The Secret Ingredient: More Musings from the Ronald McDonald House

By Tom Soma, Aaron Hewitt and Bob Ray

Tom Soma's weekly "musings" on the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington web page have helped him to share and understand all that he's witnessed while working at the Ronald McDonald House. In this follow-up to Soma's first collection, No Small Thing, he shares some of these musings, in what becomes a sort of memoir—"a fond recollection of the people and experiences that touched me."

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781603063555

Tom Soma

A native of Westland, Michigan, TOM SOMA graduated from the University of Notre Dame in May 1979. Three months later, he moved to Portland, Oregon for a year of volunteer service. He returned to Portland in March 1981 and has resided there since. Tom became executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington (RMHC Oregon) in February 1999 and has remained in the role for more than 15 years. Under his leadership, the organization has been recognized by Oregon Business as one of the state’s “Top 100 Nonprofits to Work For” each year since the survey was launched in 2009. His feature article “A Man’s Place: Scenes from the Life of a Father at Home,” which appeared in the Autumn 1988 University of Portland Magazine, was awarded a silver medal by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. His further reflections on fatherhood have been published in Parenting, The Oregonian, and Full-Time Dads.

Book preview

The Secret Ingredient

More Musings from the Ronald McDonald House®

By Tom Soma

Photography by Bob Ray and Aaron Hewitt

NEWSOUTH BOOKS

Montgomery

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2014 by Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Oregon and Southwest Washington, rmhcoregon.org. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN: 978-1-58838-309-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-355-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014003365

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

For my children and grandchildren

(both born and bestowed),

with hope that they savor

the secret ingredients

of their lives.

Contents

Preface

Resolution

Beyond Black and White

Predictions

Plan D

Not So Random Acts

The Other Side of the Bed

Into the Right Hands

The Unexplainable

Fueling the Fire and Passing the Torch

Angels On (and Off) Guard

Wordless Shouts of Joy

A Long Time Away from Home

Caring for Ourselves

To Carry On

Toward a Contented Life

Happy Birthday

One Step at a Time

Recklessly Generous Hearts

Back to School

Hope Garden

A Considered Investment

Quite a Feast

Goodbye, Mr. Perfect

The Secret Ingredient

Real Heroes

Intersections

Thought for the Day

Unrequited Kindness

Widening the Circle

My Little Friend

For Auld Lang Syne

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Preface

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

— William Faulkner

Each day, it seems, the Ronald McDonald House brings into focus what’s truly important in life. So it’s been an extraordinary opportunity to serve as executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington for fifteen years.

My Musings (posted at www.rmhcoregon.org) have been an attempt to make sense of it all—to sort and integrate what I’ve had the privilege to observe. In another way—eloquently characterized by Faulkner in his 1949 Nobel Prize acceptance speech—the weekly reflections have been a means of celebrating the honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice that can help us not only endure, but prevail.

In 2012, twenty-four of my favorite musings, along with nine compelling guest portraits by award-winning photographer, Bob Ray, became the book, No Small Thing. In essence, this is a sequel. However, I prefer to view this new collection as more a memoir—a fond recollection of the people and experiences that touched me most during my final few years here.

On the following pages, you’ll find thirty-one new selections along with eleven more stunning photos of Ronald McDonald House guests taken by Bob Ray and Aaron Hewitt. Though ordered by calendar month—with entries beginning in early January and ending the final day of December—the essays were actually written over the course of twenty-seven months.

Like Faulkner, I approach writing as both a privilege and duty. I