byChrisWhite – 2014

Last November, my wife Emily, our son Jon, and I set off on a two-week expedition through Europe, meandering around what used to be Yugoslavia and concluding with a bit of Venetian romance. We dipped our toes in Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Montenegro before finally finding ourselves in Venice, Italy, where, by the end of it, I began to feel about as cultured as a slice of apple pie in a European bakery.

Our journey came with a charming Slovenian named Elvis as our guide, yes, Elvis, of all names. Not the most common in those parts, as you might imagine, but he carried it well. Our Elvis wasn’t much for blue suede shoes, but he sure knew his history. He was a man who’d lived the story he was telling, born under the shadows of communism, and then watching his world transform overnight into a mismatched version of capitalism. He told us about it all with such love for his country that one might think he’d swallowed the place whole and was narrating it from the inside out.

Elvis’s humor, always sharp and self-deprecating, made the landscapes come alive and made me feel as though we weren’t just visiting; we were living alongside him, getting the kind of local knowledge that doesn’t come with guidebooks or Wikipedia searches. You see, guided tours can be an easy way out of uncertainty and that nagging fear of getting lost, but a good guide like Elvis is more than that. He’s the difference between a snapshot and a panorama, a difference, I dare say, my son Jon came to appreciate too. After all, Jon’s kept in touch with Elvis long after we left Europe and returned to Tennessee.

Among the various things that could have just been postcard moments, there was something more. We met a couple during our journey, folks named Dave and his wife, who were knee-deep in what I might call “active humanity.” They were sponsoring the education of young women and girls in Africa, and they talked about it not as something to brag about, but as though it was simply something worth doing.

They inspired Emily to follow suit, and by the end of our trip, she’d decided to sponsor a young girl named Peace. I don’t know how life corners some folks into responsibilities as big as sponsoring children in far-off lands, but I do know that their passion for doing good was contagious enough to infect Emily in the best possible way.

Maybe you believe in karma; maybe you don’t. Maybe you call it paying it forward, or simply call it being kind. But these are the people who refuse to be spectators in life. They’re the ones who jump in with both feet, put in that extra effort, and spread the icing while they’re still eating the cake. It’s folks like Dave and his wife who remind you that life doesn’t happen by accident, you have to be out there, leaning against the right tree, for ripe apples to fall in your lap.

We’d stopped what we were doing for a while, there on the shores of Bled Lake, just a crisp November afternoon in Slovenia, framed by the snow-capped Julian Alps and the picturesque Bled Castle looming above. It was the kind of scenery that would’ve made anyone think they were living in a storybook.

Dave, with all the eloquence of Aristotle, began telling us about the importance of working together, of collaboration and how ideas come to life only when different people contribute their skills and perspectives. “It’s all a process,” he said. “The more diverse the people involved, the richer the outcome. But you have to be willing to work.”

I don’t remember contributing much to that conversation, truth be told. As my wife rattled off one sentence after another, I was just along for the walk. I snapped pictures while Dave spoke, letting his words and the scenery soak into me. It was one of those rare moments when you feel you’re learning something important, even if you’re not quite sure what. And sometimes, the best thing to do when you’re in the presence of wisdom is to shut up and listen, so that’s precisely what I did.

It’s taken nearly a year since that November day for me to understand just how much I was at a crossroads then. My brother has recently passed away, and I’d also been toying with the idea of writing for years, of actually making it a serious endeavor rather than an occasional hobby. But doubts swirled: how would my friends and family react? Would they even recognize me in the words I put on paper? Did I really want to stir up all those “Who are you, and what did you do with my dad?” kind of questions?

Wanting to make a difference is one thing, but realizing that your gift lies in writing is something else entirely. So here I am, putting my pen to the paper, as they used to say, taking Dave’s thoughts about community and investing them here, on these pages, hoping that someone out there finds something in them worth sharing.

My soft spot has always been for my son Jon, for his journey through life, his stumbles, his victories. And maybe part of this writing is for him, to help him navigate those moments when life becomes a little murkier than he anticipated. I suppose I want to pass along the wisdom I received from people like Dave—wisdom that is too valuable to hold onto selfishly.

Venice may have been our grand finale, but that brief time in Slovenia planted the seed that kept me writing. It rekindled my desire not just to put words on a page, but to make those words matter. It reminded me that the best kind of living isn’t solitary; it’s shared. We ought to be more than casual observers, we need to be friends, spouses, parents, and community members who invest real effort, real honesty, and real generosity. Not the generosity of the wallet, necessarily, but the generosity of soul, the kind that requires thought, patience, and passion.

You know, I want to be to you what Dave was to me that day by the lake, a new friend who encourages you to go out into the world and seek those connections. To share the parts of yourself that others may not know, the thoughts that rattle around in your head when you’re alone, the hopes you’re a little too shy to put into words. Don’t just be the parent or the sibling or the partner, be yourself, the unfiltered you. Because I want my son to know his father, not just as the man who gave him advice and paid the bills, but as a person with thoughts and dreams of his own.

So, that’s what this is all about, giving those I love, and maybe even a few strangers, the chance to know who I am while I’m still here to tell them. It’s about not depriving anyone of the real story of me, because that’s something they can’t find once I’m gone. I hope this inspires you to do the same.