Untold stories

My brother called me tonight to let me know that an old neighbor of ours died. When I say "old" I mean we were boyhood neighbors. Mike lived three houses down from us and was the obstacle between our house and the grade school. Mike was our neighborhood bully. No one went by his house untaunted, unchallenged, without threats. Mike took his role as our neighborhood bully seriously. It's amazing to me how much the lives of others affect us. There is more to this story, but here is all that was written about our old neighbor:

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CEDAR, IOWA — Mike Hendricks, 59, of Cedar, died June 18, 2010, at his home.

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I looked for more, but this was all that was written about Mike. And yet our lives impact others. The hurts are never forgotten. Sometimes the impact is unknown to everyone but the one hurt. I haven't thought about Mike in decades. We all have a way of putting bad memories in the back of our thoughts. My brother reminded me of the pinnacle event in our relationship with Mike. There was a day when my brother came home crying, with a bloody nose. Mike had caught him on the way home. My brother reminded me that, in anger, I ran down the street and gave Mike the beating he had long deserved. Now, I'm not replaying history for glory. I was only 12. How much glory can children get from the abuse we inflict on each other? But, Mike never bullied us again.

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Why the story? It struck me that our lives have much more content to them than the few words written at the end in an obituary. We impact others for the rest of their lives. Even the little things are not forgotten. For each of us there are untold stories that have made us into who we are. It's funny....we never forget the untold stories.

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