CHAPTER 8
Search the Everyday Objects Around You
WE JUST SAW how Jim’s word picture brought a dramatic halt to his wife’s critical words. It’s now time to read the rest of the story.
The day after Jim spoke with Camila, he couldn’t wait to call our office and boast about the changes in their marriage. For weeks afterward, we heard his glowing reports about how Camila was making an all-out effort to take the sharp edge off her words and tone of voice.
Just as we were preparing to recommend them for a congressional citation for “Most Dramatic Turnaround,” Jim showed up unexpectedly at our office when John was at a conference. Jim’s eyes and nonverbal actions screamed that something was bothering him. I (Gary) offered him a cup of coffee, which he politely but firmly refused.
“Gary, I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes if I can,” he said.
No sooner had I ushered him into my office and shut the door than he verbally pounced on me.
“Thanks a lot,” he said. “You know your word picture method has really helped us. For the first time in years, I feel Camila understands me. She’s made some dramatic improvements this past month. She’s even telling me things she appreciates about me instead of criticizing me.”
Jim paused, as if waiting for me to say something.
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad!” I replied, hoping this was all that was coming but knowing it wasn’t.
“Yeah, well that’s only part of the story,” he said. “A week ago, Camila asked if she could share a word picture with me. What she said stunned me so badly it brought tears to my eyes, and I still haven’t gotten over it.
“I don’t know how I’ve missed the problem for so many years. But now I understand what’s been at the heart of her frustration with me. It makes perfect sense! Now I can see why she’s been on my case so much.
“Let me tell you,” Jim said, shaking his head. “I’ve had some kind of a week mulling things over. That word picture stays with me night and day, and it beats me up emotionally whenever I think about it.”
Straightening in his chair and looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “I thought you were my friend, Smalley. Thanks a lot!”
By focusing on an area of Jim’s interest and choosing the best time to talk, Camila had turned the tables on Jim. The hunted became the hunter, and she had lined up in her sights a blind spot in Jim’s life.
Jim went on to recount the word picture his wife had given him, drawn from the search field of everyday objects.
As I listened to the story, my eyes were opened to an overlooked issue in my own marriage. Like Jim, I wasn’t consciously trying to cause problems at home. However, I was consistently robbing Norma and myself of a richer, fuller relationship. I just didn’t realize it —until I heard this word picture intended for somebody else.
It’s been many years and hundreds of counseling sessions since Jim came by the office. But I can still remember what was said that afternoon, and for good reason. Camila’s word picture still has the same corrective effect on my marriage that it did the first time I heard it.
Setting the Stage
Late on a Sunday afternoon, Jim was out in the shop off the garage. Besides watching sporting events, he had two hobbies but not much time to spend on either one. The first was dining out at nice restaurants, which he would do nightly if they didn’t have to worry about paying off their charge-card bills. His other love was lying in pieces before him.
Like most young boys, Jim had gone through a model-building stage. He had just never gotten over it. Spread before him was his most ambitious project to date: a wooden model of a mid-1800s clipper ship, complete with slotted planks, three-foot masts, hand-tied rigging, and full sails yet to be cut.
With all the stress of teaching and coaching, Jim found that dining out and model building were two great ways to unwind. Knowing he was most open to talking while sitting at either a restaurant table or his hobby bench, Camila approached him in the shop.
“How’s this one coming?” she said, secretly hoping this latest model wouldn’t end up in their bedroom like so many others.
“Great!” he replied. “This will look perfect in the bedroom! I’ve got just the place picked out for it.” Wisely, she decided a discussion about which room would become a harbor for the clipper ship could wait until another time —and another word picture.
“Honey,” she said, “I wanted you to know again how much I appreciate the story you told me a while back. It really made sense, and I’ll try to be more encouraging.”
“Are you kidding?” Jim said, looking up from his ship. “You’ve been great these past couple of weeks. I know you’re really trying hard, and I appreciate it.”
Compliments from her husband had been on the endangered species list for some time. His flattering words surprised her so much, they not only warmed her heart but also caused her to blush. They gave her more courage, too, to go on with the word picture she had been practicing all week with another coach’s wife.
“Thanks, honey. It means a lot that you can see I’m trying. You know I came from a pretty critical family, and it’s easy for me to get that way with you.
“Jim, when you were telling your story, I not only understood it, but I felt as if I lived it. All my life I wanted to be loved and hugged by my father when I came home, but all I ever got was anger or neglect. I don’t want our home to be that way. I know I won’t be perfect, but I promise I’ll really work on what I say to you.”
“That’s great!” Jim said with a big smile, bending over his model ship and thinking word pictures were the greatest thing since chocolate ice cream.
“But Jim,” Camila continued, “could I talk to you about something?”
