by Jim Bradford
I did most of the talking while HK added his commentary along the way. We talked about the first time we met, the reasons for his disabilities, the car wreck that claimed his mother’s life, being raised by his grandmother, and the lack of a male influence in his life until he met me.
It seemed that we covered most of the topics of interest, but I was concerned about the kind of response we received. I couldn’t help but notice the box of tissues being passed from one tearstained face to another. I remember thinking that after that kind of reception, we wouldn’t have to worry about being called to speak anywhere again.
A year and a half later, my office phone rang one morning with another unexpected speaking opportunity. One of HK’s former teachers and principal at the Tennessee School for the Blind, who was currently an adjunct professor at Nashville’s Trevecca Nazarene University, wanted HK to share his story with a class of future special education teachers.
Perched confidently on a tall wooden stool in front of a classroom of aspiring educators, HK shared his special education experience with the poise of a seasoned public speaker. He named specific teachers and told how they had helped him overcome his multiple limitations while encouraging him to be a better student. He named teachers, such as Phyllis Alfreda and Bill Schenk, who never once gave up on him. He emphasized patience as a key ingredient in developing self-esteem. He finished by telling this class of budding instructors the importance of just being a friend who believed in their students.
HK concluded by thoughtfully answering questions at a maturity level much greater than his seventeen years. At the end of his class presentation, the admiring audience offered gracious applause in recognition of his accomplishments and insightful perspective. Much to our surprise, a check appeared in my mailbox several weeks later, along with an invitation for a return engagement the next semester. This was the auspicious beginning of his budding career as a motivational speaker.
Franklin Road Academy, a prestigious private school in suburban Nashville, invited him to participate in Spiritual Emphasis Week. He spoke to a packed Wednesday afternoon assembly of three hundred grade-school students, parents, and teachers on the topics “Always Being the Best You Can Be” and “The Value of Friendships.”
He started this solo presentation by explaining his love of sports and how excellence in sports required confidence, energy, and the desire to work hard. Then he told about his life and constant struggles, especially in school. Wrapping up, he said, “My friend, Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Winter Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, told me that the only disability any of us has is a negative attitude. I’ve never had a negative attitude. I’ve always been blind and had cerebral palsy, and there is nothing I can do about it. But that’s okay because I rely on what the apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:13: ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me’ [NASB]. Therefore,” he concluded, “when I eventually realized that I do have quite a few physical capabilities, I chose to concentrate on those rather than my limitations. As a result, I have flown an airplane, driven a pontoon boat, and ridden horses.”
At the conclusion of his presentation, the entire assembled group of students and adults stood for a sustained thunderous ovation. I couldn’t help but notice numerous adults dabbing their tear-filled eyes with tissue. His professional résumé expanded when he received a $100 gift card to his favorite restaurant for this solo appearance.
Whether by word of mouth or as a result of past media coverage, HK’s incredible story of overcoming life’s challenges and our unusual friendship began to spread. Soon we received another Sunday school class invitation. This time our audience numbered more than one hundred, and we sat on two wooden stools in front of the room. Just as before, we told an unrehearsed version of our journey together and concluded with the same tear-jerking results.
News about our emotional story spread rapidly throughout Brentwood and beyond to groups desperately seeking an uplifting message. Within weeks opportunities to share our story appeared out of thin air as my telephone rang with more speaking invitations. Audiences wanted to hear more details about HK’s life, experience his remarkable gift with dates, and find inspiration in his triumphant story against tremendous odds. I understood that desire; it was rooted in the same elements that drew me to HK in the first place.
But I had serious concerns. As I pondered the effect of our previous talks, I told HK, “If we’re going to be motivational speakers and do it a lot, we need to make the audiences laugh rather than cry.” He understood completely. We started rehearsing our talks, and he caught on quickly. In fact, he remembered our script so well that we only had to run through it once before an appearance.
