot summer days the office—-the headquarters of Fabry Interplanetary Global Media—-remains a bit toasty because there are no air vents. Thus, I do sweateth profusely.

Enter Father’s Day present. At the behest of someone who wrote on her blog, Andrea purchased a “Thermal Cherry Stone Neck Pillow.” That hopeless romantic. It came in a little brown box, like the Build-a-Bear dolls, with a little hole for the stones to peek out. Just stick it in the microwave and heat it up and you get soothing warmth right down to the bone. Stick it in the freezer and you get hours of soothing coolness.

So today I tried it on my program. The temperature rose to 84 and by the end of the first hour it was over 86. Between hours I ran to the freezer and put on my stone neck pillow. So cool. I felt like that beer commercial where the train comes in and freezes everything. I skipped back to the studio and began hour 2. However, the stones began to warm. I shifted the pillow and tried to get every ounce of coolness, but thirty minutes in it was warm.

Do I need 2 pillows? I don’t know. My feeling is, I just need a new vent for the AC. But if you hear a rattle during the show, you'll know it's the Father's Day present at work.

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Only a few more days until the Drew Brees book releases. It's called Coming Back Stronger and I think it's really going to help a lot of people who are experiencing some adversity in life. Even if you don't like football it should be a good read for you.

And in October, my new novel, Almost Heaven releases. It won't be in the same league with Brees, but that's okay. It's written for much the same audience, people who wonder if God can use them through the adversity. I hope you enjoy both books. I feel blessed to have been part of them.

This is for every man who has ever had “the exam.” I’ve been dreading this for years, ever since the last one by a doctor who hated men. My wife made me. “You really should think about considering going,” she said. The taskmaster. I conceded the need to go and found an internist a few miles away.

While in the waiting room with Dr. Phil on the flatscreen TV above me, I filled in as much as I could about my medical history. Every malady my mother and father ever complained about. Every varicose vein of my older brothers. Have I ever had hepatitis? I can’t recall. Does it matter now that my death is nigh? High blood pressure? Yes, I have high blood pressure just thinking about what Dr. Goliath is about to do.

I surveyed the office help. For some reason I kept looking at their hands. Please, if there is a God in heaven, let this doctor I picked at random from the phone book have small hands.

When I got to the illnesses of my children, I gave up and wrote “too many to list.” Who am I kidding? This man isn’t worried about my children. He’s preparing right now to provide me with excruciating pain. He’ll get to the children years later.

“Mr. Fabry, if you’ll step this way.”

I thought of Groucho. “If I could step that way I wouldn’t be here.”

Deep breath. Go to my happy place.

“Why don’t you step up on the scales?” she said.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, I obeyed, kicking off my shoes and watching the numbers whiz by on the digital scale. I’d never been on a digital scale like this before. The last time was the old scale with the heavy “200 lb.” weight I moved to the center. For the past 25 years I’ve set the weight bar at 200 and then added a little or a lot. This time the number stopped short of 200.

She wrote the number on the pad having no idea what a momentous occasion this was. I wanted her to pop a balloon or give me a lollipop for good behavior. Maybe tell me the doctor couldn’t bowl because his hands were too small.

We had a little chat and then I was ushered into the chamber of horrors. It seemed like such a placid room at first glance. On the computer screen I thought I saw a Google search. “How to inflict as much pain as possible when giving…”

“Hello, Mr. Fabry,” he said, extending a hand to greet me.

I just stared at it, then absently shook it and sat. Suddenly I was transformed into a little chatterbox, telling him every malady I’ve ever had, a tonsillectomy when I was a child, a broken arm, a hangnail two weeks ago. I couldn’t help myself, I just prattled on, while inside the storm brewed.

“Oh please, have mercy on me,” I wanted to cry. But I babbled on, rambling about this and that, answering his questions with reckless abandon.

“Well, come on over to the table and have a seat,” he said, patting the exam table like I was an obedient dog.

Just like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Stick out your finger and let’s see how fat you’ve become. I sat and he listened to my breathing and my rapidly increasing heart rate. He complimented me on my blood pressure. “You’re like a 20 year old young man,” he said.

Right. If I were like a 20 year old man I wouldn’t be in this position.

An image flashed of Pippen, our Bichon Frise. I used to take him to the vet and he would sniff the table and chairs and floor and whine, not understanding. There was palpable fear in that room and Pippen could smell it.

