WWJD
Now comes a story that is actually happy and is one I wish I could focus on more often. One day my father and I were in the living room playing a fishing game together on our Super Nintendo. The year was 2000 and he was in a stage of recovery from alcoholism and was trying to be a better man for his family despite his crippling addiction. As a solution and a way to get by, he turned to religion and put his family first during these times. In regards, when WWJD, What Would Jesus Do, bracelets became popular in early 2000's, my father bought one for himself and all of us kids. He would reference this bracelet and the underlying message the day we played the Nintendo together.
We were in the middle of the fishing game and it was my father's turn and he was at the point where he hooked one of the largest and most coveted catfish. The way the game works is that you cast out your line with bait and then slowly reel it in as fish pass by in an attempt to lure, hook, and reel in your catch. After he successfully cast the line he started to reel it back to the boat when one of the largest fish in the game passed by. So my father slowly reeled in his line and by fortune the fish followed and took the bait successfully hooking it. The next act was commendable in my eyes in that he saw my excitement about catching the fish and he handed the controller over to me so that I could catch the fish myself. This was essentially the same as a father allowing his son to catch a fish in their childhood fishing trips and again I was unsure why my father did that. After I reeled in the fish it broke the record for being the largest caught. I turned to my dad and asked "Why did you let me reel it in." He said "because it was the right thing to do." He then pointed to his WWJD bracelet and said "What would Jesus do." A simple saying but a powerful message that shone a little bit of positivity in my darkened youth.