never can't.

Never say “I can’t.” Don’t dare. Childhood with a determined father implanted an illustrious fear of the hopeless saying in my mouth. Dries up just thinking about it. There is, within most of us, an inaccurate disbelief in what is possible for the self to accomplish. Growing up, I required particular attention to rectify my own distorted limitations. I like to defend my instinctive doubts, pointing to the memory of my parents giving my older sister the book The Little Engine that Could, while they presented me with The Little Red Caboose. But there is probably no true depth of meaning in that seemingly prophetic Christmas. I just didn’t think I was able. And my father disagreed.

One winter afternoon the wood needed to be split. Wouldn’t fit into the stove otherwise. Chop to it, twelve year-old me. Nine minutes and ten cold fingers in—“Dad, I can’t do this. It’s too…”

“Never say, ‘I can’t.’” The eyes shot the rest of the excuse out of me. The tone got my immediate respect which I would refuse to show. But the unwarranted belief in my abilities was the push—shoved my stubborn feet back out the door. The deluded man really thought I could do this. I’d show him. Once I froze out there with an ax lodged in my leg, he’d be sorry.

Of course, I accomplished the wood-splitting. No one really wants to die of hypothermia and an ax wound. Not even to prove a point. He came out before I was finished, partly to help, but mostly, I figured, to relish in his rightness.

“I knew you could do it. I am really proud of you and I appreciate your help.”

“Yeah…well, sure…whatever.” My pride twisted in a state of contradictory, distasteful satisfaction. Under the breath—“could have died out here” mumblings and so forth. I skulked away uncertain who lost and who won.

He believed there was a strength in me which I would almost rather die than admit to. I would not see it for my limited, selfish vision. I believed he demanded too much. He believed I could. I can.

A few months down the road of my adolescent life. Middle of a work day out in the woods. Distracted me lost a valuable tool in the creek pool. Find it. Can’t move on until it’s found.

“Fine, fine, I’ll get it.” Poking about the water’s edge with a stick for thirty minutes rendered no retrieved tool. The returned father gawked at the inefficiency before him. What on earth? This was trying to find it?

“I can’t, dad. This water is muddy and…”

“Never, ever,” here he picked up little me, “say ‘I can’t!’” And in the creek I went. Astonished, gasping, and filled with a profound respect that leaked onto my stubborn face. Need it be said? The tool was quickly located.

Impossibilities, to him, existed only within the boxes we chose to think and do inside of. Don’t poke around the banks. Wade out to the deep places.

More years later than I gladly admit to, the never-can’t ideology still wins me my sweetest victories. Also gets me into some of the stupidest problems. The situations where I can truthfully think, “If I died now, no one would know for days.” But those are what, after the right dosage of time, I tell around the campfires—my most glorious adventures.

The storm is rolling in. I run up to the mountain peak anyway. The job is harder than the compensation is worth. I stick it out regardless, feeding off potatoes and courage. The stinging nettles and mosquitoes have established dominion over the trail. But I hike it until the soles of my shoes fall off. The homeless man doesn’t speak sense and I am lost on what to do. I shall smile and listen to him, in spite of my helplessness.

I can.

The people cry for what is so hard before them. I cry too. But I won’t be thrown in the creek. I will run into it myself now.

Here’s to a father who forced me out of the typical scope of human possibility. Here’s to the many dreams I have realized because I refused to say, “I can’t.” Here’s to a world where excuses cease, and brave souls press forward because it is difficult. Wouldn’t want to miss the memory of determination, nor the sensation of being wrong about what you thought you couldn’t do.

We can.