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Dedication Page
This fictitious offering is dedicated to my family dispersed throughout South Carolina who have subsisted off it's lands as farmers, herders, hunters; those who have benefited from its institutions of higher learning as healthcare, legal, religious, political, business-related specialists; those who have toiled in it's factories and fields as laborers for their betterment and that of their beloved neighbors. Lastly, this book is dedicated to those believing they are non-remediably broken. Know this: there is little that time, faith, patience and space can' not eventually mend. Here's to belief in yours and the miracles of others!
Acknowledgement
Kudos to South Carolina's Low-country and her endless treasure troves of natural beauty!
Introduction:
This book came about after an eventful excursions on my way to work after over South Carolina's breathtaking Courson-Tate Crossing in the Low-country. Marshes flaunted a curious collection of snowy egrets blanketing as far as the eyes could see. Tourists occupied soft shoulders flanking the busy highway to marvel at an unusual sea of white, dazed birds. Still, quiet, statuesque egrets stared in the direction of fidgety, loud, clumsy tourists who returned answered with perplexed gazes.
An overflowing clinic with anxious staff awaited my arrival. Guiltily, I swallowed up as much of this unusual scene as possible feeling somewhat roguish upon noticing my odometer reading registered ten miles per hour less than the minimum legal speed limit.
The scene occupied my thoughts that day despite insufficient time to stop and fully take it in. But, for the minute or so my mind, akin to dried bread, was permitted to sop up the scene's rich gravy, it apparently absorbed enough! Between timed clinic lavatory getaways; hospital rounds, operations, deliveries, this piece resulted with cathartic consequences for me. There's perhaps a little Doe inherent in all achievers. It's not enough to partake of life's cake and eat it too; it's meant to be sliced and shared with others.
Success is intricate... like an onion, its construct consists of many layers, which at first glance, may appear healthy while concealing a diseased core! Those seemingly in possession of everything anyone could ever want are considered successful by many observers. But, are they really? Are successful people, by definition, content and self-fulfilled? Would they describe themselves as successful? Do they continue setting, then striving for goals until, by their own standards, they measure up to self-perceived ideas of success? What a conundrum! Perhaps, solutions lie ahead in this story about to unfold...
Attorney John Doe of D-Legal & Associates, LLC was considered a successful self-made man in South Carolina's Low-country and many parts beyond. He perceived himself a whole, solid man proud of the many fruit earlier struggles bore him. That the attorney attained and maintained grand societal standing hailing from modest beginnings made him believe a man in America could accomplish anything he set his mind to do. The only ones prouder of his accomplishments were his practice's founding partners seeing him as their prodigal son. Attorney Doe refused to be humbled by life. He'd simply find the humor in any would-be humbling situation and laugh his way out of it.
Unbeknownst to the attorney, the last laugh to be had wasn't his for he would soon shatter! Prestige's acquisition always exacted a sooner or later toll as in Attorney Doe's instance. Life's theater would no longer provide applause; his successes would no longer provide consolation as he involuntarily embarked on a fortuitous, painfully tortuous path of discovery, redemption and reclamation. Peace came again but only after revelation, then acknowledgement of deeply buried truths. These monumental steps enabled him to discern and collect worthwhile remains from a fragile and fragmented past life. Consequently, a composite of older refurbished scattered and newly constructed gathered parts gave way to a new, more fortified man on his sojourn to redefine success and its notions.
Luke 12:48 (KJV)
"48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48 (KJV)
The Coincidental "D's" & Belle's Face-Lift!
D-Legal was in no way a run of the mill law establishment. Firstly, the company's title, D-Legal & Associates, LLC, always elicited jaw-dropping responses upon explaining its origins. Secondly, their attorneys represented an unusual family of professionals whose mottos were cohesiveness, honesty and discretion. And thirdly, the law firm's modest, grass roots beginnings caught many off guard considering the three founders' hailed from families whose combined net worth nickels nickels to just under half of the world's gross national product!
The practice's founders and subsequent partners possessed unique three lettered surnames all beginning with D's: Dut, Daw, Dyl, Due, Dul, Doe, Dua, Del, Daw. "Coincidentally," attorney Dut would say, "it's all incidental; God knew what he was doing aligning us in this fashion!" The first three partners, Dut, Dyl, Daw, met as law students in Charleston having eerily much in common: escape from aristocratic, doting, opinionated, controlling families towards rebellion's sweet lure.
Relatives offered no financial gestures towards investing in their purchase and renovation endeavor having long dismissed them as pariahs. Their families acquired respective fortunes utilizing neurosurgical, aeronautical and agricultural pathways. Each Dut, Dyl or Daw child was expected to selflessly choose professions in ways contributing to their family's bottom line. What a disappointment were the three budding attorney's to their parents. In the words of old and older man Dut and his dad, "How dare they serve personal agendas choosing law and in ways incongruous to family interests!" Ironically, as Attorney's Dut, Dyl and Daw grew closer towards achieving their goals and each other and further away from castrating families, their families grew closer rallying behind the common cause of either disinheriting their kids or enticing them back into the fold.
That being said, after sailing through law school almost entirely on academic scholarships and research grants, they hustled practicing law here and there, peddled various insurance policies, prepared individual and small business tax returns, in effect and much to the dismay of parents, they unabashedly did anything to raise enough start up capital for a group practice. The dilapidated mini-mansion purchased soon became their practice after much bartering. According to Dyl, Old Southern Belle needed both superficial face-lifts and deeper surgical improvements.
The attorneys quickly exercised their mental muscles and beautification began. Dyl consulted general contractors who supplied him with lists of items needed, labor costs and project completion times. He and his colleagues then brilliantly bartered offering up legal services to general contractors, their skilled laborers and families in exchange for labor costs. Of course, they'd purchase all materials at cost taking full advantage of the contractor's discount advantages. Within six months, Attorney Dyl dropped the old prefix from the building's name. Southern Belle became a rather stylish debutant courtesy of hard work and