“Sure, fire away.”
“I’d like to share a word picture of my own that expresses how I’m feeling about our relationship.”
Inside Jim’s mind, a little alarm sounded. He glanced over at his cell phone, hoping it would ring to his rescue. He even glanced around for the boys, who were always doing something semi-destructive to the house or each other. Running after them had saved him from more than one serious conversation. But Camila had picked her time well.
Reluctantly, he shrugged his shoulders. “Sure,” he said, leaning back on his bench and falling into a life-changing word picture.
More Than Leftovers
Ignoring “that look” on Jim’s face, Camila took a deep breath and began speaking. “Honey, you’re a really hard worker. That’s why you always stay up late grading papers, watching game films, or doing something else important. What that all means is that by the time you come to bed, you’re worn out.
“Because you get so little sleep, you can barely get out of bed the next morning. But there’s something that always succeeds in getting you into the shower and out the door, and that’s your three-cheese omelet and cup of coffee.”
Jim had to smile. The diner, where all the varsity coaches met, served an outstanding breakfast.
“I’d like to tell you a story I made up about your day,” she began. “After a few hours’ sleep, you head off for breakfast and have the time of your life with the other coaches. You talk about some new trick play you’re going to run in the next game, what the new school board superintendent will decide about overtime pay, or how much better the game was when you all were playing. Things like that.”
It’s all true so far, Jim had to admit to himself.
“I’m not exactly sure what you order, but I’ll bet you have your favorite omelet, with sliced avocados on the side, accompanied by homemade honey-wheat toast smothered with butter and preserves. Oh, and I almost forgot, you probably top it off with a tall glass of ice-cold milk and a small glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Am I pretty close?”
Camila was making educated guesses based on the hundreds of breakfasts she had seen him eat. She could see by his enthusiastic response that his mind was drifting back to his favorite breakfast place.
“When your meeting is over, you all slap each other on the back and then argue about who’s paying the bill. But before you go out to the car, you do something different: You ask the man behind the counter for a paper sack. Then you return to the table, pick a few pieces of egg and toast from your plate, and drop them into the sack. You put the sack into your Nike tennis bag —the one you carry instead of a briefcase —and head off to school.”
Until the part about the sack and leftovers, Jim had been right with her. Now his mind was racing to figure out what significance a paper sack could have in her word picture. However, before he could ask any questions, she went on.
“All morning you teach history, which you enjoy. And before you know it, it’s time for lunch. Because your office is over in the field house, you and the other coaches go off campus to your favorite lunch place. There, you order a turkey tenderloin pie, its flaky, homemade crust filled with chunks of white meat, the freshest of vegetables, and a creamy white sauce. Of course, it wouldn’t be lunch if you didn’t have their 50-item salad bar on the side and a huge glass of brewed ice tea.
“You all have a great time talking sports and telling jokes. Then, just as you did after breakfast, you ask for a small sack when you’re finished. The waitress brings it to the table, you drop in little bits of leftovers, and then you place it in your Nike bag before heading back to school.
“After a long afternoon of teaching algebra, it’s back to school for football practice. Afterward, it’s late in the afternoon, and you’ve still got things to talk about, so you guys all drop by the ice cream parlor next to the mall.
“You have a brief struggle with your calorie-counting conscience, but when the waitress comes, you order their chocolate tower sundae —the one with four scoops of premium ice cream and ladles of hot fudge and butterscotch toppings. On the side, you get a small cup of crushed almonds and a Diet Pepsi. Of course, you get the diet drink because it cancels out the calories in the ice cream,” she said with a grin.
“Of course,” Jim said, grinning back. That was one of his standard jokes when he bellied up to the ice cream trough.
“And for the third time, you gather up what’s left on the table. You scrape off some whipped cream and toppings, and some of the melted ice cream and nuts. Then you dump it all into a sack and put it in your tennis bag.”
Not only was Jim getting hungry listening to her story, but he was puzzled trying to figure out what she was getting at. Why did I have to tell her how to create word pictures in the first place? he grumbled to himself. Finally, he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.
“Are you trying to tell me I’ve got so many food stains on my old Nike bag that it’s time to buy a new one?” Jim asked with a hopeful smile. “Or are you hinting that you want me to take you out for dinner tonight?”
It was a feeble attempt to speed things up or at least break some of the tension building inside him. Unfortunately, his smoke screen didn’t work.
“Now, come on. Let me finish,” Camila said. “I’m almost through. All day, while you’ve been at work, I’ve been wanting to have you near me. I think about getting to go somewhere together where we can sit and catch up on everything. But it’s not just me. The boys love you so much and want to be a part of your life, too.
