My Life Of A Man

Imagine coming home from middle school to your grandmother house on your mother’s side to find it unusually quiet and everyone with tears in their eyes. Imagine being told your father had a routine surgery but nothing was routine about the results. Imagine having thanksgiving dinner with your family and the phone rings then you hear a loud scream and feet running towards you to let you know your father has died. Imagine going to school the following weeks and hearing jokes that your dad died because “the turkey was dry”, “He choked on a chicken bone”, and “He wanted to leave your mom”. I did not have to imagine because it became my reality at the age of 13.

It all started on a warm sunny day, my dad had just arrived from Michigan. He came into the house gave my siblings, my mother and me a hug and told us the big news. “We are moving to Michigan” he said. He said it so calmly as if expecting my siblings, my mother and myself to react in a good way. Immediately I started to panic, I didn’t want to leave the place I grew up in. I was only eleven years old, I didn’t know how the people in Michigan would be. Finally I spoke “ I don’t want to move dad, I love it here!” which he responded with “I’m sorry but we are going to move because we can’t afford to live here anymore” He said this so emotionless as if not knowing how this could affect me. I hardly got any sleep that night for the fact that my parents were arguing for what felt like all night, but in reality was just an hour.

My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me.... He was running at my side, out of breath, at the end of his strength, at his wit’s end. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his only support.”

When my mom would send me off to school, nobody ever liked the new guy. I felt so scared, and awkward.I was bullied because of the color of my skin. I tended to be a little darker not only because of my roots but because long hard hours working with my dad after school. Resulted of me having sun burns. I was called every name in the book,and it was tough for me. Having to go to school and get treated like an old rag was already enough to what I would come home everyday with. I’d just get home and right away start working with my dad just to start giving us some income. I had to get used to this type of work everyday for the rest of my life. I wasn't so sure even if I even wanted to keep going to school. I mean I was already not caring for school and working with my dad after school. I wanted to drop out. To leave everything behind. I didn't need to keep going. I was a nobody. Nobody wanted me. My classmates told me so many times. I started to believe

Started off with me having to move back to Indiana. First, my mom was nowhere to be found, so I wasn’t able to say good bye and that I loved her. I really wanted to be able to hug her one last time. She did the same thing when I was a kid. It made me feel unwanted all over again, so I got on the bus with nothing but 3 bags and no money.

The new environment was a well-needed change, and we quickly began school that August. Everything for once was manageable and running smoothly. Then, I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, high school was over, and I was facing an ultimatum presented to me by my mother; either I go to college, or I move out and figure my own life out. I resentfully chose the first option.

At first I thought fathers protect you, help you, and love you, but I never knew that they ignore you for beer or even abandon you with a lie… a simple lie. To leave you, your Mom and sibling … hopeless. That was my darkest time of my life, or was it?

When a child loses a parent their world is turned upside down. Childhood grief is such a painful experience, yet it often goes underestimated because as children grow most physicians, educators or clergy are unable to recognize the signs of depression, loneliness or isolation in grieving children. Statistics show that one in nine Americans lose a parent before the age of 20 (Zaslow, 2012). Death of either parent is devastating, but the death of a father leaves children wondering who will take care of them. Fathers are seen as the protectors in our society, they are the ones who provide the money and stability for a family. Not only that, but fathers are the spiritual head of the family and when that disappears the dynamics change.

7th grade was the year I woke up. My mom called me into her bedroom late one afternoon and was still sitting on her bed, wearing her pajamas. The bright and cheerful sunshine that lit up the room gave a false ambiance of the tension that clouded the air. I already knew what she was going to say, but I did not want to believe it as the truth. I had noticed that my mom and dad's relationship with one another was growing apart just by the way they acted around each other. The conversations between them became shorter and their affection for one another began to fade. My dad spent his nights falling asleep watching TV on the couch, while my mom slowly disappeared back into her bedroom, alone. This had been happening for a while now, so I do not know why I was even surprised when my mom said to me that, “Your dad and I are getting a divorce”. I should have seen it coming. The clues were all in front of me, but I was too afraid to put them together. I was scared because, for the first time in my life, the image of my "perfect" family was crumbling before me. I knew inside that my family was falling apart, but I was desperately holding onto the fibers that I thought were keeping us together. It is hard to believe that one encounter can change the course of one's life forever. In this instance, I was awoken from the dream that I had been living in for so long.

The sky was dark with only the street lights there to help me see. It was around 9:00 PM and I saw that the lights were still on inside my house. Now that meant that my parents were still up, so I knew they were going to be angry. I was hanging out with some friends and just didn’t want any of it from my parents. I opened the door and the second I stepped into the house, my mom started yelling.

The rest of the year we had a sub and i was very sad. The next school year i looked for her but she didn't come back. The rest of my elementary years are just a blurred mix of boring classes and my endless daydreaming. I remember my third grade teacher was crazy. One day a boy farted in one of my classes and after making him shamefully spray the room with febreze, she made him stand in the hallway the rest of the day. That's also the year i learned how to spell Mississippi. At the of my fourth grade year my mom moved to Amarillo Texas into this small camper. My dad worked out of town so my little brother sister and i all moved down to amarillo with her. She worked all day and we just stayed in the camper and “home schooled” ourselves, which consisted of daily fights with my brother over lego indiana jones and my sister… well doing whatever she did by herself. After a while my mom starting to bring us up to her new business with her and we just played in the back all day. Halfway through the year she took us to another private school and told us to get dressed for school and bring our

My story begins when I was in the second grade. Times were good, and I was enjoying my childhood. On a certain Sunday I and my mom attended church, as we did on other Sunday’s. This time though my dad decided not to come with us because he said he was tired. So we were off on our own doing our regular Sunday activities.

My father passed away in 1991, two weeks before Christmas. I was 25 at the time but until then I had not grown up. I was still an ignorant youth that only cared about finding the next party. My role model was now gone, forcing me to reevaluate the direction my life was heading. I needed to reexamine some of the lessons he taught me through the years.

Until one day, I broke down and began crying hysterically, I spent about a week absent from school and my parents took me to talk to the principal and counselor. There, I let it all out. I told them about how my teachers would punish me for not following instructions because I couldn’t understand what they'd say. How even though they were supposed to put me in a program called ESOL which is for students who want to learn English, they didn’t. How even though I tried my hardest, even going to school on Saturdays for tutoring, which many seven-year-olds would detest, I would go gladly, because I thought it would get better. It

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.