We added humor by allowing him to share outrageously exaggerated stories about his tryout experiences for high school sports. (Well, perhaps they were more than merely exaggerated. To be honest, they were outright tall tales, which he finally admits to the delighted audience.) One example of these tales is his story about how wildly excited he became after the annual Tennessee-Alabama football game, when the Crimson Tide pounded the Volunteers. He overheard a disgruntled Tennessee fan say, “Our quarterback must be blind. He can’t complete a pass.”
“Folks, that’s the greatest news I’ve ever heard!” HK deadpanned. “I’m blind, so if Tennessee’s quarterback is blind, I think I can probably play quarterback on my high school football team!” The audience howled.
Later he grew serious and talked openly about his disabilities and how they limited playing with “normal” children his age. He told audiences how lonely it was to do nothing but listen to his radio all day. He spoke about how, for so many years, teachers lacked confidence in his learning abilities and had given up hope for him ever to acquire a normal high school education. He finished by emphasizing the importance of never giving up on anyone, especially children with disabilities.
“If I can do all these things with my disabilities, then surely you can do them since most of you are not disabled.”
Occasionally the effects of the cerebral palsy acted in the typical way, causing HK’s body to become so tense that HK needed to pause a few seconds before he continued speaking. The audience didn’t mind one bit. It simply reinforced the day-to-day challenges that he has endured since birth.
Eventually our presentations evolved into a forty-five-minute pep talk from the tenacious little survivor. I found myself playing the straight man for his punch lines, Abbott to his Costello. We were a real comedic duo. Audience members clamored to meet him after every event, perhaps with a hidden desire to discover the weekday of their birth.
Most professional speakers I know admit to a case of the jitters before walking out to face a large, intimidating audience. But not HK; he simply says, “I’m blind and can’t see the audience, so why should I get nervous?” That makes perfect sense to me.
Today we get more speaking invitations than we can handle, though we accept as many as my work schedule allows. His simple, uplifting message and amazing life story continue to touch lives with every public appearance. Audiences just seem to connect with this little live wire and be drawn to him like a magnet. We have carried our message to schools, churches, corporations, and civic organizations, with our largest audience being four thousand students and faculty members at Nashville’s Lipscomb University. I suppose we can now both add “university lecturer” to our résumés.
When I think back on the incredible obstacles this amazing dynamo has overcome, I am simply awed by his accomplishments. Only a handful of years earlier he found it impossible to have a normal conversation. Now he speaks to thousands, spreading his message of hope and conquering adversity. This blessed irony is not lost on me.
CHAPTER 31
The Flood
Spring arrived like a lamb in 2010. The big April warm-up, along with a normal three and a half inches of rain, created an explosion of color overnight. Trees transformed into translucent green wonders while wildflowers and their domesticated brethren emerged i
nvigorated from their quiet winter’s respite. When I slowed my frantic pace long enough to notice this miraculous annual event, I was reminded of why I love living in middle Tennessee, with its four distinct seasons.
Out-of-town guests arrived at our house on Friday, April 30, longtime family friends from Abilene, Texas. Since we had visitors, HK would stay home with Pearl that Saturday night. I would pick him up Sunday morning for church, and he would have lunch with all of us. The weekend weather forecast called for mostly rain, so we weren’t surprised when a light mist began falling on Friday night.
Brenda was up early Saturday morning concocting a country breakfast of sufficient proportions to impress our Texas guests. To her it was simply a matter of Southern pride. By now the overnight drizzle had turned into a steady downpour. We thought little of it, thinking it was typical “April showers, May flowers” kind of weather. We ate a leisurely breakfast, enjoyed catching up on each other’s families, and reminisced about our past glory days.
Ironically, my friend commented about the increasing rainstorm just seconds before a weather alert crawled across the kitchen television screen. I turned up the volume in time to hear flash flood warnings for Nashville and nearby areas of middle Tennessee. He pulled up a weather app on his smartphone showing heavy rain cells just west of Brentwood that were moving slowly in our direction. Breakfast table conversation quickly turned from family to the menacing weather.
