In fourth grade, I shared my home with an eccentric genius who resided in my closet and had a distinct garlic scent. He occupied the third floor of our house, kept unconventional hours, and stored his mail in our cereal cabinet. My unwavering belief in the normalcy of my family made these peculiarities seem entirely acceptable.

The space we shared was essentially a converted attic. His bed was adjacent to a large walk-in closet filled with his possessions, including a television, while mine was positioned across the room.

Each night, as I struggled to drift off to sleep, the glow from his television illuminated the closet like a scene from a science fiction movie, casting a strange light on his still figure. The sound of the shows, mostly history and science programming from PBS, was a gentle distraction.

I can’t recall how he came to stay with us, but my father had known him for years. At that time, Tom was without a home and was invited to live with us, likely due to his circumstances.

Tom Paine, sharing a name with the revolutionary pamphleteer, hailed from California. He was a certified genius, a founding member of MENSA, and even had a personal connection with one of America's founders. Despite his remarkable intellect, he battled numerous health and emotional issues, struggled with social cues, and lacked what most would consider common sense.

Due to his challenges, Tom relied on permanent disability benefits. He was an advocate for holistic health and consumed raw garlic in hopes of detoxifying his body. It's safe to say his presence was quite noticeable.

Throughout his time with us and even after, when he would occasionally stop by to collect his mail, he would enter unannounced, his wild hair reminiscent of Albert Einstein’s, greet us with a wave, and retrieve his mail from the cereal cabinet.

Despite his difficulties, Tom appeared content, always offering kind words and exhibiting gentlemanly behavior, even if he seemed a bit unusual to a ten-year-old. Over the years, he became such an integral part of our household that he often faded into the background.

I could be chatting with a friend in the kitchen, and Tom would come through the back door, say hello, quietly grab his mail, and leave, leaving my friend puzzled.

“Who was that?” they would inquire.

“Oh, just a family friend,” I’d reply, returning to the cartoons.

Children rarely question what they don’t understand, so I felt no need to elaborate about Tom. He was a genius, a friend of my father, had lived in my closet, and had a potent smell of garlic. What more was there to explain?

The year preceding Tom’s arrival, we had relocated from central Oklahoma to a suburban area near Philadelphia, where my father took a position at a small Christian seminary. It felt like just another move in a series that had taken us across Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Tennessee, and back to Oklahoma before returning to Pennsylvania. Before the third grade, I attended four schools and lived in seven different homes.

I was largely unfazed by these changes.

Having distanced ourselves from family, we became a somewhat isolated group, participating in church and school activities but generally keeping to ourselves. My parents had no friends outside their religious circles. My father worked at the seminary, promoting its mission, while my mother taught ballet and gymnastics to young girls at home.

At that time, our family consisted of four children: my older sister Stacy, myself, and my younger brothers Bradley and Jason. We attended a Mennonite school, the only non-Catholic Christian option in the area. My parents, who had grown up in a vague Catholic tradition, had converted to fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.

Their hesitance to enroll us in a public or Catholic school overshadowed the seemingly implausible pacifism of the Mennonites. Our classmates primarily came from farming and trades backgrounds, often descended from the German Anabaptists who settled in Eastern Pennsylvania, including the Amish.

At home and in church, we embraced the notion of American exceptionalism that justified wars against communism. In contrast, at school, we practiced a rudimentary form of pacifism, which children do not inherently adopt but learn over time.

The seminary where my father worked was small and dusty, housing students in a dormitory-like setting. The basement gym, equipped with a full-sized basketball court, was rarely used except by us. The flickering lights buzzed as they warmed up, and the basketballs were old, flattened relics of a bygone era.

On the top floor, an impressive library awaited, where instead of divine revelations, I stumbled upon a mix of sex and advertising in old National Geographic magazines—pictures of naked tribes and vintage ads for Oldsmobiles, Pepsodent, and Hoovers.

The student body consisted solely of young men studying Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Biblical theology to grasp the complexities of the Gospel. Women were not permitted. Through my father, they became my informal teachers, as my curiosity about the world outside our community was insatiable, and we lacked funds for traditional extracurricular activities.

