Max Fray

I’ve never fit the cultural mold of manliness. When I was in 13, I was 4’10” and weighed about 100 pounds. I grew up with two older sisters, which meant I took part in a lot more sarcasm than I did wrestling matches. I played sports, but in my spare time I was much more interested in video games and music. I took the Myers-Briggs assessment for the first time that year, and while I don’t remember what each letter that I scored was, I remember one very clearly. F. Feeling. The memory is so strong in my mind; I can picture the layout of the desks in Ms. Otto’s 7 th  grade English class, the seat that I was in, and the embarrassment that I felt when my teacher surveyed each student’s type and I was one of only two boys in the whole class that scored “feeler.” My teacher was kind about it, but I felt a deep shame at who I was. This was only compounded as my teacher explained that boys typically score as “thinkers,” but tried to offer consolation that I’d probably make a good husba...

“George was a very gentle and quiet man. He loved the Lord and his family.” How do you capture the essence of a person in two sentences, or even a paragraph? Can any of us really be distilled into a small piece of writing? When my grandpa passed away three years ago, it was one of the first times I had grappled with the idea of mortality. When I read his obituary for the first time, I struggled with the idea that such a good man could be described in such a small paragraph. In many ways, he couldn’t be. I’ve spent the last three years reflecting on the man that I loved so dearly. I remember how much my grandpa loved his truck, a tan two-seater GMC Sonoma with just enough space for me to ride by his side around town. My grandpa wasn’t known for talking a lot, but he loved to talk about his truck. He’d mention the most recent maintenance jobs he’d done, or the quirks of driving it. He’d say the mostly the same things about it every time we got in it together, but I didn’t care becau...