A Nickname with History

I’m going to try to make these entries a little shorter as often as possible. I tend to wax long-winded at times and, I’m learning, you don’t need to be verbose to write something folks will enjoy reading. If I don’t keep them shorter, it's usually for a good reason, but these posts are going to show up few and far between. I don't want that. I’m going to do my best to be more succinct so you can see new updates more often. I have about a million topics I still would like to write on.

I thought I'd take a quick minute and explain why I've been called River or Riv, as a nickname, for the past decade or so. It all started after my unexpected divorce from my first wife, Asti. One minute I was married and working away at it (with all its ups and downs), the next minute I came home from a business trip to find my home gutted and my world torn in half. [In Asti's defense, she was very fair when she chose to skedaddle. She carefully divided our books, movies, and other belongings in half and left all the ones she knew I liked and took only the ones she preferred and knew I didn't care for; "gutted" probably isn't the most appropriate word]. I can remember clearly the dust outlines, though, around where pictures she’d taken had hung. It’s an image that stays with me and even haunts me at times today.  

Asti and I completed an amicable, though devastating (to me), dissolution of marriage ... mostly through email. I've only seen her once (on accident; at a concert in Utah; we didn't speak) since the day she made love to me the night before, kissed me goodbye and said she'd see me in a week. I came home expecting a wife who, though struggling, was hanging in there … but instead found a house and home that were suddenly empty of the best part.

Fast forward a year and I decided to relocate from Anchorage, Alaska to Vancouver, Washington to work for Dennis Burback and the Trendwest Resorts office there. My brother Adam and his wife Kimmy, together with my sister Chi and her little boy Mejai, all moved down together. We got three apartments in the same complex and Adam went to work for Trendwest too. I went to work on my new life and prospects, primarily on myself. 

You see, Asti's and my divorce was a sum result of several things, as most dissolutions are, I'm sure. She had an emergency surgery that wreaked havoc on her emotions, and our marriage. This is true. But we were already struggling ... mostly because of me, I hate to say—my issues with anger, my immaturity, my struggles with self esteem, and so forth. Long story short, even though we had been friends for years—ever since high school—our marriage was in turmoil, and I didn't really blame her. She was a great woman, doing the best she could, working with a guy who had a lot of baggage (as we all do, unfortunately). In the letter she left sitting on our kitchen counter, the one I found when I came home to our empty house, she said "I love you but I can't be with you. I need to work on my own issues and I'm not willing to do that and be married to you at the same time." Can I just say ... I read the letter, reeling, and spent the night in shock, lying on the linoleum floor in our kitchen. 

So ... I was now in Washington State, trying to sell timeshare for Trendwest and really questioning what had gone wrong. How did my marriage fail? Why did I feel angry so much of the time? How could I overcome it? What could I try to do differently in any future relationship...? (the irony of this statement is that I recently went through a second divorce; though I’ve learned a lot in the last ten years, and I really tried to be a good husband and father, I'm still learning and still trying to Triumph over myself; still not quite there quite yet, I guess; I think it will take a lifetime to fully get there).

I say all this just to make myself clear: I understand pain … I know what loss feels like … I’ve had my own share of challenges and hurts … and I continue to learn greater resiliency and stick-to-it-iveness, year in and year out. 

One day, there in Washington, I was reading a book about the life of Christ called Fishers of Men. While doing so I came across a quote by Alexander the Great: "The deepest rivers flow with the least sound." This quotation struck me with great force and I shared it with my parents in one of my emails home. It seemed to say to me that the deeper the PERSON, the less "SOUND" (i.e. grumbling, complaining, whining or yelling) they make. In other words, the deeper YOU are, the less you let things GET TO YOU. It's a great reminder, and it is so true. My parents agreed, adding their own insights to the analogy. 

Well, I'm not sure who started it—it was either my mom or my dad, or maybe both—but they started referring to me as Riv shortly thereafter and I guess it stuck. They said they did it because they thought I was really embodying the quote. They liked what they saw. I don’t know if that’s true, but I did like the nickname because it served as a reminder of who I WANTED to be. It helped me focus more on my goal to become that man ... more patient, more mature, the kind of person who is deeper than the trials he faces. This, in my mind, is one of the key characteristics of someone Triumphing over life. It's one of my goals, to embody the principle more. It's a lifetime process, as I mentioned.

There's a great quote by the founder of the LDS church, Joseph Smith, that also complements this principle well. He writes, "Deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all…." (Doctrine & Covenants 127). It’s a good testament to resilience and faith, to "running deep" as it were ... a good reminder for us all, whether you're a Mormon, Christian, Atheist, what have you.

If you're familiar with his history, you know that Joseph Smith actually gave his life for what he believed. He hung in there in the  face of terrible persecution (he and his older brother Hyrum were both martyred in Carthage, Illinois on June 27, 1844). They sealed their testimony with their blood. That we might have the same conviction in whatever we set out to do, that we too might "Triumph" in our own ways, is my hope. 

Here's to hope, 

J. Patrick “River” Laing