The Piece of Writing that Changed My Life

This is the piece of writing that changed my life.

A version of it was one of the first things I ever wrote when, at 28 years old, I thought I might “give this writing thing a try.” The experience altered something fundamental in my brain chemistry. I thought, against all odds, I might actually be a writer. As someone who’d spend the better part of 20 years dedicating myself to illustration, that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time.

This is also the writing that sat in my computer for more than a decade as I tried and failed over and over again to have it published. I didn’t feel very much like a writer during those years.

And this exact passage is what I finally, on a whim, put on my Facebook page one day just to see if anyone would bother reading it. To my surprise, many, many people did, including Dallas Jenkins, the Creator of the The Chosen. On the strength of this piece he told me we’d work together one day. He made good on that promise by signing on as the Executive Producer of The Shift.

And this is also what, finally, in October 2020, was published as part of The Other Side of Fear: A True Story of Murder, Forgiveness, and the Peace Only Faith Can Bring. Still hard to believe that happened. You can even buy it right here.

In a lot of ways, everything I’m about and am doing now started right here. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 23rd, 1996.

My new companion, Elder Vaughn, and I came home early. I was now in Gilbert, a town with a tiny Spanish speaking population whose doors we’d already knocked twice over. It was dark out and preaching and teaching opportunities after 7pm were, honestly, pretty non-existent without an appointment. We had simply run out of things to do.

Not that we needed much of an excuse to get off the road. Vaughn was a glutton for bicycle accidents. He’d had no less than seven face-to-pavement mishaps in the six weeks we’d been together, bringing his total to 40 for the eleven months of his mission he’d served so far. This was an unprecedented number and, I was convinced, entirely and psychologically self-inflicted. The less time we spent outdoors, the better it was for the sidewalks and the safety of the people of Gilbert.

Just after 7:30pm, we entered the upstairs apartment we shared with two other Elders, rolling our bikes to the spot of tile where it didn’t matter as much how freshly oiled the gears were. We had the distinction of living in the largest apartment in the entire Arizona Tempe Mission, and it had the vaulted ceilings and balcony to prove it. Tired and worn out even at the end of this short day, we tossed our backpacks full of helpful pamphlets (Do you believe in God? So do we!) and Libros de Mormón under the kitchen bar, near the answering machine. I noticed the light was blinking. I pressed the button.

Beep.

It was President Hedrick. The closest thing I had to a boss while out on the mission. It was his job to take care of, assign, instruct, and put the fear of God into the Elders and Sisters in his charge. He excelled at his job.

As soon as I heard his voice—before I even knew the content of his message—all I could think was how does he know? How does he know we came home early? I thought of my Mission President as a great man, a spiritual and wise man, but this was amazing. Any justification I had for leaving potential converts out in the wind seemed very, very weak indeed in that moment.

President Hedrick: Hello, Elders. I hope you’ve had a wonderful evening. Elder Heasley, would call me right away, please? It’s very important. Thank you.

Okay, I was convinced. He really did know. I reminded myself that the great thing about the Gospel of Christ is that you can always say you’re sorry and do better the next day. The thought did not offer much comfort in the moment. I told myself to suck it up and I gave President Hedrick a call.

Me: President? This is Elder Heasley. I was, uh, just returning your call?

President Hedrick: Hello, Elder Heasley. How are you doing this evening?

Me: Good. I’m doing—doing great. President. How about you?

President Hedrick: Fine, fine. Sister Hedrick and I are doing fine. How’s Elder Vaughn?

Me: Well, he’s alive.

President Hedrick: Huh hah. That’s good to hear. Elder Heasley, I got a call from your grandfather not too long ago. You have a family emergency he needs to speak with you about. You should call him right away.

Grandpa and Grandma Heasley lived about thirty minutes away in Fountain Hills—one more reason I desperately did not want to serve my mission in Arizona. I had been to so precious few other places besides California, and I’d been to this particular part of Arizona most of all. Because Grandpa and Grandma were members of the Church but hadn’t actually seen the inside of one in quite some time, President Hedrick allowed me to visit with them on occasion. I, in turn, allowed them to buy me lots of groceries and take me out to dinner. This made them very happy and the other Elders I lived with very fat. Logically, with Grandpa calling, it would have made sense to assume there was something wrong with Grandma. Life had taught me to think of Dad first.

