Gabriel Richards is still a carpenter by trade; he and his wife raised four children, later adopted three more and at this point have ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. They reside in Auburn, California.

For the most part, I was raised in a small lumber town called West Point in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, not far south and just west of Lake Tahoe. The town is pretty much in the center of the location of the Mother Lode gold strike of the mid-1800’s. My grandfather, William Houston, kin to the famous Sam Houston of Texas, owned a little 150-acre ranch just a couple of miles from West Point, along with a lot of other properties in California. The ranch burned during the Depression, including the home and all other structures, save the laundry cabin down by the spring. The Depression wiped out much of the rest of William’s holdings, and the bottle pretty much finished him off.

My father fancied himself a gold miner and was one of those who just knew that vane of gold was only another foot or two down that mine shaft. He went out for a pack of cigarettes one day, just after the fifth child came into the family, and was never heard from again — not in my lifetime. So, from the time I was 5 until age 14, Mother and I, along with my three brothers and sister, lived in a one-room laundry cabin with no power, indoor plumbing, phone or real heating system. As there was no welfare back then, we lived to a degree off the land with a bit of help from neighbors that had chickens, cows and gardens. Rudy Brickman owned the general store in town and ran Mom a tab for which he never expected to be paid; it was just his way of paying it forward.

Adulthood came early

At the age of 10 I started my first job, washing dishes in the only restaurant in town. On my 14th birthday, I was issued my driver’s license, which made it legal for me to ride my third motorcycle. Back then, a lad could get an unrestricted license to drive at age 14 if there was a hardship in the family; we qualified. I had several jobs prior to starting as a lineman for the local telephone company at age 17. That same year I graduated from high school, got married and started a family.

Further education was to come via correspondence courses, which allowed me to pass a federal radioman test, giving me license to tune phone company microwave communication radios and other transmitters. That was when I was 21, the same year my 3-year-old son, Abe, saw his little sister, LaVon, for the first time. In the early years, I supported my family as a supervisor for the phone company during the day, a disc jockey at a radio station at night, and by racing motorcycles on the weekends. This is how, as a young man, I would support my family, buy a home and mask the problems of a failing marriage.

Life’s big lessons

Life took a few interesting turns, and I ended up working full-time during the day as a carpenter and racing motorcycles as a pro three evenings a week. I raced for the fun of it on the weekends. Maybe this is what I should have been doing in the first place, given that I loved it and was good at it.

In 1972 my first marriage ended. That same year an entirely new life began for me when I met Jill, and lessons about love, real love, self-love, unconditional love and the healing power of love would become part of my life. Jill and I developed an intense love affair, and as my wife, she brought into my life two more daughters, Lisa and Lori, to love as my own, along with Abe and LaVon. The lessons in love where my wife and children were concerned were easy. The lessons in self-love, unconditional love and the healing power of love were hard ones and have been ingrained deep in my soul.

School had never been my thing, as those lessons also came hard. It was not until I was in advanced flight training at over 40 years old that a French instructor identified my dyslexia. Identifying the problem helped me be a better pilot and answered a lot of other questions.

Sharing what I’ve learned

As I started the book, “Giving Love a Voice,” the first in the “Chapters of Life” series, I was reminded that I was a carpenter, not a writer — and one with dyslexia at that. The book is now published, and it is my intention that it will help many understand the healing power of love and why self-love — which is necessary in order to give unconditional love — is so very important. It all came to light around a catastrophic illness that in 1982 left Jill in a hospital room for nine consecutive months during which she lay not only paralyzed, but also blind and mute. Although she could hear, it was assumed by everyone around her that she was deaf. A team of medical doctors gave her no chance of recovery. The Holy Spirit and lessons in love proved them wrong. Today she is a picture of health.