Chapter Seven: Learning to Listen

When lockdown hit, I’d only been at Google for a few months. New badge, new team, and—because of the ramp-up program—no real responsibilities yet. The plan was to spend the first six months learning the culture, shadowing, easing into leadership. Then the world shut and the “ease” part disappeared. I was suddenly managing over video with people I’d barely met, trying to build trust through a rectangle.

Like everyone, I tried to stage-manage a home life that could hold both work and rest. Mostly, they bled into each other. Good-on-Paper and I were living together, and the pressure cooker of COVID brought our misalignments to the surface. We clung anyway—two people trying to patch a boat mid-storm.

The fear hit in an unexpected direction. At first I was scared I’d get sick. Then the science clarified my personal risk, and the fear pivoted: not “What if I catch it?” but “What if I give it to someone and become the reason their story stops?” That thought rooted in my chest. Outside began to feel booby-trapped. So I stayed in. And in. And in.

Isolation plus a new job plus a planet in free fall added up to something my body called panic. I started having what I can only describe as shutdowns: a narrow hallway of mind, walls closing in. I found a therapist through Google’s internal program—quiet, perceptive, more listener than lecturer. She didn’t label me. She asked questions. And she recommended a book: The Body Keeps the Score.

I’d never heard of it. I ordered it anyway.

Reading it was like being given a legend to a map I’d been stumbling across in the dark. The book described the nervous system’s layered intelligence: the thoughtful, slow brain; the quick, protective body; the parts of us that decide before we even know we’ve decided. It suggested that when the thinking mind won’t or can’t hear, the body speaks another way.

Mine had been speaking for years.

At night my legs would kick, little involuntary jolts as if my body were trying to sprint mid-sleep. I’d joked about it. Stress, I figured. But the book made me wonder: what if the kicking was a message, not a malfunction?

I tried an experiment. I lay still and let my mind soften. I’d float a memory past the quiet—childhood, work, love, random slices of nothing—and watch for the twitch. When my legs fired, I’d rewind: Was it that part? Or that one? I did this for days. Slowly, the signal narrowed until it pointed somewhere I didn’t want to look: my father.

I wrote earlier about the night that split something open: my dad’s anger, his hand, the sudden understanding that home wasn’t safe and no one was coming. After that, I lived with him physically while I moved away emotionally. We rarely spoke. When we did, he pretended nothing had happened. I learned to avoid, to outwork, to plan my exit.

But avoidance is a loop. It keeps the story stuck inside you.

Even after I left for college, my father still showed up—practical, present, wordless. He got me a car when I needed one. He hauled boxes up dorm stairs then drove straight back to Hartsville because he couldn’t sleep anywhere that wasn’t home. He wasn’t demonstrative, but he was dependable. I visited out of duty more than desire, sitting in rooms with him while we both looked for conversation and found less than small talk. I told myself it was because I was gay and he didn’t know what to do with that. But the truth was simpler: we had no bridge between us, and neither of us knew how to build one.

During lockdown, with my body literally kicking for my attention, I realized I’d been holding on to anger as proof of what happened. The proof had calcified into panic. If I wanted peace, I had to do more than understand the past. I had to move toward it.

So I called.

I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked for a chance. I told him I wanted to try again, if he did. He said yes. Then he asked what would help.

“Call me once a week,” I said. “Just…check in.”

It sounds small. It wasn’t. My dad had never been a caller. Birthdays came and went without a word. He never called; we only spoke when my step-mom did the initiating and put him on the phone. But then he started calling. The first conversations were awkward—two men trying to walk on a frozen lake without cracking it. Over time, the ice thickened. We learned our way around silences. He told me about projects at the farm. I told him about London, then Google. He asked questions—stilted at first, then not. He showed up, the way he always had, but now with a voice.

As he kept calling, my body softened. Not because he changed the past, but because I let the present in. I chose connection over being right. I let forgiveness move in, not as an absolution but as a release valve. The person my anger had been punishing most was me. The second was him.