Me: Okay. Is there anything you can tell me? What happened?

PH: I think it would be best if you asked your grandfather about that. Now, I need to speak to Elder Vaughn, briefly, and then I want you to call him.

I handed the phone off to Vaughn. I couldn’t imagine what any of this had to do with him unless sacrificing someone to oncoming traffic was going to fix whatever was wrong. Vaughn was from the Deep South. I heard a lot of ‘yessirs’ and ‘no sirs’ before he finally hung up.

“What was that all about?” I asked. “What did he want with you?”

“He…” Uh oh. This wasn’t going to be good. Vaughn was a stutterer, but he was taking his time with this one. “He said that you were about to get some really bad news and that I needed to be here for you in case you needed someone to lean on.”

“Did he say what that news was?”

“No.”

I started to get excited. My mind was brought back to that moment nearly eight years earlier at the hospital when I happily ate a(n ENTIRE) bag of M&M’s (by myself!) while waiting to see Dad before his surgery. This felt similar. Something important had happened and I was headed straight for it. Whether it was tragic or not (okay, so it was going to be tragic), it would be important. Worth remembering. It was a selfish thought (after all, I knew I was okay), but I couldn’t help it—I was looking forward to whatever came next, no matter how terrible.

The quiet-as-a-whisper part of me that was older scolded the little boy jumping up and down inside me. I shushed him quickly and moved over to the living room to sit down on the beat-up, secondhand couch. I called Grandpa, fingers trembling mostly in anticipation as they dialed the number.

The tremor in Grandpa’s voice told the story before his words got the chance. He had been crying.

This was new. As reality grabbed hold and started gently shoving my head into the wake up wall, I attempted to think of things Grandpa could say that wouldn’t be so bad. That wouldn’t be one of a dozen end-of-the-world scenarios that flitted through my brain. Nothing came to mind that still involved him crying.

Still, I imagined. I tried to live in that brief sliver of time before knowing, in that space between my asking what was wrong and Grandpa telling me. Where anything could be the matter. Whatever the news was, it was still possible he was overreacting. It was definitely possible.

Maybe Mom had let my comic book subscriptions lapse.

Grandpa: Brock,

Or Logan had borrowed some of my CDs and scratched them.

Grandpa: your dad

Dad. Dad had let algae build up in the pool and the tile would need to be replaced. That’s what it was.

Grandpa: has been shot,

…

Grandpa: again.

…

Again?

No. Perhaps I had misheard or Grandpa had been given bad information. Or it was an accident or it wasn’t as bad as last time or it was–

Dad is dead.

–worse?

My nose was running. Two seconds had passed and I was already crying. My head convulsed and any part of my face that could emit fluid, did. Like a stream—no, a waterfall. It was wet and gross and sticky and I couldn’t stop it.

He’s gone. Who said that? No one had said that.

I shook hard, knocking my knees against the small coffee table in front of me. I was glad to already be sitting. I might’ve fallen over otherwise.

As I dripped onto the phone’s receiver, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by my own grief, as though I wasn’t the one experiencing it at all and was instead merely peering curiously at the human mess in the living room. Like Elder Vaughn was doing. Like the other Elders we lived with would soon see. I tightened my grip on the phone and tried in vain to hunch down further into myself to block Vaughn’s view and spare us both the humiliation.

Dad is dead.

Stop it.

My physical response was instinctual, but I didn’t agree with it. I’d faced down Dad being shot once before and this wasn’t how I reacted to tragedy. I did not cry and I certainly did not weep. I reacted to bad news by looking within for some sign of assurance or comfort that comes from without. I reacted calmly, with a hopeful heart and patience.

But what assurances can you have when your father is dead?

I already knew, didn’t I? In almost the same instant Grandpa told me Dad had been shot, I knew it was fatal. I knew it like I knew nearly eight years prior that Dad would be fine—with a certainty that trumped every other thought in my head. The message then was clear: your father will be all right. And I could feel that, then. And he was. But this time:

He’s dead.

Where was my measure of comfort? Why did I not feel that peace—that assurance that God was in charge and would make things right? Instead, I was swallowed up in my hopeless knowledge and left to powerlessly protest my fear and despair and anguish. God was nowhere. He did not accompany me this time.

