Be Determined

These days I hear my father's voice  -- he died in June 2006 -- more than I usually do. He's saying, in his low, resonant voice, "Be determined."

I was a kid on the starting block at a swim meet when he first said this to me. Everyone else was shouting "GO!" and "Beat 'em!" But Dad would wait for a lull in the noise, just before the starter signaled for quiet, and say this one thing. He didn't have to shout. His resonant voice carried and cut through all ambient noise simply by the way he pitched and placed it.

So powerful was his basso that when he was in college the singing group he was in needed only him on bass. He was proud of this seven-man octet.

I miss my father. He and I disagreed on much about life - politics especially - but neither of us was willing to let that diminish our love for one another. And so today, when I looked at the count on my Inkshares page (81) and contemplated how many more pre-orders of my book I must get (919) and felt a niggling of discouragement, I heard him.

Be determined.

(Nowhere Else I Want  to Be on Inkshares)