When I met a deaf boy in the neighborhood, a seminary student taught me sign language. A crush on a Korean girl led another student to teach me Korean and even take me to a Korean church for a while. I dabbled in Tae Kwon Do until my parents expressed concern that I might use my skills on my younger brothers.

Education, faith, and service were intertwined in our Midwestern life of belief, evangelism, and sacrifice. Soon after finishing eighth grade, I found myself at a missionary boot camp in Missouri, preparing for a trip to South America, where we would build a school high in the Colombian mountains near the Venezuelan border.

That summer proved challenging. Alongside laboring 8-10 hours daily, we prepared meals and engaged with local villagers. Memorizing Bible verses was a requirement for the privilege of a freezing cold shower fed by melting snow. I hardly showered that summer, as I can’t recall a single verse.

To pass the time outside of work and chores, I clung to a book I discovered abandoned in an airport. I would lounge in my hammock, my makeshift bed, engrossed in reading until an older missionary, disapproving of my choice—an adventure story about special forces in Vietnam—decided to burn it.

Returning home that fall, I encountered two new family members: an adopted brother, Michael (5), and a sister, Cicely (3), from Ohio, whom my parents had brought into our family while I was away in Missouri. While I had been aware of the adoption process through letters, the sudden adjustment was still quite strange.

I entered junior high and enrolled in public school for the first time. Despite my past travels, I had spent most of my educational life in a sheltered religious environment with a limited number of students, where I was well-known. Suddenly, I was one among thousands in a public institution. The shift was overwhelming.

Following high school, I moved to Philadelphia to attend Temple University. As I backed out of the driveway, my siblings were hauling their furniture into my old room. That would be the last time I would consider that house my home.

In my sophomore year, I started dating a woman who would accompany me through the remainder of college. A nurse by profession, she yearned for a family, while I chased dreams of fame and fortune. After graduation, she sought family life, while I pursued the glamorous world of music, mingling with celebrities and indulging in lavish lifestyles. My encounters ranged from Elvis Costello to Sting, the Bare Naked Ladies to the Ramones, and John Lee Hooker to Lyle Lovett—it was exhilarating.

Throughout my twenties, I dated sporadically, engaging with women but shying away as things grew serious. I felt no inclination toward marriage or parenthood; my experiences had shown me enough of family life, some of which I wished I could forget.

However, the party lifestyle began to lose its appeal, leading me away from entertainment and into the quieter realm of advertising, where I thrived as a creative talent. Alongside a former client, I launched a small agency, enjoying success and recognition as a potent creative force.

Unanticipatedly, I fell in love with a stunning young woman during a vacation in Cape May, New Jersey. The situation was complicated; she lived there year-round, was separated from her husband, had a boyfriend, and brought three young children with her.

It felt as though she might as well have claimed to be a fugitive from the law or a bank robber in need of an accomplice.

Yet, inexplicably, I found myself in love. It wasn’t a rational decision. I was uncertain about its viability, and the challenges ahead were clear. Still, whenever given a choice, I consistently chose to stay.

For over 26 years, we have been married, raising three wonderful adults and welcoming seven beautiful grandchildren into our lives. It hasn’t been a fairy tale. Parenting is challenging, and blending families adds to that complexity. Thankfully, I have always held onto the belief in the normalcy of my family, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

Tom, the genius, once shared that true intelligence lies in the ability to think on multiple levels simultaneously, to juggle different ideas while seeking solutions. It wasn’t merely about broad thinking but rather profound contemplation.

He believed we all have a purpose, even when we may not recognize it. Life, in his view, was a problem to be solved—an ongoing equation, much like pi. He argued that the quest for answers wasn’t the ultimate goal but rather that the search itself led to discoveries, knowledge, and ultimately, truth.

Despite my lifelong conviction in the normalcy of my life, my experiences have been anything but ordinary, and that uniqueness has made all the difference. Tom would assert that this realization is a truth worth uncovering and a meaningful reason for existence.

I would simply say it’s just another fragment of the infinite pi.

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