Throughout most of the year, the Little Harpeth River gently meanders behind the houses directly in front of us. Rarely does it ever swell out of its banks—in fact, only once in the thirty-six years since we’ve lived here. Nevertheless, according to FEMA, our house on its corner lot was officially located within a flood plain.
Saturday noon found the streetside drainage ditch in front of our house overflowing into the street. As a precaution, I moved our vehicles to higher ground. By one o’clock our entire front yard was underwater, and the driving rain had not let up. Brenda suddenly yelled from another part of the house, “There’s water coming through the walls of the rec room!” I rushed in to find a foot of rising water filling our lower-level rec room. We had just begun to manhandle furniture when we heard a nearby siren and saw firefighters wading through knee-deep water in our backyard. Peering out the back door, we could clearly see flames shooting from the next-door neighbor’s house.
Within minutes the rising floodwaters submerged our central air-conditioning unit, causing a short-circuit explosion. Our electricity was gone, but fortunately we escaped with no fire. Other neighbors were not so lucky. Electrical explosions, sometimes accompanied by rolling flames, periodically pierced the steady drumbeat of rainfall throughout the neighborhood that afternoon. Firefighters extinguished the fire next door and hurried to the next residence engulfed in flames. We watched two elderly neighbors be rescued by boat, as the water in our rec room approached two feet deep. Finally, at exactly 4:47 p.m., we were all given five minutes to evacuate our house.
On that Saturday, May 1, 2010, Pearl was not scheduled for her normal Saturday shift at Mrs. Winner’s. Instead, she drove HK to exercise therapy, and afterward they returned home in the torrential downpour. They had little interest in Saturday morning television until the Nashville stations interrupted their weekend programming for live news coverage of dramatic high-water rescues, fires raging out of control, and untethered structures floating down the interstate highway. Even then Pearl was not overly concerned about rising floodwater in her neighborhood.
Brenda and I and our Texas guests took refuge two blocks away at a friend’s house that was unaffected by the relentless waters. Worried, I called HK at 5:15 p.m. to let him know we were safe but had to evacuate. I wanted to ease my mind about his and Pearl’s safety. Pearl explained that they had no significant water problems, adding, “We’ve occasionally had some standing water during heavy rains, but we’ve never had any flooding problems even though the house sits in a designated flood plain.” When I spoke with HK, I could tell that he was beside himself with anxiety and terribly distressed at hearing news about our flooded house. Before hanging up, he told me he loved me—twice.
The incessant rainfall continued Saturday night and early Sunday morning, alternating between sprinkles and downpours. By mid–Sunday morning the clouds parted, the sun emerged, and the furious deluge slowly began to recede. By seven o’clock Sunday night I was able to wade through knee-deep water in my backyard and look inside our house for the first time. It was not a sight I ever want to see again. Water stood nearly two feet deep in the rec room as furniture and other lifelong keepsakes floated in the muddy mess. Harpeth River Drive remained underwater and impassible, so cleanup efforts had to wait. All flights in and out of the Nashville airport were canceled, so our Texas guests remained at our friend’s house with us until early Tuesday morning when the first flight departed for Dallas.
With the rain slowing, Pearl and HK left their house Sunday morning and headed toward Brentwood and her scheduled Mrs. Winner’s shift. But they didn’t get very far. There were only two routes to the interstate, and both were barricaded and under high water. “I won’t be there today,” she informed her manager after the return trip home. They closed themselves in the house and watched the sinister waters continue to rise.