“Hold his head,” the vet would say when she wanted to give him a shot or that awful exam. I would hold his head and talk gently to him. Old Pippen. Why wasn’t there anyone here to hold my head? Someone to sing and comfort me. Maybe play a movie to get my mind off what was about to happen.

With my luck they would be showing The Shawshank Redemption.

“Now if you’ll just hop down and put your feet here and lean over the table,” he said, gentle and mild. Dr. Kervorkian. Easy for him to say. I took another look at his hands and focused on a spot on the wall.

“On second thought, maybe we should concentrate on my blood pressure,” I said, turning. “Don’t you think it’s a little low?”

He smiled and snapped the glove. “Just lean over and take a deep breath.”

Deep breath. Deeper than the ocean. Oh Mama. Somebody. Anybody, help! Send your ministering spirits. Let angels prostates fall.

I took another breath and the room spun like the Cloud 9 at Camden Park, just after I’d eaten those three corndogs slathered with mustard. Searing pain. Mind-numbing, star inducing pain. I wanted to turn around and bite him. I should have because nobody was holding my head. Somebody stop him before it’s too late!

The glove snapped again. “All done.”

He sat down at his computer like nothing had happened. Like it was just another day at the office. Like that was the most natural thing in the world. I sat down, too. Why was that such a big deal? It wasn’t a problem. Just a little discomfort for a moment and then all is okay. At least for him.

The truth is, my wife didn’t make me get the exam. I scheduled it of my own volition. Because I want to live another year to fight dragons. Because I want to write another story. Because I want to watch my daughters grow into beautiful women. Because I want to watch my sons grow into strong young men. And come back from the doctor to tell me what it was like to lean over a table and take a breath.

This is for every man who has never had “the exam.” Go ahead and schedule it. Be a man. And when you do, think of me and laugh. That will be my greatest reward.

Words are powerful things. They shape our lives. They get us in trouble.

“We have to leave our house.” I remember those words from my wife, spoken in October, 2008. Those words changed our lives.

“You have mycotoxicosis,” our doctor said. He showed us through blood tests and the examination that we were severely affected by the mold in our house, and that our children would be affected for years to come, maybe for life.

And yesterday I heard some other words.

May 28th, one day before foreclosure proceedings began on our home, the final page in that chapter was written. We had signed papers earlier in the week and overnighted them to the closing agent. She emailed me yesterday to say everything was disbursed. Our house had been sold.

My next-door neighbor emailed and said that the dumpsters were already there. All of our stuff was being removed and thrown into the dust-bin of history. Furniture cut in pieces so people wouldn’t dumpster dive. Signs outside that said “Contaminated.” My beloved books with all those words I had read, everything from Pat Conroy to my first King James Bible. Writing books I treasured. Christmas ornaments for the kids. Yearbooks, a letter from Ronald Reagan, a fax I had kept from Jerry Jenkins, encouraging me to keep writing. All of it boxed up and tossed.

Something nagged at me. On the 29th, foreclosure was to begin. The closing agent said she was going to Fed-Ex payment. I wrote her quickly and explained. She said she would wire the funds instead, but that she had no idea how long it would take to get the funds. That sent me on a frantic search for phone numbers, hoping I could reach the right person at the mortgage company. I was on hold 27 minutes before getting cut off for the third time. It felt like something was against me. We’ve felt that feeling a lot this week.

I did the radio program and quickly called the mortgage company. You have to work your way through the phone tree in order to speak with a human. You give your account number. You state that you are not an agent calling on behalf of a customer. Etc. Etc. But this time was different. Instead of asking what I wanted to do, make a payment, see if my payment had been received, or any of the other ten things they listed, the digitized phone voice said, “Your account has been paid in full.”

Paid in full. Such wonderful words. Sure, we’d lost everything in the house. Sure we’d lost our huge downpayment—more than 25% of the home’s purchase price. (Don’t ask me why I put down that much. I actually wanted to put down more.) Sure, we’d lost our equity. But we’d saved our credit. We weren’t going to go through foreclosure and the legal hassles and the potential to have to pay even more.

Sadness mixed with elation. We’ll never go back to “our home” again. It’s someone else’s now. But that piece of our lives, that ten-year odyssey of struggle and illness and despair is over.