“Well, after waiting for you all day, we finally hear the garage door open. We’re so eager for you to spend time with us that we line up at the back door. Maybe you’ll even take us out to a nice dinner where we can all talk and laugh and get to know each other better.
“And then the door opens, but you don’t stop to talk or fill us in on the things that happened in your day. You just walk by and hand the boys and me a doggy bag each. And then you walk over and turn on the television or come out here to your hobby bench. Instead of getting to enjoy a real meal together with you, we’re left standing at the door, holding these soggy, smashed doggy bags.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to have a hobby, Jim. That’s not why I’m telling you this. You need time to unwind and relax, and I want that for you. But all day, the kids and I have longed to be with you. We’ve waited to find out what’s going on in your life —and for you to ask what’s going on in ours. But you’ve already spent the day with the people who are most important to you —your players and the other coaches. So instead of giving us your best when you come home, all we get are leftovers.
“I think that’s the reason I’ve felt so cheated in our relationship over the years and why I’ve been so critical of you during football seasons. Growing up, I remember how my mother was always so hungry for meaningful communication with my dad. And now I’m standing at the door of my marriage, just as she did, waiting to enjoy a satisfying meal with you, hoping for time to talk and laugh and get to know you, longing to communicate the way you do every day with the guys. The boys and I all want that, but all we get are doggy bags. Honey, don’t you see? We don’t need leftovers. We need you.”
The last thing I had expected to run into that afternoon was a word picture, particularly one that stopped me dead in my tracks. When Jim finished telling it, he wasn’t the only one with tears in his eyes. I knew I couldn’t escape the message it carried for my life as well.
Because of my travels and all the hours spent helping other people, my schedule was probably twice as crowded as Jim’s. Just like him, I was giving my wife and children table scraps on nights and weekends instead of a nourishing meal of emotional attachment. Deep inside, I knew it. And Norma and the kids knew it.
That evening when I went home, things began to change around my house, as they had in Jim’s. I told Norma the word picture I’d heard, and her response confirmed we had a problem.
In the weeks that followed, I couldn’t walk in the door at night and head toward the television without realizing I was handing out little brown bags. I hated to admit it, but my couch-potato days were numbered.
Something else also changed as a result of that word picture. I called my supervisor at the time, telling him I needed to cut back my travel. Having been deeply challenged to spend more quality time with my family, I was prepared to look for another job if my company couldn’t change my job description. No matter what, I would find a job that didn’t rob my family of me.
A Picture of Hope in a Pit of Despair
Leftovers are just one of the thousands of everyday objects found in this second of five search fields. Look around the room you’re sitting in now. I (John) am looking at pencils, a commemorative coin, a small ceramic hippo one of our girls made when she was young, a letter opener, a miniature steering wheel clock, and an antique lamp . . . and that’s just in looking to my left.
Neuroscientists have estimated that out of all the neurons in your brain, hundreds of millions are devoted to visual processing of . . . you guessed it . . . pictures.[43] And if you remember from an earlier chapter, those pictures are embedded in our brain as “frames,” even if we’re sharing an emotional word picture instead of a real one.
But let’s get back to real pictures of objects around us. Not all images are just “everyday” in the sense of their meaning and strength to draw upon. For example, one man saw a picture that not only changed his life but also gave his sons a lifelong respect for him and his country.
Jerry is gone now. As are most of those he fought with. But on February 19, 1945, Jerry was very much alive. From the moment his landing craft ground to a halt, however, Jerry felt as if that wouldn’t be the case for long. He strongly felt he had arrived at the very gates of hell.
All around him was black volcanic ash that stung his eyes and wouldn’t brush off his skin. And the terrible sights and smells of death were everywhere.
Iwo Jima meant nothing to Jerry when he first heard the words. But five minutes on Iwo were enough for a 19-year-old in the Fifth Marine Division’s 28th Marines, tasked with isolating Mount Suribachi. The campaign would be 36 days of unrelenting battle. It was the only battle in which Marine casualties, 26,000, were greater than those of the Japanese, at 22,000. Sixty-eight hundred Marines died on that island —more than double the deaths in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Men fought and died for every inch of ground. The nightmare played out every day before his waking eyes.
The landscape was pockmarked with craters from the massive flotilla of warships that had pounded the island in advance of the Marines’ landing. However, the enemy had had nearly four months to choose its positions, so the nonstop bombardment had little effect. With so much time to prepare for the American invasion, the Japanese had every inch of beach covered with rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire.[44]
Jerry’s first hours on the beach were spent trying to dig a foxhole deep enough to escape the murderous fire raining down. However, the volcanic sand filled his hole as quickly as it was dug, leaving him exposed to the constant enemy fire. As the day became more hot and humid, Jerry threw off his poncho and field jacket. But the temperature dropped so radically after dark that he shivered all night in the cold.