While Grandpa waited for me to say something, my mind screamed. I begged God that it might not be true. I pleaded with Him to visit me and release me from my cynical conviction and prove me wrong with His warmth. Instead, I was cold.

Elder Vaughn made no motions to leave the room. He alone was witness to my ugly, ugly display. I wiped what I could from underneath my chin, but it kept pouring out. I needed to concentrate. Five seconds had passed since I’d been told Dad had been shot and there was a question I needed to ask. To be sure. To hope.

Me: Is h-he okay?

Grandpa: Oh, I don’t know, son. I just talked to your mother a little while ago and that’s all she knew. We know your dad was shot earlier this evening by two men, but we don’t know any more than that.

But I did.

Mine was an awful, undesired knowledge. I pushed all thoughts of Dad dying out of my head and focused on what Grandpa told me: “We don’t know.” I lied to myself and asserted that it was possible things were going to be okay. Not knowing is half full of that kind of comforting possibility. There was nothing good that could come from sitting and blubbering like an idiot. That wouldn’t help anyone, least of all me.

Me: Should I call Mom? When are we going to know more?

Grandpa: I don’t know. Your mother said that she’d call you as soon as she can with an update. For now, we all have to just wait. There’s nothing we can do right now except maybe pray.

Me: Okay.

I hung up the phone and took Grandpa’s advice. I prayed my father would be restored to health. I prayed the doctors who were working on him would be guided through their life-saving measures. I prayed my mom and brothers would be all right and that Dad would not suffer too much pain. I prayed for those things because I didn’t know what else to pray for and I thought praying would make the crying stop. My whine turned into a sniffle and I welcomed the small relief.

“… your dad was shot… we don’t know any more than that.”

The more I got away from my conversation with Grandpa, the more likely it seemed that I had panicked in the moment and assumed the worst. My negative, entirely unhelpful thoughts were most likely those of an attention-whoring jerk who needed a slap in the face.

That was the alternative, desperate hope—that I was so vain and loved the attention heaped upon the family members of victims of tragedy so much I would seize any opportunity to have it. I certainly had Vaughn’s attention. I prayed that I might be so ridiculous.

My prayers were entirely faithless.

Elder Vaughn milled about behind me. I gave him nothing but my back as I bent low over the coffee table, hands clutched together and pulled in close. I wouldn’t move from the living room and I wouldn’t stop praying. Not until I knew more. I supported my weight on my elbows, resting them on the Church magazines and books we never bothered to put away properly.

As I whispered my prayer, the tears would not stay out of my mouth. I spit, doing my best to keep that awful, salty taste out. I heard the front door to our apartment open as our roommates, Elders Suggs and Weldon came in. Vaughn quietly pulled them aside to explain what was going on and why there was a watery mess on the living room floor. They did their best to move through the apartment without bothering me. They took off their ties and set their packs down just as they did every night. That seemed wrong, somehow, but I couldn’t figure out why. I felt stupid and frustrated and angry at all of them. They didn’t even know my dad.

Forty minutes after talking to Grandpa, the phone finally rang again. I got up off my knees as quickly as I could and sat down on the couch.

I pushed the call button on the phone.

Me: Hello, missionaries. This is Elder Heasley speaking.

Mom: Brock? This is your mother.

She didn’t sound like I thought she would. It had been many months since we’d last spoken, but even in the best of times her voice was always a bit shaky. It wasn’t shaky now. Whatever she was going to tell me, she’d either had some time to work through it already or it wasn’t all that bad.

Me: Mom, what’s going on? Is Dad okay?

Mom: Brock, your father died.

no.

My eyes swelled. Through ever narrowing slits I could barely make out the three figures lingering awkwardly across the room, watching me. I ran my fingers through my hair and grabbed the back of my head. My hand slid to the front of my face and my fingers stuttered and danced and pushed the reddened skin around my eyes. My left leg wobbled and I couldn’t tell—was I even breathing or was I just breathing really hard? I didn’t care. Physical composure became a secondary concern and my awareness of anyone else in the room with me fell away.

Mom: Brock? Are you there?

Me: I’m fine. Fine. What—Mom, what happened? Grandpa said he was shot again.

