A Conversation with the Wonderful Greg Stephens

About Greg Stephens

I told you earlier that I went and cleaned up all those personal relationships. Well, I called my mom and told her what I was going to do. She started laughing. She goes, what do you mean you're going to go clean up relationships? And I told her and she said, I want to hear the stories. So, my mom was my biggest cheerleader.

She would sit there and, uh, I'd tell her a couple stories. And, uh, if I hadn't had a conversation in a while, she'd call me up. She'd say, still working on that list? I'd say, yeah, mom, I just haven't run into anyone. So fast forward, two and a half years later, I called my mom, I said, mom, I'm going to have my next to my last conversation tomorrow in Houston with my old boss.

And she said, call me as soon as you're done. Because she knew the background on this with my boss. And she knew it may be a real difficult one. So, it went really well. My boss, was so happy that I brought it up. He said he really respected me. I went out to the parking lot, called her up and said, It went great.

Here's how it went. She goes, I'm so happy for you. And, who's your last one with? I said, it's dad. And she said, Oh no, you don't. Now, she has been a yes for two and a half years. She's never said no. She's my biggest cheerleader. And my mom and dad had the best relationship I've ever seen. They were a team, but mom knew I couldn't have this conversation with dad in a go well.

I said, Mom, you know I have to do this. I can't be a hypocrite in front of people, Uh, and ask them to have these conversations if I'm not going to. I saved it for last because I know how hard it's going to be. And my mom said, Son, those people don't know your dad. I'll never see you again. But she was serious.

Now let me give you a little background on my father. When I was very young, my father was a hellraiser. And then when I was four years old, my dad went off to Vietnam. My dad came back when I was five, a very different man. About a year after my dad got back, his life completely changed and he, the pendulum swung to, my dad became an old time Southern Baptist.

Hellfire and brimstone, walking up and down the aisle, screaming preacher. Now some of you know what I'm talking about, some of you don't have a clue. My dad was almost cultish though. We lived in some really small towns in East Texas. One town we lived in, nearest grocery store, was in a little town called Nacogdoches, about 20 miles away.

And Nacogdoches had a public library. My dad would go into the Nacogdoches public library, check out books and records, and burn them on the steps of the Nacogdoches public library. That's who my dad was. When I decided to go to college, I've been on my own since I was 17. When I decided to go to college, I decided to go to Baylor University.

Back to school, you'd think my dad would be happy. My dad was so upset that I had picked Baylor because he felt it was too wild. Now, if you know anything about Baylor, it's not wild at all. And, just kind of add a cherry to the top to kind of give you some idea. My junior year, my dad called me. They were living outside of Marshall, Texas.

He said, Son, you need to come home this weekend. Middle of the semester. I said, Dad, I'm not coming home. It's the middle of the semester. What's going on? He said, Well, we're meeting with a lawyer on Saturday. Why are you meeting with a lawyer? We're disowning your sister. We're doing some paperwork. Back up.

Paperwork. I'm disowning my sister. What's going on? Dad said, Well, we found out Wendy's been dating this guy who has a terrible reputation and it's getting serious. And he drinks beer and alcohol, and you know we can't have that in the family. Well, at Baylor I've become quite the partier. So I wasn't going to talk about my alcohol consumption, but I felt like I owed it to my sister to try to go down and help her out.

So, and she's three years older than me, not asking them for anything. But I go down, make the six hour trip down there, talk them out of it. But how safe do you think it was for me to talk about my life with my dad now? It wasn't, I'll be honest with you. I was never going to do it anyway. I wasn't close to my dad.

I didn't like my dad. I didn't really care if we ever had anything to talk about. And so, I was never gonna have this. Now fast forward to me cleaning up these relationships. That's where we are. So I said, Mom, you know I have to. She got really quiet. She said, I know how I raised you. She said, If it helps, let your dad know I've known the entire time.

It's the only thing she kept from dad that I love to party. And I told her, always told her. And she said, I said, Mom, I'm not going to throw you under the bus. She said, If it keeps you in my life, let him know. I said, Well, give him the phone. Never talked to my dad. He got on the phone. I said, Hey, it's your son.

Hey. I said, Dad, I bought a home in Austin and sold it. He never even saw it. Uh, in two weeks, my roommate's going to be gone for an entire week. I said, why don't you come in and we'll have the entire house to ourselves, let's get to know each other because we haven't spent any time together. And he lit up, he said, oh I'd love to.

So two weeks later, that car pulls in in the morning, uh, on a Monday morning, my stomach just starts doing 360s. I thought, calm down, I'll have the conversation tonight. So he comes in, it's awkward, we don't even know how to talk about anything, it gets so awkward he goes, well I'm going to go up and look in your attic.

So he goes rummaging around in the attic, and I'm sitting there going, Why did I even do this? And he, and I'm in the living room, and he comes out of it, and he turns into the kitchen, and it hits me. I forgot to get something out of the fridge. And I hear the fridge open, and I hear this scream, Who's beer is this in here?

You shouldn't have a roommate that drinks! And when he yelled, I was five years old again. And that little kid nearly blamed it on... My roommate. But before I could get it out of my mouth, my dad said, You don't let alcohol pass the plane of your front door. I taught you better than this. I'll stay an extra day and when he gets here, we'll kick him out together.

I said, Calm down. He said, I'm not going to calm down. I said, Dad, that's my beer. Sit down. I need to tell you something. Folks... I proceeded to tell my father everything I had ever done. The things you would never tell the most liberal parent in the world, let alone the most conservative. I'm just never going here again.

And after about 15 minutes, my dad said, STOP! But he was crying, folks. He was in tears. And he looked at me, he said, Son, I know what you're doing, I will always love you, but I do not like you, I do not like the man you've become, you're a hypocrite and a liar, and I don't care if I ever see your face again.