On-duty staff at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District had no reason to think this two-day epic rainfall would present major problems for their water management office. The Corps of Engineers rely on a series of aging federal dams to balance multiple competing interests, including drinking water systems, barge traffic, power plants, and recreation, among many others. This U.S. Army command is charged with delicately equalizing these needs while protecting the public through a system designed for flood control. Experts within the water management office made critical decisions on the amount of water to release and maintain within each of the ten dams along middle Tennessee’s Cumberland River. Their 1:00 p.m. Saturday, May 1, 2010, decision to open spillways at Old Hickory Dam, twenty-five miles upstream, would forever change the face of downtown Nashville and Pearl Derryberry’s corner of the world.
I called to check on Pearl and HK several times Sunday, and each time she reported the water getting a little higher, even as clouds disappeared and the sun shone brightly for hours. First it was, “It’s at our backyard fence.” The next report was grimmer: “It’s getting closer to our front steps.” Pearl now knew it was just a matter of time before they, too, had to evacuate.
She contacted HK’s school to see if their residential student cottages might be available for him. They were. At 9:45 p.m., with ankle-deep water licking at her truck tires, Pearl gathered William, HK, the walker he used at the school for his independence, their medicines, plus a few clothes and drove the back roads to get HK settled into a school cottage for the evening. Then she and William drove to north Nashville to stay with her friends. They could only offer enough room for two people, one in a recliner and the other on the couch.
On Monday morning her cell phone rang with an unexpected call from school. Flooding had shut down its aging water system, thus requiring students from around the state to be returned home. Pearl was forced to bring HK along to her friend’s house. She broke the news to William that he would need to make other living arrangements, and then she picked up HK at school on the way to an abbreviated shift at the Hermitage Mrs. Winner’s location. After she worked a few hours, they drove back to have a look at their East Nashville neighborhood.
Topping the hill on Electric Avenue, Pearl stopped suddenly and burst into tears. She could not believe her eyes. It took a full minute before she was finally able to describe the scene to her grandson. Her house of twenty-four years sat in the middle of a small lake. Water spilled over the street and barricades, blocking all traffic. Even from this distance she could see the floodwater resting a foot above the bottom of her front door. Dark with no electricity and lifeless with no people around, the neighborhood looked like a ghost town. They were both de
vastated.
Brenda and I were without a house only a few weeks until electricity was restored. Summer was now in full throttle, growing hotter by the day. Heating and air-conditioning contractors were slammed, and waiting lists for replacement units grew to astronomical lengths. As the water began to recede, we started ripping up mud-soaked carpet and tearing out wet drywall, paneling, and insulation in the lower-level rec room. Up and down our street, dumpsters in driveways sprouted up like weeds and soon overflowed with waterlogged furniture, carpet, wallboard, insulation, and all sorts of ruined personal belongings.
Fortunately we had flood insurance. FEMA representatives stayed in touch with us weekly. We found a capable remodeling crew who took the next five months putting our house back in good shape. Long weekends at the lake allowed us to relax and decompress while keeping us out of the way of busy workers. I would not want to relive the experience of this disastrous flood, but for my family it wasn’t that bad. We considered ourselves much more fortunate than scores of others in and around Nashville.
Meanwhile, hordes of volunteers converged on the city with recovery efforts that far exceeded the historic flood’s devastation. An army of volunteers from Harpeth Hills and other area churches swarmed to East Nashville and Electric Avenue. Dozens of hot, sweaty workers descended on Pearl’s house from first light until nightfall, sorting through a lifetime of memories while ripping out flood-soaked walls.
The uncontrolled floodwaters caused physical damage totaling into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and to the thousands of people affected, they inflicted emotional suffering beyond measure. With her house filled with a foot of water, Pearl was a victim on both counts. The struggling life she endured caring for her special needs grandson collided with the flood’s aftermath and propelled her into an emotional abyss. She simply could not process the abrupt and devastating personal loss. Although Pearl did have flood insurance, she was stuck emotionally in a neutral gear and found it impossible to make decisions or delve into the complex process necessary to get the recovery ball rolling. She told me, “I’m a cluttered person, and a lot of my stuff got thrown away.” My guess is that she was probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
