Free The First Day of the Rest of My Life by Cathy Lamb Page A

kidding.”
    “No. You have a record, you did something tremendously stupid, and it’s going to be hard for you to get a job. So, you’re going into business for yourself. You have a pickup, right?”
    He nodded. “My uncle died. It was all he had. He willed it to me, along with his tools.”
    “I’ll pay you half up front for working on my yard. Get signs for the sides of your pickup truck advertising Ramon’s Landscaping Services, get cards and flyers printed out, take photos of my yard before and after.” I saw his face. “No camera, right? I’ll take the photos and give them to you. When you’ve got some cash, get a Web site up and running.”
    I scribbled down my address. “You’re in business, Ramon. You own Ramon’s Landscaping Services. Now get on up to my house and turn it around.”
    He was starting to grasp the Shoot High program. “So I’m going to be a landscaper?”
    “Ramon, you are a landscaper. And you have a lawn-mowing business on the side, that’s what you tell people.”
    I saw his chin tilt upward.
    “You’re also a businessman.”
    I saw his chest puff a wee bit, the tears drying on his cheeks. “Pretty soon you’ll have employees, and you’ll go to clients’ houses and you’ll bring them paintings of what you’re going to do to their yard to transform it, and you’ll smile, shake their hands, look them in the eye, be friendly and honest and get every job done on time and done right, because you want everyone to know you’re trustworthy and honest. You’re going to work harder than any other landscaper in the area and you’re going to build your company on the backs of your happy clients.”
    He nodded, nodded again, his breathing shallow. I could tell he hadn’t breathed right in a long time, either. Maybe ever.
    “Wow. Me. A businessman!”
    “Yep, and a landscaper. Off you go.”
    Finally, finally, on that exhausted, beaten face, I saw a smile. I saw a glimmer in his eyes. I saw hope. Without hope, life is dead. “Thanks, Miss O’Shea. Man, thanks a lot.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    This wasn’t gonna be perfect. He was young, inexperienced. But he had a shimmer of hope. He had a goal. He could do it, he could build from here.
    By the time I got home, late that night, there was a painting on a two-by-three-foot canvas of what the front yard of my square spaceship house would look like. A second painting showed my backyard.
    I sank down into an Adirondack chair on my back deck.
    The paintings themselves were stunning. His clients would want to keep them. Ramon’s ideas were in keeping with the lines and modern feel of my house. There was a fountain, brick stairs to the entrance, white and pink cherry trees, a retaining wall, an arbor that mimicked the roofline with a vine growing over it, and layered borders of shrubs and flowers.
    I grinned. Darned if I wasn’t proud.
    Ramon, the ex-con, was in business.
    I sent him a check. In the memo part I wrote, “Fear not.”
     
    The rest of my week was filled with clients, in particular corporate types, one of whom said his life was so filled with meetings and technological input, he believed he had become an emotionless robot. I told him he was correct and helped him rethink his life. “RTYL,” I told him. (Rethink your life.) “Draw a picture of who you want to become.” I gave him six feet of butcher paper. He drew a smiling travel writer with a small laptop, multipocketed vest, and camera.
    The other was a tightly closeted, repressed gay artist who worked as a CEO. “You’re a hypocrite,” I told him. “You won’t live until you get rid of your lies.” I made him stand with me on a table and yell out the truth about himself until he felt comfortable with his truth. He cried when he was done. Good tears.
    I counseled a number of homeless/troubled youth (always for free) from Youth Avenues, a nonprofit group that Swans Grocery Stores financially supports with the mission of helping young people, with lousy