Shot through the Heart

How a squirrel and a shotgun wrecked my manhood

“Shoot.”

“I can’t, Dad.”

“Pull the trigger, Kevin.”

“I don’t think I can, Dad.”

“You can do it; I know you can.”

I was eight years old, and I was living the dream that many men my age wish they could have lived with their father: quality time.

To me, though, this was the stuff of nightmares.

There I stood, in the woods, covered in camo and orange, shakily holding a shotgun.

An 8-year-old boy and a shotgun with a squirrel on the business end; me on the other.

ME!? A kid who reads the encyclopedia for fun, enjoys Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, and would have been teaching myself BASIC programming on my Commadore64 on this otherwise fine Saturday morning, were it not for my father.

MY FATHER: A stereotypical Midwestern blue-collar factory line worker who spent his free time trying to be the father *he* always wanted (his dad tragically died when he was 14).

Now, at 45, I realize that his father’s death left large shoes for both of us to fill. At the time, I couldn’t understand the psychological nuances that childhood trauma brought to my relationship with him.

In the years since, I have learned that as much as Dad wanted me to like hunting, he needed hunting in the same way that I now use therapy… to deal with our trauma.

Both of us, doing what we can to assuage childhood trauma.

But whereas I now kill time on a counselor’s couch, he killed other living things.

… like that damnable squirrel.

“You just don’t understand, Dad.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

I don’t believe that my father ever truly understood me.

Yet to his credit, he never stopped trying. He never gave up inviting me into his world.

But I soon stopped wanting to enter into it.

He was unable to see that I simply couldn’t stomach it. And each time I failed to wield a firearm, bait the hook, or pull the trigger was like a dagger to his soul.

A thousand little wounds inflicted by the son he wanted but who didn’t seem to want what he wanted.

I never took to any of his sports or pastimes, and it was becoming increasingly clear to him that I wasn’t going to change.

Fishing wasn’t my thing.
Archery wasn’t my thing.
Small game hunting wasn’t my thing.

By the time I was old enough to go deer hunting, his offer to participate was more a formality than anything:

“You don’t want to go …right?”

I knew he wanted me to say no; I had killed his joy … his hope was shot.

We had both given up seeing it from the other’s hunting boots.

Though I couldn’t admit it at the time, I did want to spend time with him … just not in that way. I couldn’t justify killing something for sport. And I couldn’t break his heart by telling him, because he would think I was soft. So I made excuses… a lot of excuses, until I no longer need to explain.

His will had been broken.

But for now, I had a decision to make about this squirrel.

“Just pull the trigger, Kevin.”

“Fine.”

And I did.

I wanted so badly to please my father, so I looked the other way and complied… which isn’t great marksmanship, but at the time seemed like good sonship.

Blind obedience.

“Just pull the trigger, Kevin.”

“Fine.”

The blast from the discharge and the sound of the squirrel falling to the ground broke something inside of me.

I felt the shot, and its power ricocheted around my relationship with my father, what my family and religious community perceived as manhood, and my relationship with weaponry.

It inflicted deep dents and gaping holes that touched areas of my life that now, nearly four decades later, are still being affected.

“All who have given up home or brothers and sisters or father and mother or children or land for me will be given 100 times as much. They will also have eternal life. But many who are now first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”

— JESUS, Matthew 19

Jesus makes this statement to Peter in a moment when Peter had exclaimed, “Remember, we have left everything to be your followers! What will we get?!”

I find it fascinating that Jesus doesn’t reject Peter’s concern over what he has given up, nor does he rebuke his need to receive.

Jesus simply says: There are good things ahead that can only be attained by this path of sacrifice.

Peter, you chose the harder but better path.

I chose the harder but better path.

“You just don’t understand, Dad.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

The older I got, the more this conversation with my father became a symbol of our relationship.

Our idealogical paths diverged more and more with each passing season of my life.

Admittedly, this divergence of understanding was to become a common occurrence between myself and my extended family and the formational communities of my youth, especially the religious ones.

I grew in my understanding and confidence to stand in idealogical opposition.

Often, sadly, they had difficulty (or outright refused) to allow my exploration.

Through the years and the pain, I have often shouted to God the Father, “Remember, I left everything to be your follower. Is this what I get in return?!”

“I don’t think I can, Dad.”

“You can do it; I know you can.”

The older I get, the more I become like my Father in heaven, which sometimes distances me a bit from my relationships here on the ground.

But also, the older I get, the more I am able to see the lay of the land from my father’s vantage point, and the more grace I am able to give him and those who formed me but don’t fully understand me anymore.

They taught me to think for myself, but they were a bit surprised—and eventually angry—when I did.

In many ways, though we disagree on much, I am far more like my father than either of us probably care to admit.

I may not be the hunter, fisherman, baseball legend, or stereotypical Midwestern man that he hoped for in a son, but in other ways, I am certain of his pride in me. Ways that, I think, make him even more proud than the things he lost in the trade.

We are both cut from the same cloth, but it isn’t camo.