Whenever Mike Glenn takes his daughter Hatley out — to a shop, to a restaurant, wherever — he brings a backpack along with him.

“She always asks me what is in there,” Glenn said. “I always tell her it’s my man purse.”

A Father’s Day tale: Sports brings son closer to fading father

Hatley was born on Christmas Day 1989. The nurses on duty that night slipped her into a stocking.

“I remember they told me I didn’t have to keep her in the stocking all night,” Glenn said.

Now 31, Hatley can be charming. Funny. Quick to laugh.

“She’s a delightful daughter,” Glenn said. 

But that backpack is not just a man purse. It contains two sets of armguards.

Because Hatley has a developmental disorder that causes her to have sudden — and involuntary — explosions of destructiveness.

“She always sits next to me,” Glenn said. “Hopefully, I can start to see an escalation. And if I see an escalation, I’m going to do one of two things. I’m going to try to sprint out of the restaurant pushing the wheelchair. If it doesn’t look like I have that much time, I’m going to put on my armguards. And then you kind of get behind her. And you fold her arms down in her lap and you present the armguards because her first reaction is to bite. Strong enough to draw blood.

“And then you have to keep your head away because the next thing that’s going to happen is that she is going to throw her head back and head-butt me.”

This might go on for 10 minutes. It might go on for half an hour. It is physically exhausting. But the emotional toll is much worse.

“As soon as it’s over, she says the same thing,” Glenn said. “She says it to this day. She says, ‘Daddy, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you and I swear I’ll never do it again.’ It just rips your heart out.”

The measure of the man

When Glenn retired as executive vice president of FedEx Corp. in 2016, it came as something of a surprise. He had spent 35 years with the company, the last 20 leading its legendary marketing and communications group. Fred Smith, the chairman, president and CEO of FedEx, called Glenn “the most brilliant marketer I have ever met.”

Glenn was instrumental in the naming rights deal that brought the Grizzlies to Memphis. He spearheaded the company’s involvement with the PGA Tour and the Memphis golf tournament. At 61, he was one of the most powerful and influential executives at one of the most admired companies in the world.

And just like that, he stepped down. The official release from FedEx said it was to “transition his focus full time to his family.”

“Mike and his wife, Donna have for many years dealt with the significant challenge of raising a special needs child,” Smith said in the release. “It is a measure of the man that Mike has decided he must devote even more time to her well-being and care.”

“Mike and his wife, Donna have for many years dealt with the significant challenge of raising a special needs child. It is a measure of the man that Mike has decided he must devote even more time to her well-being and care.”

Fred Smith
FedEx president and CEO

Glenn didn’t expand on the statement at the time. For someone who built his career on public communication, he is an intensely private man.

But earlier this week, he agreed to tell me his story. It’s a story about love and sacrifice, about balancing family and work. And while most of us try to find the right balance — to make the best decisions for our families — how many of us could do what Glenn has done for that little girl who arrived in a stocking on Christmas Day?

“She was perfect,” he said. “Everything was great the first few months. She was an awesome, beautiful girl, the love of our lives. Then we started noticing that she was missing milestones. Every now and then we would notice a little jerk. We just thought we were startling her. But when it continued, we brought her to the University of Tennessee for testing. That was a hard day.”

The doctors told the Glenns that Hatley was intellectually disabled, that she would never walk, that she might never talk, that she would never go to college, never get married.

“I just got really angry,” Glenn said. “At that point, I had reached a level in my FedEx career, we had some resources. I just got very angry and said, ‘I’m going to fix this.’ ”

The Glenns sought out the best doctors in the country. Not only could they not “fix” Hatley, they couldn’t identify exactly what was wrong.

“The label that was used was PDD, pervasive developmental disorder,” Glenn said. “That’s kind of a broad spectrum that may or may not include autism. She had autistic tendencies but was not autistic.”

It was a mystery. And it became increasingly hard.

“The initial diagnosis didn’t turn out to be accurate,” he said. “Hatley turned out to be able to talk and walk. She was always able to communicate effectively but she had significant behavioral challenges. In the early years, the behavioral challenges manifested themselves in the destruction of our home. If there was a lamp on the table, it got knocked off. If there was something to be thrown, it got thrown.”

The Glenns learned to deal with the outbursts. They are a couple of complementary strengths. Donna is the optimist, her husband the pragmatist. With the help of extended family and what Glenn calls the “wonderful” staff at Madonna Learning Center, they forged ahead and built a life. They had two more children, Tucker and Katherine. They took Hatley to restaurants and shops and church on Sundays, despite the certainty that there would be destructive outbursts along the way.

“We learned to deal with it,” Glenn said. “But when Hatley was about 17 years old, the behavioral outbursts changed. It went from destruction of property to self-injury. Which would include biting her hands, her arms and her knees. If you see her today, there’s nothing but scars on both of her arms and her hands.

“The problem is that she is now a young lady. She’s not an infant anymore. She weighs 150 pounds. The crazy part is, when she has an outburst, she has an adrenaline rush that is almost indescribable. She has no control over it and she has virtually no pain threshold. So she can bite herself to the point of bringing blood, or head-butt you, or bite you, and it won’t slow her down. The only way it can be slowed down is when she works herself through it. I knew how to restrain her, I was able to restrain her but I paid the price for that. If you look closely at my arms, you’ll see scars. . . .

“She would always ask me to keep her safe. She meant to keep her safe from herself — because she knew.”

For the better part of two decades, Glenn had been able to balance his work at FedEx with his responsibilities as a father. But as the intensity of Hatley’s outbursts ratcheted up, the possibility of balance was lost. 