And folks, when he said that, something in me snapped, and I had what's called a repressed memory. And I had overheard my mom and sister years ago talking about something my dad had done his entire life that he preached against. And in that moment, I nearly said, I'm the hypocrite, you're the hypocrite.

What do you think would have happened had I thrown that out to him? We would have gotten that downward spiral. But something stopped me. And I thought, what is it I really want? And at that moment, I thought, I want to hurt him really bad because I was hurt, but I knew that wasn't what I really wanted. I stuck with the question.

I couldn't remember any of my training, but it hit me. In that moment, What I really wanted was a real relationship with my dad that a little boy had never had. What did I want for him? I wanted my dad to see me for who I was, not the things I'd done in life. What did I want for our relationship? I would like it to heal.

And what did I want for our family? I wanted a close knit family. Once I got my motives in the right place, the next question came. What's my role? Dad was right. I was a hypocrite. Many times we'd be in someone's house. We'd come out. And I'd say, did you see they had wine on the side over there, they had beer in a trash can.

Acting like I didn't do it, throwing him off my set. Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person act like my father's acting? Because from his belief system right now, in this moment, he feels like a failure as my father and as my minister. And what do I do right now to move toward what I really want?

My brain came on and then rather than being after the conversation, This is what came out of my mouth. It was nothing like I had practiced. I said, Dad, you're right. I'm a hypocrite. To you. Mom knows what I do. Wendy, my sister, knows. All my friends know I love to party. I live my life out in the open, but I've hid it from you because I was worried you would want to disown me.

That's not what I want. You've always been a man of your word. You said you'd stay a week. You just got here. Would you give me just three more days, but if you stay those three days, we have to talk about everything we've kept from each other. So if we never see each other again in this lifetime, at least we will know who we were to each other.

And my dad's still crying, stands up, puts his hands on his hips, he goes, I'll give you the three days. It's not gonna do anything. I never want to see you again after that. I can't look at you right now. You make me sick. Turns around, walks out, slams the door. So how was that for a crucial conversation?

Didn't go the way I wanted it. And I sat there for nearly two hours while he left and just tried to calm down. I'm shaking. I don't know what to do. Two hours later, he walks in, slams the door. Okay, let's do this talking thing. There's my, there's my, uh, uh, audience, right? But we sat down, and folks, we started to really talk for the first time in our lives.

And you know what we started to do? We started to fill this pool of meaning. In a way that I can't tell you, and my dad opened up to me about things. He told me things about Vietnam that he never told even mom or anyone else. And folks, it wasn't things he had done, but it was things he had seen. And that's the first time I understood post traumatic stress disorder.

Real clear. But you know what? He got to see how that affected me as a kid and growing up. All of a sudden, first time in my life, I connected with my dad. And I couldn't believe it. Through the evening, we stayed up late talking. Next day, all day long, we just talked. And I got closer and closer and closer.

Day three, I can't tell you what it was like. I thought there was no way this could ever happen. And I went to bed that night going, Man, this is great. Wake up the next morning, come out of my room, and my dad standing at the door with his luggage, his whole attitude reverted back to day one. He said, I told you I was leaving after three days, I'm ready to go.

And my heart sunk. And I walked him out, he throws his luggage in the trunk, closes it, turns, looks me dead in the eye, says nothing, gets in his car, He drives away and he dies three years later. Now why do I share that story at the end of this class? I'm not on the line for your crucial conversations. You are.

I was on the line for mine and in that moment I knew I had done the best I could but it was no solace for the pain I felt no matter how much I did. But I also found out folks, you have no idea what can happen in your life When you begin to respectfully speak your truth. Cause that car stopped about halfway down the street.

It sat there a second. Dad backs up, pulls in, jumps out. He's crying. He bear hugs me. He says, Son, I love you and I like you. I like the man you've become. He said, Honestly, I wanted you to be a preacher. You like to party way too much for that. He said, I'll always be on you about the alcohol. Cause you know it ruined my family.

He said, Dad, you never even talked about your dad being an alcoholic. Until this week. He said, can we start this relationship you're talking about? Once you get, three days ago it's a conversation, now it's a relationship. I said, what do you want? He said, come see me in two weeks. And I knew what he meant because when I went home, I only spent time with mom.

I said, dad, I'll come see you in two weeks. Two weeks later, walk in the door, they're living in Dallas at this point. Walk in the door, first thing he said, you're not still drinking beer, are ya? Now people go, where's your buttons? I was button free. I walked up to him, I hugged him, he kind of went back. I said, Dad, I get how painful your childhood was.

If alcohol ever becomes a problem for me, would you be a rock and just help me? Yeah, he never brought up again. And folks, I'm telling you, about six months into it, my dad and I really got close. I said, Dad, I'd like your permission to share our story to my classes. He said, What story? I said, Well, here's our story and here's how I'd like to tell it.

I laid it out and at the end of it he said, Son, I'm not that way anymore. Remember what I told you on day one. You have no ability to change anyone else. But when you change yourself and how you do things, other people may have to change how they engage with you. And I'll be honest folks, it's a dance. My dad changed, I changed.

We both did over the next couple years. But before my dad passed, he said, son, we got so close and became one of my best friends, even though we never saw eye to eye on so many things. He said, Son, will you do me a favor and tell her story at my funeral? About six weeks, I said, Dad, why? I said, because it's hard to tell in class without breaking down, but I said, He said, Son, there's going to be people there that know Wayne Stevens could have never heard what you had to say and accept you.

I want them to see that anyone can change. And folks, I did. It was one of the hardest, but also one of the most cleansing things.