Losing my father at 3 put a stress on my mother to raise my younger brother and me. With a full time job during the day as a seamstress for an upholstery shop, and making tailor made draperies at home most of the night, kept us fed and the bills paid. She always said you have to take care of your own, push past the limits, and accept NO handouts. My mother was a proud woman that remembered the depression and acted as if it may happen again. Nothing went to waste around our house. If a pair of pants was to wear out, they were taken apart and used to repair others. Most of our clothes were made at home and made well. She made sure that her kids could do all these things as well, teaching us to learn on our own so we never had to depend on someone. Her drive and determination was to make me the person I am today.
Everything that needed to be done, from cooking and cleaning to making our own clothes we were taught to do. As I grew so did my desire to learn and my need to expand on creativity. At 10 my sister was born, and so was the new challenge and an opportunity to learn to care for a child. This knowledge was to come in very handy in later years. Lawn care, painting, minor home repairs were all part of our livelihood. We did not see ourselves as poor, rather as independent and did not take for granted the little things many do today.
At 13 I got my first job clearing construction sites and continued along that line of work until I joined the Army at 18 as a combat construction specialist. I am the go go go type and ready to get it done no matter what. The army is more the, hurry-up-and-wait, for nothing to happen type, so we did not get along well. After my hitch I got away from that and returned to the construction field. If it had to do with a house I knew how to do it so finding work was easy. I thought I was never to need to be in the situation of my mother. I was so wrong.
Reaching 22 I was now a dad and things were looking good. Steady job, lived well below my means and had a padded bank account, because I was planning to retire at 40. Then someone hit the brakes, hard. I fell at work one day and broke my back at the L5-S1. 4 years in therapy, hospitals, specialist, not to mention, some women cannot handle a hurt man so she was gone too. I have pushed passed all this, learned to walk with just a cane, attended motivation seminars to build my self esteem (something like this will make someone like me feel worthless in a second). All I can say is I am my mother's child, living off what I had saved I have survived and am now attending college to find a new career. I have been building computers and self taught programming them for many years, so my study of choice is information technology.
Nothing gets me down; there isn't a problem that a book and a glance to the heavens cannot cure. But I did learn to slow down, and that is a good thing as I have missed many of the little things in life I can now enjoy. Lost my mother to cancer a few years ago, right to the end she kept telling us we can do anything we want as long as we set our mind to it, "the only thing that will keep you down is yourself." Dedicate to Educate is the slogan in my home. My daughter is in college and wants to be a neurosurgeon to help people like her daddy, my son wants to be a Nascar driver to make lots of money (he's 9, come on), myself I just want to be a good parent and a good person. Life is simple so I keep it that way.