The phrase, “Paid in full,” kept returning. On the cross, when Jesus spoke his last words, he said that. We translate it, “It is finished.” But the word he spoke means “Paid in full.” He was paying there, in that awful scene, for everything I’ve ever done wrong. He was covering not just a downpayment on my sin, but the whole thing. That payment and our acceptance of the gift assures us that we’ll one day live in a place where moth, rust, mold and anything else that can mar a dwelling will never thrive. That blood spilled means I have freedom from everything that might separate me from the one who loved me enough to die for me.

We went out to eat last night in celebration. We’ve found one restaurant where we can eat without fear of reacting to the food. We sat around metal tables outside in the blistering heat and talked and laughed. Then we drove to a park and walked around a pond, watching the ducks and the dogs. It made me miss our pets. Then, as we always did when the kids finished their school year, we went to a bookstore and the kids each picked out something to start their summer reading regimen.

It had a ring of familiarity to me. Something old happening in a new place. Something good coming from a long trail of bad. All because of a few words said on a phone call that echoed what was spoken long ago. Paid in full.


Thank you for walking this road with us. If you’ve prayed for us, thank you. We’ve felt it the past few weeks. We’re not healed yet, but we’re moving in the right direction. We have three months left on our current lease and then we may have to move again. There are many issues that now have to be addressed with the business. But I’m confident we’re where God wants us to be. And there’s no better place on earth than that.

I did something today I never thought I would do. The thought never entered my mind. Almost ten years ago, our family moved into what we felt was a castle and we set down roots as far as the rocky soil of Colorado would allow.

Today I went to the USPS website and changed our address again. The post office gives you a choice between a “temporary” and “permanent” change. I had chosen temporary before because it was always our hope to move back to Colorado. Not to our old house, we knew we couldn’t live there, but some place in the vicinity. Our friends are there. Schools, our church, Walmart.

Today I marked the circle “Permanent,” and put in our current address in Arizona. The act was one in a long list of finals we’ve been going through. This one seemed significant to me. Just a mark on a website. Just a little circle with a black dot inside. How can such a small thing bring up so much pain and hurt?

At the end of the week, if all goes as planned, we will turn over our home to someone who has promised to remediate it correctly. They are paying off the rest of the loan, leaving us with memories and clean credit. It’s a victory of sorts for us, getting out from under the crushing weight of the house. But it’s also a loss.

This Saturday the dumpsters will arrive and everything we treasured, every Pat Conroy book that had been signed by the author, my daughter’s Taylor guitar, my first guitar I bought in tenth grade, all of our clothes, bedding, keepsakes from 27 years of marriage, Christmas ornaments, baby covers—everything we treasured will go into dumpsters.

If the bank had gotten the home, who knows how well it would have been cleaned. This really is the best scenario, but in a way it feels like getting kicked out of the Garden. I wanted to watch my daughters get married in that house. I wanted to write the Great American Novel there. I wanted to bury our dogs in the back yard.

But the hopes and dreams of ten years are going in the dumpster. The Lord gives and he takes away. Blessed be his name. The Lord drives some into the desert, to a dry and thirsty land. And souls are stirred in arid places.

Once, Jesus was asked why a man had been born blind, if it was his own sin or the sin of his parents that had caused his loss of sight. I picture Jesus smiling at them and pausing, knowing what would happen. Knowing what he could do in an instant. The man’s condition, he said, was not because of anyone’s sin, but so that the glory of God could be revealed. And he opened the man’s eyes and he saw for the first time.

Filled dumpsters seem an unlikely place for the glory of God to be revealed. But I have the faith to believe it. And I’m praying for eyes that can see.

You have to keep your sense of humor when things are falling apart. This morning I was sitting in the palatial environs of the International Headquarters of the Chris Fabry Intergalactic Studios, and someone flushed the toilet in the bathroom behind me. I was recording some voiceover for Love Worth Finding, but right at that moment I was reading a line about the "throne room" and casting your burdens down. I couldn't help but chuckle. And then it was a little hard to get the composure back as I tried again to deliver the line in a believable way.

One of the things I won't hear again from our house in Colorado is my blooper reel. I remember one section on there when Carl Metcalf was recording some PSAs. He got to a place in the script and got stuck, so he did it again, and again, and then laughed, and at the end he was just laughing so hard you could hear the tears falling.

Carl died a few years ago in a tragic accident. I can still hear his voice. And I think he would have laughed at the "throne room" line as well.

Whatever you're going through today, whatever life has thrown at you, whatever sound you hear over your shoulder while you're trying to be serious, hang in there.