It was a miracle, earned by blood and raw courage, that he and the other Marines ever fought their way off the beach. Nonetheless, their advance came at tremendous cost. Bodies from both sides lay torn and twisted beyond recognition, mute testimony to what was ahead.
When we talked with this veteran of three beach landings, his eyes filled with tears as he thought back to those horrible days. Time had dimmed some of the horrors he’d seen and heard, but five words a fellow Marine said to him were still as vivid as brilliant sunlight.
The date was February 21, 1945 —two days after the landing. Jerry had taken cover in a small crater formed by an exploding artillery shell. The shelling from back in the mountains had kept everyone awake almost all night. The morning had dawned with falling rain and a restless fog drifting in the distant, higher slopes. But when the skies cleared and the Japanese could pick out their targets, the artillery bursts were joined by small-arms fire.
Jerry had already given up all hope of getting off the island alive. Of the 14 men in his rifle section, only he and five others hadn’t been wounded or killed. In just two days, he had already seen far too much death. But its cruel hand was just beginning to strike: More Marines would die on Iwo Jima than on all the other battlefields they fought on in World War II, combined.[45] So many had died or been wounded around him already that he felt he had as much chance of living as keeping a soap bubble from bursting in the wind.
That’s when his corporal crawled up next to him and flashed him a grin. “You still alive, Jerry?” he said in his Southern accent, offering Jerry a swig from a priceless canteen of water. “We’re gaining on ’em, you know.”
“How do you know that?” Jerry answered with a thin smile. “Nobody came running up to me with a white flag last night.”
“Look here, son, I have it on good authority. Tomorrow you’ll see our boys on top of that hill. We’re going to make it.” Then he looked up at the fog-tipped volcano and spoke the words Jerry has never forgotten: “We’ll see the flag tomorrow.”
From the time the Marines first sighted Iwo Jima from the decks of their ships, they had been looking up at the highest point on the island. It was the top of Mount Suribachi, an extinct volcano. It was only 550 feet high, but the way death rained down from its steep, ragged slopes, it seemed more like Mount Everest. To have the American flag up there would mean that —at least from this hill —death would have lost its frightening foothold. It would also be the best sight any Marine had seen since he had landed.
As events turned out, Jerry wouldn’t see the flag for another two days. And his corporal would never see it. He was killed in action that night. But on February 23, 1945, the hill was taken.
As the Stars and Stripes flew above them for the first time, men all over the island stood and cheered, ignoring the risk of exposing their position.
When Jerry saw the flag, the words his corporal had spoken came back in full force. He never forgot them. “We’ll see the flag tomorrow.” Those same five words would give him strength to carry on during the next eight days until he was critically wounded and carried off the island.
“When I got off Iwo alive, I felt my life had been given back to me,” Jerry said. “You never forget something like that. In the years since, whenever I’ve had things go wrong, I remember my corporal’s words. When things look their toughest, I just think back and say to myself, ‘Hang in there, Jerry. We’ll see the flag tomorrow.’”
Over the years, in his times of deepest trial, Jerry remembered those words and always felt his spirits lift. He often used them with his sons, too. He would tell them, “We’ll see the flag tomorrow,” if they lost an important game, failed an exam, or broke up with a girlfriend. The phrase was always said with his arm around their shoulders, and it always gave them new hope for another day. It was like saying, “The sun’s going to come up tomorrow.” But somehow, it held even more meaning.
Jerry spent 11 days on Iwo Jima. He didn’t share all the horrors of war he saw. But he told his sons enough so that they carry around a piece of that forsaken island in their minds —the emotional word picture he took off “the rock.” Yet it was the hopeful “object” they remember much more than the terrible stories, which was what their father chose to focus on as well. Five hopeful words that spoke of a better day ahead and the courage to wait and live for it.
In the late 1960s, it became fashionable at many schools to burn American flags. But Jerry’s sons, who were college students during that time, wouldn’t participate. The flag flew too proudly and stood too personally in their lives. It not only symbolized for them a proud country, but it was also an intimate symbol of hope, courage, and endurance.
They couldn’t look at a flag without seeing what was behind it. In fact, they still can’t. The flag isn’t just a pattern of stars and stripes to them. It stands for their father who lived, and the many men who died, on battlefields such as Iwo Jima.
Using everyday objects to form a word picture may be just the thing that leaves a vivid, lasting impression in your listener’s heart.
Take a moment right now to reflect on your relationships. Is there someone you need to encourage who’s facing a difficult time? A word picture can help. Is there someone who’s getting further away from the family, and you want so much to bring him back? A word picture can help.
The search fields of nature and everyday objects are two places to look for pictures to help or bring hope. You can also look in another search field, that of imaginary stories.