Mom: Yes, that’s all we really know. It was at the Shop.

Me: The Shop. Then what was he—at the time what was he—

Mom: Brock, we just don’t know anything for sure right now.

Mom knew a lot more than she was saying. She had been on the phone with Dad when he was killed.

The Shop was closed. Dad had been at the Trap and Skeet Club for most of the day shooting with some buddies and was just dropping by to help his assistant manager shut things down. He’d already taken several guns out of the glass displays to go into their cases to be carried to the safe. Just like before.

He called Mom to let her know he’d be a little late getting home. Their talk was light and fun. There was a sweetness to Dad’s voice that Mom hadn’t heard in a while. They spoke of positive things. The debts were nearly paid off and Dad’s physical health was on the rise, for once. A few months earlier, he’d had a hip replaced. He talked about how nice it was to be able to run again (even just a little) and how much he looked forward to having the second hip put in next year.

Mom heard it through the phone. A loud, sudden sound in the background.

“What was that, Bill?”

“Jill,” Dad said without hesitation. “Call the cops.” And then he hung up.

Mom hung up her phone, picked it back up again, and called 911 immediately, but it was already too late.

The two men came in fast. They trained their guns on Dad first, but this time he managed to get his weapon up and pop off a few rounds before the shooters took him down. Two bullets in the chest, one in the stomach. Dad’s assistant manager was in the back, but by the time he came out the shooters had already taken what they came for and left.

It was done. Dad’s biggest fear did not come to pass and he went quickly.

I wouldn’t find out these details until much later.

Me: Mom, are you okay? What about Logan, McKay, and Tyler?

Mom: They’re fine. Fine. I mean, they will be. They’re doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. I don’t know that it’s completely hit them what’s happened yet.

Mom’s calm freaked me out. Perhaps she spoke more for herself than for my brothers.

Me: What about you?

Mom: There’s lots of people here. My sisters are here. The Garvins next door and the Milligans. The Bishop and his wife.

Me: The Milligans? Why are the Milligans there?

Mom: They’re here for me and for your brothers.

Me: You don’t even know them that well.

Mom: We see them all the time, you remember.

Me: No, Mom, they never—when I was there they—

Mom: Just a minute!

Me: Who was that?

Mom: No one. Just some people in the kitchen.

Me: What’s going to happen now? Are you guys going to be okay?

Mom: We will, yes. Eventually, of course. What about you, Brock? Are you okay?

Me: I’m, uh, I don’t know.

Mom: I’m so sorry, Brock.

Me: I’ll be fine. Is there anything I can do for you?

Mom: I want you to come home.

Me: Okay. Okay, but I-I don’t know if I…

Mom: The funeral will be next week. We need you to be here.

Me: I honestly don’t know if that’s a good idea, or if I’m even allowed to do that.

Mom: Of course you are, Brock. Your father just died! They’re not going to say you can’t go to his funeral. Surely it will be all right if you come home for a little while.

Me: I mean, that—that makes sense, but I don’t know. I don’t know.

Mom: Will you ask President Hedrick about it?

Me: Yeah, I guess I could.

This was Mom, arguing for exceptions as though what she wanted was not only paramount, but wholly righteous. There was so much power in her want that it could overcome any obstacle and bypass any roadblock. If fifty women had to wait outside in the cold for the JC Penney to open on the day of a Christmas sale, she’d be the one woman inside warming up and promising not to touch anything.

Mom: I want you here.

Me: I know.

Mom: Good. No, that’s–! Brock? Brock, I’ve got to go. Someone needs my help in the kitchen. I’m going to call you back a little later, all right? We’ll try to get a flight figured out.

Me: O-Okay. We’ll see, Mom. We’ll see.

Mom: Brock, I’m so sorry. I hate that you are alone right now with this.

Me: It’s okay. I’m worried about you guys.

Mom: I’ve already called the Hedricks and asked them to come be with you.

Me: Mom, no, I don’t need them to do that. I don’t want to bother them. I can—

Mom: They told me they were already on their way. Yes, I’ll show you in just a second—I’ve got to go, okay?

Me: Bye. I love you, Mom.

Mom: I love you, too.

I pushed the button on the phone to disconnect it.

I looked down.

