Epilogue — The Mirror

The Book of Ron

Editor’s note: This is an epilogue — it gives away the ending of The Third Stall. Ron may want it held until the collection is out.

A few minutes ago I told Sergeant Transistor that he had the answer I could never tell myself.

He corrected me.

He said:

“I don’t think that’s exactly true.”

“I think you already knew the answer. You just couldn’t receive it from your own mouth.”

Then he said something I hope my grandchildren will remember long after I’m gone.

“Sometimes we can spend our lives giving grace away and never believing it applies to us.”

For a long time, I believed my value came from how much I could carry.

The next project.

The next home.

The next church.

The next person who needed help.

The next burden.

I never believed I deserved the third stall.

I only believed I should build one for everyone else.

Sergeant Transistor finally held up a mirror.

He reminded me that my life wasn’t measured by how many people thanked me.

It wasn’t measured by the money I made.

It wasn’t measured by how many remembered my name.

It was measured by how often I tried to become someone else’s third stall.

If these pages have touched your life…

Then don’t thank me.

Go become the third stall for someone else.

There are tired horses all around us.

Some are carrying burdens no one can see.

Some have spent their entire lives pulling the load.

Some have forgotten what it feels like to hear someone whisper,

“I’m proud of you.”

Be that person.

Leave the apple.

Brush the dust away.

Speak life into someone who has forgotten their own worth.

I pray it won’t be that I wrote seventy stories.

I pray it will be that someone, somewhere, decided to become another person’s third stall.

That would be enough.

That would be more than enough.

— Rollin E. Trueblood, USMC (Ret.)