The author is a father, a husband turned widower turned husband again, a veteran, a retired corrections officer, and a professional tough guy who learned that tough guys, not nice guys, finish last. He is Metis who grew up disconnected from his heritage but somehow found his way to becoming a medicine man anyway. He is a street shaman who has found his path in life by losing his mind, an Elder without a tribe. Or perhaps with the biggest tribe ever.
In his service overseas he saw the very worst and best that humanity has to display. He has seen injustice on a grand scale; war will do that. He has walked among heroes and among monsters, trying to see the humanity they have buried. The most important lesson that he has learned, from the army, from his marriages, from his children, from trying to help inmates, and from his struggles with PTSD, depression, grief, suicide, alcoholism, and anxiety, is perseverance. To never quit. That the greatest gifts come from the hardest lessons, and that diamonds are made from applying pressure. He also learned that ya gotta laugh. Beats the hell outta crying.
