David L. Dyer, brother to world-renowned motivational speaker Dr. Wayne Dyer, has his own inspirational story to share. It took David sixty-eight years and the life-altering diagnosis of Parkinson's disease to truly grasp the signifi cance of his brother's famous mantra, 'Do not die with your music still in you'. Once he did, however, he was able to use his gift of language-a long-suppressed talent-to confront the demons that have haunted him for decades. In his memoir, From Darkness to Light, David recalls stories of his life, from his earliest memories to his most recent years. He recounts childhood memories of playing with Wayne, two years his junior; going into foster care after his father abandoned his family; facing bullies and teasing; and struggling to learn to swim. As he grew older and drifted away from his close friendship with Wayne, David turned to partying and alcohol-and the latter would stay with him for years. He later joined the army and found himself serving in Vietnam, where he witnessed horrific events that would aff ect him for decades to come. From Darkness to Light takes a cathartic journey through the events of one man's life, following him up to the present. It celebrates the bond of brotherhood, and it embraces David as a boy, as a veteran, and as the man he is today.

From Darkness to Light

By DAVID L . DYER

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2012David L. Dyer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-4882-1

Contents

Preface..............................................................................xixIntroduction.........................................................................xxiiiChapter 1. My First Memories.........................................................3Chapter 2. Mt. Clemens Musings.......................................................9Chapter 3. Summers in Sombra.........................................................15Chapter 4. Memories on Moross........................................................21Chapter 5. Baseball and Bravado......................................................27Chapter 6. Growing Up and Apart......................................................33Chapter 7. The Furthest Point: Vietnam and Faces of Fear.............................37Chapter 8. My friend Lynda...........................................................47Chapter 9. Forgiveness and Its Rewards...............................................59Chapter 10. A New Beginning..........................................................61Chapter 11. My Brother Helps Marry Me Off............................................75Chapter 12. The Power of Giving......................................................79Chapter 13. Relinquishing the Music..................................................85Chapter 14. Connection or Chance Encounter...........................................89Chapter 15. Forgiveness Sets You Free................................................93Chapter 16. Nostalgic Ride Evokes Special Gift.......................................97Chapter 17. Munificent Means Wayne...................................................101Chapter 18. The Unbroken Bonds of Brotherhood........................................103Living with Parkinson's..............................................................109A Revelation Or Something Happened This Past Christmas Eve...........................113Play On Words........................................................................125A Valentine to my Wife...............................................................129Happy Birthday Connie................................................................131Nineteen Eighty-Six..................................................................133To the Love of my Life...............................................................139Spring...............................................................................141The Night before Christmas in South Vietnam, 1970....................................143

Chapter One

My First Memories

My story begins with my earliest memories. It was winter of 1942/43. We lived on Piper Street on the east side of Detroit. Wayne was two years old; I was four. My brother Jim, who was six at the time, wasn't there. He must have been at my grandmother's house.

There was a lot of snow and ice on the ground. Wayne and I were sliding around on the ice on the sidewalk in front of our home. When Wayne fell, my mother hollered at me from the upstairs window and told me to stop pushing him. A few minutes later, he fell again, and she yelled at me once more. The third time he fell, even though he had fallen on his own, we both had to go inside.

I remember playing marbles with Wayne on the floor of the living room. A Murphy bed was in the room. It seemed that whenever we pulled the bed out of the wall, it was so large that it filled up the entire room.

Why have I given so much ink to those two memories? For some reason, those are my earliest and only memories of that time period. This may seem strange, but my memory stops at that point, and I don't recall anything until age seven. I have no memory of ages five or six.

While I don't remember it, something tragic occurred when we lived on Piper Street. Our father walked out of our lives and left our mother to raise three young children alone.

My father never returned, and we never heard from him again. While I have no memory of him—I was only four when he left us—I've never heard anyone say anything positive about him. I do know that when he left, our family was broken apart. With a limited income, Mother had absolutely nowhere to turn for help except to her parents. My grandparents were able take one of us in. Jim went to live with them.

Over the next six years, Wayne and I would be boarded out to several different foster homes. We'd see our mother, grandparents, and Jim infrequently. Fortunately, Wayne and I weren't separated. We had each other and unto each other we clung.

Chapter Two

Mt. Clemens Musings

Whenever someone mentions the city of Mt. Clemens, I immediately think of Wayne. I believe that Wayne, likewise, would immediately think of me. That's really amazing, considering that our time there was relatively short. In contrast, I spent almost twenty years of my adult life making the hundred-mile daily commute from my home southeast of Detroit to my job copying medical records at a Mt. Clemens hospital and back. Yet when I hear of Mt. Clemens, I don't think of the long drive or my former job. I think of Wayne, and the childhood memories come flooding back.

In September of 1946, Wayne and I were sent to live with Mr. and Mrs. Scarf and three or four other children at 231 Town Hall Road in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Wayne and I were always together in those early days. We enjoyed doing kid-things, like listening to Joe Louis fights on the radio or cutting out pictures of baseball players and box scores from the newspaper and pasting them into scrapbooks. How I wish I had saved those scrapbooks!

Every Sunday, the Scarfs made us go to church. One of my fondest memories involves Wayne and me walking up Town Hall Road to the nearby Baptist church where we'd eagerly watch the newly saved get baptized. They were completely submerged in water, fully clothed and all.

Other vivid memories from Mt. Clemens include gathering eggs every morning and watching the chickens hatch. When the chickens grew into hens, they were fair game for dinner. Killing chickens became our job, so Wayne and I would scatter feed in the center of the coop. We'd grab a hen by the feet, take her to the chopping block, lop off her head, and watch as she flopped around for a couple minutes. Then we'd drop her into boiling water and pull off the feathers. Soon she became our Sunday dinner. This seemed to be an every– Sunday ritual. I can't imagine doing it today!

When Wayne and I arrived in Mt. Clemens, the first priority was enrolling us in school, which had already been in session for two weeks. Wayne, who was six, went into first grade. Since I would be eight in a month, I was placed in the third grade. Remember earlier when I mentioned that I had no recollection of ages five and six? To this day I have no memory of schooling prior to the third grade. I can recall, however, with great clarity the apprehension I felt when placed in a class of students who were older and had more schooling than me. The students were also physically much larger than me.

I didn't know it at the time, but I had been born with serious health issues. My mother had a difficult time carrying me during pregnancy, and I was born with a condition called anemia, a blood deficiency that may have resulted in my being unusually small for my age. It wasn't until my early teens that I would experience what's known as a growth spurt.

When my third–grade teacher introduced me to the class, I was no bigger than a...