From Dust We Came - Trailer

In October of 2021 I set out on a journey to spread my fathers ashes in Yellowstone National Park. Little did I know how transformative this event would be. 

For most of my life my father had been an enigma to me. I had no contact with him from the age of 8 until my late 40’s. This feeling of abandonment was something that I never knew how to process or verbalize and like a good southern man I stuffed it down and poured whiskey on the problem.

Fast forward a few decades and I received a call from a Pastor who was caring for my father and which led to a few phone conversations which resulted in my father and I meeting twice in person before he passed away. Fortunately, we had a couple of years where we were able to develop a relationship. We had long phone conversations while I was on the road and bits and pieces of our separate lives began to come together and I started to LEARN a little about my father and myself. 

During the short time that my father and I had together I grew to let go of the resentments that had plagued me for years. Someone once told me that resentment is akin to drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer. It took me a while to learn this hard lesson and to accept that the only way forward is to forgive. Along this journey to forgiveness I grew to love in a way that I did not think was possible. The freedom that I received and gave was transformative. Decades of anxiety and misdirected anger melted away with this simple act of forgiveness and surrender. My father was a flawed man but he was a son, a father a child of god ( however you choose to define ) and repentant. He was deserving of forgiveness and so are all of us. 

Acclaimed filmmaker JB Lawrence  captured this journey of traveling to my fathers final resting place and spreading his ashes. JB was able to distill and mold this complex story into a cohesive and poignant YET cautionary tale that ultimately set me and my father free from the trauma of broken familial bonds, addiction and fear. 

The result is a mini-documentary entitled “ From Dust We Came”. IT is also a part of a song that I wrote about this experience called “Life Just Gets Me High.” 

The short has been selected as a finalist in the Atlanta DocuFest  and is being screened at select venues.