For a long while, I just stared at myself. I was sick of wearing my clothes and wanted them off. Especially the tie and white shirt.

Without a word, I got up and walked straight past my roommates and into the back bedroom I shared with Elder Vaughn. At the foot of my bed was the door to our closet. I stood in front of it, squaring my feet until I had them perfectly positioned, toes at a right angle to the closet threshold. The precision of the move pleased me.

I looked down again at my shirt and tie ensemble. My name tag was attached to my left breast pocket, dragging it down with its weight. Elder Heasley, it read. La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias. There wasn’t one day in the past ten months that I had walked out the door without it, but in that moment it didn’t belong.

Without thinking, I removed the badge, unbuttoned my collar and turned it up, and slid my tie over my head.

I was careful as always not to undo the knot that held the loop in place and gently placed my tie on the rack alongside the others with their loops still intact. There was a comfort just in looking at them. I hated retying ties. They didn’t change unless I said they could.

I felt a surge of powerful energy rush into my head. My heart swelled and beat with a ferocity that threatened to knock me out. I turned my gaze towards the blandness of the carpet at my feet and let it swallow the surface of my attention with its inconsequence. Around me was a void. Everything happening was in my mind.

Thoughts fell in, piled one on top of another without order or priority. Dad. Where was he and what was he doing? He was finally seeing it, the life after next. What did it look like? What did he look like now? The form of his spirit couldn’t possibly look like the broken, middle-aged man that he was. Did he have to wear a toga? Who was there to greet him? I was a little jealous. His long held dream of discovering the secrets of what comes next was finally fulfilled.

I thought about the length of the new now. Nineteen-years-old seemed too young to have a dead dad. My life without him would likely be longer than the life I had with him. Would he fade away from memory the further into its distance he went? Of course he would. Did Dad have any moles? It had already been too long since I’d last seen him and I couldn’t remember.

I panicked. Was this supposed to happen? Was this when Dad was supposed to die? I reached out for some understanding of how it could be that while I was riding a bike out in the Arizona desert Dad was being shot to death in Fresno. How did this fit? It was incongruous. Impossible. I rejected the newly revealed events of the past five minutes on principle.

Had I not been praying? Wasn’t I serving a full-time mission? Blessings were supposed to come along with that. Was my sacrifice not acceptable? I had heard so many people in church speak time and again about how having their son or daughter in the mission field brought them blessings of prosperity and increased spiritual growth and health. And safety.

Liars. Did my service, then, mean nothing to God? It was supposed to mean that my father wasn’t dead.

But I knew—and I had known for 50 minutes. I knew that he—that Dad—was dead. The ten months that had gone by since I had last seen him? They were never going to end.

I collapsed my face into my chest and wept again. I thought of my brothers. They were all younger than me. Tyler almost eleven.

Five, ten years from now, what would he remember? As the youngest, what did he even have to remember? Dad took me out on his motorcycle when I was four. He got rid of it when I was five. Tyler didn’t even have the motorcycle.

What about Mom? I ached for her. It was hard to imagine her life without Dad. Whatever strength she had always came from him. She hadn’t held a job since before I was born and the thought of her running the Shop was laughable. I knew the calm, rational person I heard on the phone was a hostess, not a grieving widow.

I thought about the two men that had caused all this.

There were two men that did this. Two greedy men who pulled triggers and sprayed bullets and watched with probable glee as Dad fell to the ground a second time. His blood pooled while they collected his guns. Then they ran away, leaving behind a mess that would not be cleaned up for years, if ever.

This wasn’t a natural disaster, there was a responsible party. Did they—for even a second—give any thought to my father other than what they wanted from him? He was my dad. A husband, a son, a brother, an employer, a friend. Did they stop to imagine the impact of the loss of such a man? Or had they had ripped him away from this world without even bothering?

Every thought I had, I put towards the two men. The killers. I allowed myself the delicious luxury of anger towards two people whose names I did not know and whose appearances were a mystery to me. In that moment, I made them monstrously foreign. They weren’t human, they were faceless agents of a change I did not want. They deserved my scorn, my hatred, and whatever foul epithets I could conjure. Didn’t matter that I didn’t swear. The badge was already off and this was an exception. This was what the family of the murdered was supposed to do. Cuss up a storm. Get mad.

