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March 2015 Question #9
Mar. 24th, 2015 09:12 pmAsked by the furry bear known as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
texwriterbear:
"If you could go back in time to tell your 14-year old self something, what would you tell yourself?"
I won't lie. Fourteen was not a good year for me. I started high school that year and encountered the douche-nozzles that would make my life rotten for the next four.
However, that year also marked a huge turning point in my life in a very defining way. My family never had money. We weren't even middle-class. We were poor. And I know a lot of people say that, but we were seriously poor. Always broke, my parents got calls from creditors all the time. Bills were always behind and paid late and generally my grandparents had to provide when something extra was needed.
And that summer, things got worse.
My dad had a massive stroke. He and Mom stayed in a Lexington hospital, about 90 minutes up the road, for two weeks. Dad was the breadwinner and his paychecks were now gone. Mom had just started a job as a clerk in a shoe store and she had to quit. For those two weeks, my teenage sibs and I learned self-sufficiency, taking care of the house all on our own and burning through our parents' meager savings quickly. After that came welfare and food stamps, then Dad collected SSI, which had us going from "poor" to "dirt poor." Dad would never work again.
So, I have thought of this question in the past many times. That summer, the tell-tale signs of Dad's upcoming massive stroke were there. None of us knew them for what they were. Dad never had regular doctor visits which would have detected them. If had the chance to tell my 14-year-old self something, I'd tell him about dad's upcoming stroke and to get him to a doctor as soon as possible, by whatever means necessary.
I have no idea if this would have made a difference in how the future turned out, but I would like to think it would have bought us some sort of quality father-son time, because we never really had any after the stroke and had very little before it.
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March is question month. If you'd like to ask me a question, you can post it here.
texwriterbear:"If you could go back in time to tell your 14-year old self something, what would you tell yourself?"
I won't lie. Fourteen was not a good year for me. I started high school that year and encountered the douche-nozzles that would make my life rotten for the next four.
However, that year also marked a huge turning point in my life in a very defining way. My family never had money. We weren't even middle-class. We were poor. And I know a lot of people say that, but we were seriously poor. Always broke, my parents got calls from creditors all the time. Bills were always behind and paid late and generally my grandparents had to provide when something extra was needed.
And that summer, things got worse.
My dad had a massive stroke. He and Mom stayed in a Lexington hospital, about 90 minutes up the road, for two weeks. Dad was the breadwinner and his paychecks were now gone. Mom had just started a job as a clerk in a shoe store and she had to quit. For those two weeks, my teenage sibs and I learned self-sufficiency, taking care of the house all on our own and burning through our parents' meager savings quickly. After that came welfare and food stamps, then Dad collected SSI, which had us going from "poor" to "dirt poor." Dad would never work again.
So, I have thought of this question in the past many times. That summer, the tell-tale signs of Dad's upcoming massive stroke were there. None of us knew them for what they were. Dad never had regular doctor visits which would have detected them. If had the chance to tell my 14-year-old self something, I'd tell him about dad's upcoming stroke and to get him to a doctor as soon as possible, by whatever means necessary.
I have no idea if this would have made a difference in how the future turned out, but I would like to think it would have bought us some sort of quality father-son time, because we never really had any after the stroke and had very little before it.
--------------------------
March is question month. If you'd like to ask me a question, you can post it here.
