You Can Call Me Al by Jeff Davis


Happy Wednesday, friends! Last week's featured author, Jeff Davis, stopped by the bar the other day and shared a little story with me that is inspiring, heartwarming and share-worthy. So I asked him if he wouldn't mind putting his words down and posting the little story on my blog. Here it is friends, sit back and relax and meet a man called Al. 

You Can Call Me Al

 

Looking back on the past year, I can see how much my life has been a whirlwind of random events: from a serious car accident, doing disaster recovery work for the victims of the Mississippi River flood late spring and most of the summer, to finally finishing and publishing Preying Angels and meeting a lot of great people along the way. All in all, I won't say the year was a success, but I can testify that it was never predictable.

I would have never imagined that during the year I would become better friends with a local contractor named Al. Al and I hit it off when we first met, but when I returned from nine months in Nashville, we really became close. During my roughest times he would encourage me and help me get through them. I don't remember ever telling him about Preying Angels and my desire to write and publish but it came out sometime last spring when I was still trying to polish, edit, and get everything together. He was a source of daily support. It was not uncommon for him to call out of the blue on the way to a construction site just to ask how Preying Angels was going and offer a word of encouragement. It always made me smile when I would be working away on the laptop and saw his name come up on caller ID.

We talked about everything from Preying Angels, deep sea fishing, to his love of airplanes and flying. Although he was very successful, he was humble about his accomplishments and more inclined to encourage me and tell me to use the gifts which God had given me. There were a lot of times during the work on Preying Angels and other things in my life that I wanted to just throw in the towel and give up. Al always happened to show up during those times and encourage me to keep going.

I published in the end of September, but sadly, Al didn't get to see Preying Angels published or call me with the words of encouragement that he always had. My friend Al died tragically in a motorcycle accident before I published.

I was lucky to have had Al support, what he called “my gifts”, whether it was writing a book or building bookshelves. I read a post on the Internet today about so many writers not having much, if any support from friends and/or family, so I am fortunate to have had Al and so many others before, during and since. I found out in the days after his death though that Al didn't only help me chase a dream, get through the rough times or laugh with me during the good, I learned Al had that effect on most of the people he knew. It was his amazing “gift” that he shared with me.

###

Thank you so much for sharing Al with us, Jeff!

What Jeff didn't include in his post is that Al's ring tone was none other than Paul Simon's “You Can Call Me Al.” In honor of Jeff's good friend, I say we all lift our glasses to not only Al, but to those in our lives that support us throughout our endeavors. For me, I'm blessed to have many supporters within my circles of family and friends, but there are a select few that go over and above the call of duty, you know who you are, I raise my Scotch to you. 🙂