With eyes shut tight, I balled my left hand into a fist and slammed it into the frame of my closet.

wham!

“Those jerks.”

It was all I could think to say. I imagined that somewhere, somehow the killers heard my insult. Even through the tears, I smiled faintly in recognition of the absurdity of the notion. Not only was my communication, at best, psychic in nature, but my insult was embarrassingly pathetic. I’d used stronger language taking out the trash.

I raised my head up and looked into the closet and saw the clothes and the shoes and the spare bicycle parts. And I stopped crying.

I didn’t have it in me anymore. I allowed myself one, sweet, ridiculous moment of anger and then it just left. Like a passing car disappearing from view. I could feel the vacancy in my mind and soul and the swiftness of the transition startled me enough I wondered if it was even real.

My heart still thudded hard with grief and the magnitude of my loss still threatened to tip me back into a state of despair, but now no hatred or anger grew out of it. Those coarser feelings had been taken from me—and that was a gift. A gift born of experience—of the first shooting; of long talks with Dad on the route; of bad, morbid jokes; and of ten months as a missionary with total, eschatological concentration.

People always wondered why Dad wasn’t angrier towards the first shooters and how he could be so matter-of-fact about it all, but in that moment I think I finally understood. There were so many other, more important things to worry about. It didn’t seem natural to hold onto bitterness and spend my energies on negative feelings that would only perpetuate the more I indulged them. The killers had enough power already. They had taken my father. They didn’t get to have my mind and heart as well.

My body went limp and I had to catch myself from falling. Something new was happening—something I’d been waiting for since the moment Grandpa first told me Dad had been shot. The warmth was back. It spread from inside my chest outwards and enveloped me completely. I felt—of all things—a searing gratitude that burned away the last vestiges of destructive thoughts and feelings within me.

I thought about the killers again. They deserved my pity. They weren’t faceless agents of change, they were people. Children of God.

One day, they would remember that. We were brothers. Before this world began, we stood up for what was right and followed Christ—together. At one time, we shared the same hopes and dreams. But, somewhere along the way, they took a different path that led them to the Shop that night. Their dream of taking Dad’s guns away was a small one compared to the other, bigger dream tucked away inside of them. One day they would discover that their sin had eaten away at their hope and destroyed their dream.

That would be a very bad day indeed. What could be worse than to fall and know precisely how far—to look up from the bottom of a pit and see no one standing at the edge? To know that you’d leapt in and not been pushed? There was not a more miserable state I could imagine. Least of all death. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like Dad had gotten the better end of the deal.

And yet that the killers had made a pit for themselves at all—even with a crime so terrible as murder—was a supposition on my part. God judged, not me. And God loved the killers and knew them, just as much as He knew and loved me. For that very fact alone, His judgment would have to be so utterly fair and just that my fist against the frame of the closet was as pointless and presumptive an act as I had ever committed. Trust in God’s judgment was a special kind of relief, a mercy not only for the killers, but for me as well.

I felt free. I stood still and silent and allowed the great burden of judgment to lift off of me. My every muscle relaxed, save one. My heart pounded with love and sadness for the two most unlikely and unknown people in my world. I didn’t think it possible, but I ached for my father’s killers.

Even so, I couldn’t deny what they had done. I stared downward again and shuddered, imagining Dad lying dead on the cold floor of the shop. I knew exactly what that scene looked like and the image haunted me. But, I forgave. It was the only thing left to do. Whatever anger I had felt or might later feel, I made the decision to set aside all ill thoughts towards the men that killed my father and forgive them.

A feeling of peace unlike any I had ever known before washed over me. It cleansed me. I wept more, harder—now with thankfulness and gladness that such feelings were even possible and that I was lucky enough to have them.

It was a small, quiet moment. Anyone looking at me would only have seen a half-dressed missionary staring intently at the carpet at his feet, but so much more than that was happening. It was the most important moment of my life up to that point, and I knew it.

My mourning refocused into a different direction. I felt empathy not only for my father’s killers, but most especially for all those who had not made a choice and yet had still been negatively impacted by the events of that night. Death had given one life conclusion, but it was hardly the end of all things.

I wiped my tears. There was work to be done.

Originally published on Facebook on 8/15/22