A year later, my father died of a heart attack—sudden, ordinary, devastating—out at the Jordan Farm doing what he loved with people he loved. When I got the news, the first thing I felt, after the shock, was gratitude: we had made the call. We had crossed the bridge while there was still time.

At his funeral I gave a eulogy. I’ll include it here because it says what needed saying between us, finally and out loud.

My Father and I

It’s incredibly touching to see how many people are here today, and it really hits home just how big of an impact Dad’s passing has had. Dad was a man with a big heart who loved taking care of those around him—whether they be people or animals (and, honestly, I think he preferred the animals!). He took all sorts into his life and did his best to help them—because that’s the sort of man he was.

When I was younger, my father and I had a big falling out, but he continued to love, support, and provide for me even while I struggled to figure out how to feel in return. Back then, he found it difficult to express his love verbally—but he was always there whenever I needed him (and I mean literally, no matter how many hours’ drive away “there” was—though he always immediately headed back to Hartsville right afterwards!). You could almost hear that cartoon sound byooom as soon as whatever he came to help with was done.

After college I moved to London and didn’t spend as much time back home. But whenever I did, I noticed how much my father lit up when he was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. I believe his greatest joy was bringing people together—especially at The Jordan Farm. Dad was at his happiest when he was surrounded by people he could host, entertain, and care for.

One visit in November 2019 taught me how quietly generous he was. He was cooking far more than we needed for Thanksgiving. When I asked why, he told me he’d been preparing an entire extra dinner for a nearby friend who couldn’t afford one. He’d done it for years. He never asked for anything in return. That day we learned the man had passed away. The exchange stayed with me. I realized I’d let our differences and old hurts obscure how much good my father did, and it made me want to connect with him better.

Last October my partner Good-on-Paper lost his father. When Dad heard, he reached out to check on us. I took that moment to tell him what I hadn’t said: that I admired how he cared for people, that he taught me generosity, that he showed me the importance of taking care of those closest to you.

My dad never found it easy to talk about feelings, but he showed them through actions—and those actions shaped my life. It meant the world that he loved and accepted me for who I am and was proud of what I’ve built, even though we were so different. He didn’t always say it to me, but I later heard how much he bragged about all of his kids—even me.

I’ll miss Dad’s playful nature. He was a big kid with a bigger backyard—bulldozers, backhoes, tractors. That playfulness, along with his kindness and generosity, will live on in everyone he touched. I inherited his name; I can only hope to live up to his legacy.

What I loved most is that Dad knew what made him happy and he built his life around it: the farm, projects with friends, people gathered close. Life really is about simple pleasures. He taught me that. I only wish he’d had more time to enjoy them.

After the service, people I’d never met came up to tell me how proud he’d been. He’d talked about me often, they said—London, the career, the grit. Hearing it secondhand felt perfect somehow. He’d always spoken love through action; now others gave me the words.

Looking back, I can see how many teachers were at work. My therapist, who offered a doorway instead of a diagnosis. My body, which kicked and ached until I turned toward the stuck place. The Shimmer, threading through it all, nudging me to move before regret hardened into forever.

My father shaped me in ways I resisted and ways I cherish. I became who I am partly in spite of him, and partly because of him. From him I learned to show up, to be counted on, to care through doing. My own caregiver tendencies can go too far—control dressed as kindness—but at their core is something I recognize as his: the impulse to help.

Most of all, this is the chapter where I learned to listen. Not to the loudest fear or the smartest thought, but to the quieter instruments: breath, ache, twitch, tug. To the body that speaks when the mind won’t. To the constant murmur beneath coincidence. To the father who loved in a language I didn’t hear until I stopped insisting on mine.

The Shimmer didn’t descend in trumpets. It taught me to notice. To repair what could be repaired. To risk tenderness before the door closed. If I hadn’t called, I would have carried that weight forever. Instead, I carry a different inheritance: a rhythm of reaching in, the memory of a man who showed up, and a body that, when it needs me, knows I’ll listen.