“Fred (Smith) was unbelievably supportive,” Glenn said. “He let me get away with a lot. I should have done more traveling around the world to see our different operations. He gave me a pass on that because he knew I couldn’t be away from home for an extended period of time. But it just became clear that it wasn’t going to work. I ultimately made the decision to step away.”

There is no telling how much higher Glenn could have ascended within the company. But he said he was “at peace” with the decision. It was time for him to be home full time. 

“Ironically, right after I retired, Hatley’s episodes of self-injury were taken up a significant level,” Glenn said. “We had actually admitted her to the Baddour Center in Senatobia. Through no fault of theirs, things got substantially worse, to the point that she was banging her head on the wall so much, she was wearing a helmet 24 hours a day. And then one night I got a call from them saying they could not keep her safe. So I went down there at 7 a.m. and I brought her home. We were in total crisis mode, dealing with multiple, extended outbursts every day.”

Hatley slept on a mattress on the floor of her parents’ bedroom. The Glenns were convinced they couldn’t let her out of their sight. At 61, Mike Glenn was faced with what he calls “the hardest period of my life.” He points to two things that helped him, and the family, come through intact.

“First, the good Lord blessed me with patience,” he said. “I’m a very patient man. The things that Hatley does don’t bother me because I know she can’t control it. So what are you going to do? Second, I’ve never dealt with anything alone. Donna has been with me every step of the way. During the time I was at FedEx, she carried a much heavier load than I did. The fact that our marriage has survived is remarkable in and of itself. You look at the statistics for parents with special needs children, and the chances of them staying together are very low. But we have done it together. I don’t think we could have done it any other way.”

The Glenns decided to fly Hatley to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for intensive genetic testing. They simultaneously reached out to the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, a 16-bed unit that handles some of the most challenging behavioral cases in the country.

“I got a call from the Mayo Clinic. They said, ‘We have the answer to what you’ve been dealing with your entire life.’ I said, ‘Tell me more.’”

Mike Glenn

“Within a month, they admitted Hatley,” Glenn said. “We landed in Baltimore and we were in a car going from the airport to Kennedy Krieger when I got a call from the Mayo Clinic. They said, ‘We have the answer to what you’ve been dealing with your entire life.’ I said, ‘Tell me more.’ ”

For nearly three decades, doctors hadn’t been able to pinpoint what was wrong with Hatley. The Glenns occasionally wondered if it had something to do with Donna’s extended labor. They wondered if they had done something wrong.

“The people at Mayo said she had a disorder called KCNB1,” he said. “It’s genetic. It’s believed to be degenerative. But the bad news was, there are only 80 known cases in the world and Hatley is the oldest. The people at Mayo said they would learn more from us about the course of the disease than we would learn from them.”

It was a relief to finally have an answer. But it was unsettling, too.

“We have no idea what the future will hold,” Glenn said. “We don’t know how long Hatley will live or what her life will look like. In that respect, we’re on our own.”

The people at Kennedy Krieger helped steady Hatley, reducing the frequency of her outbursts. They also made it clear to the Glenns that they simply could not continue to care for their daughter by themselves.

“They were very direct with us,” he said. “They said, ‘You’re in very good shape for someone your age but you’re not able to do this anymore.’ And they were right. I’m 65. As much as I hate to say this, if I had to do it every day, I wouldn’t last for five more years.”

The Glenns finally found a group home in Arlington for Hatley. They visit her multiple times a week. Not long ago, they took her to the beach for the first time in years. It wasn’t a complete success — Hatley had three destructive episodes — but it was memorable, just the same.

“I don’t know that Donna and I have ever asked, ‘Why us?’ I’ve had so many blessings in my life. I had a career that most people in this country would give anything to have. So it’s impossible for me to look back and think, ‘Gee, why did this happen to me?’”

Mike Glenn

“I don’t know that Donna and I have ever asked, ‘Why us?’ ” Glenn said. “I’ve had so many blessings in my life. I had a career that most people in this country would give anything to have. So it’s impossible for me to look back and think, ‘Gee, why did this happen to me?’

“Now, we may have asked, ‘Why her? Why did this happen to Hatley?’ But I have a strong faith, and I think the Lord was intentional in terms of giving her to us. I look at other people, I have friends with great marriages, and I look at them and go, ‘No way they could survive this.’ ”

Glenn says that without a hint of boastfulness. That is not the point. The moment the nurses handed him that little girl in a stocking, he knew he would do anything for her. That is what he has done.

So Sunday, on Father’s Day, Glenn will celebrate with his kids. Katherine and Tucker are both living and working in Memphis. Glenn is particularly proud of the lives they have forged. 

“Sometimes, when you tell the story, it’s like they don’t even exist,” he said. “I can’t express how proud I am of them. I like to think we gave them the attention they needed, but they are probably carrying scars, some of which we don’t even know.”

It is a bluntly honest thing for Glenn to say, isn’t it? And it gets to the nature of fatherhood. Even the best fathers are imperfect. It is the essence of the job.

Thirty-one years ago, Mike and Donna Glenn raced off to Baptist East, to meet their firstborn. She turned out to be very different than anyone could have expected. But their love for her — fierce and unyielding — was exactly as they knew it would be. 

They will pick up Hatley at the group home Sunday. Maybe go for ice cream. Maybe go for a drive.

But the best part of the visit?

“Anytime I can make her laugh,” Glenn said. “When she is laughing, I’m at my happiest. My life is wrapped around making her laugh.”