2024/05/12
Posted Tag: #Personal
Other Tags: #Linux, #Windows, #All
On Flag Day in 1999 my father died. I am the oldest child so in a unspoken way the family became my responsibility. He was self employed and had a farm with a huge garden and around thirty head of cattle. As I have done in my past I took on a responsibility. It was about my mother and two brothers of which one was still in High School. How I survived this I have no idea. This man was my life and I had to emotional suppress my own feelings for everyone else. He contacted with the Post Office carrying mail between them. It was a lot to deal with. Another contractor took care of the route that day being a Monday but Tuesday I had to do something. Thankfully there was a family friend that had a CDL license and was available to drive the route in my father's truck. At the same time I was dealing with funeral arrangements and I paid for it all, which my mother reimbursed when she received the insurance payout. Being self employed I had to deal with taxes too. The Post Office put us on an emergency contract for a month so that was looming ahead. Not to mention the emotional reaction of my mother and my brothers.
Before I go any farther I am going to relate a story of the type of father he was. He had a contract with the Post Office for mail between them. After I got my drivers license I started driving his route on Saturdays driving his pickup with a camper cover on the back. One of my uncles had the same type of contact so I drove his truck for him. One summer when I was seventeen my father and mother took a week vacation and my father left me with the route while they were gone. This was a 27 foot paneled truck I drove to the GMF in Charlotte, NC picking up mail at Post Offices along the way. I believe there were five or six pickups. This was all before cell phones and such so for a week I had no contact with my father. At the end of the route each day I got to the GMF, emptied the truck at the dock and moved it down to the end of the docks where they had equipment stored so they weren't actually using the docks there. My father would spend the night there in the back of his truck. He had a bed of sorts he would fold up in back each morning. I slept on the front seat since it was a bench seat. I had been doing this a few days and each morning moving down to load the truck I would pull a few feet out from the dock and turn since there were no trucks around me. One morning I got up as usual, went to the swing room as they called it for the restroom and something to eat. I went back out to the truck, moved down for loading and continued on to the Post Offices. When I got back that night is when things happened. A dock worker told me there was somebody there looking for me. A guy had avoided the designated employee packing and hidden is car on the other side my father's truck so nobody could see. That morning when I pulled the truck out only a few feet the loader and such on the back of the truck had went down the side of the guys car busting all his side windows out. I had left the truck and returned to the truck on the divers side and being backed in I never saw the car. It was also dark that early too. The dock workers knew I was seventeen and you had to be eighteen to drive the route so out of respect for my father they hide my identity from anyone the rest of the week. Particularly the guy. When my father got back we found out it was completely blamed on the guy because you were not supposed bring cars into the dock area. What I am expressing here is that my father left me completely alone with his mail contract driving his truck for a week when I was seventeen. The trust and responsibility he gave me then is a testament to how he raised me and to this day it amazes me that he did that. That is the type of father he was.
How I held it together after his sudden death in his truck and all I had to deal with I have no idea. I guess it is attributed to how he raised me. All of this went on for years. The contract was let out for bid after his death so after a few weeks that I didn't have to deal with. Sold his truck to the guy that won the contract. In my state you previously could transfer a title on the back of it but they had discontinued that. You needed a bill of sale. A used car dealer locally gave me a bill of sale. I appreciated that a lot. Myself and all of my brothers were living at my father and mothers place when he died. I had recently moved back from Virginia. Two and a half years later I still had not dealt with his death and frankly I was a upset with God. It is hard to rationalize the death of someone you love.
I had moved out of the house renting an apartment near Charlotte. I had hiked portions of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia with some friends from work on long weekends and such so I knew about it. I had spent six years in the Navy and ten in Virginia with a DOD contractor so my inclination was to get out of the stress and being alone doing it was not unusually to me. So I dove into figuring out how to through hike the Application Trail. I needed to get away and was about to turn forty so I did a bucket list type thing. I thought a six months alone hiking would be good for me. Give me time to think. I had no idea it would involve my father. You can not through hike the Appalachian Trail alone. The trail each year is a subculture of people from around the world. I met some amazing people from all over the place, Holland, Sweden, England and all of the world. I can not name all the countries. I had a journal I kept with people from all the world signing the guest book. It is amazing to me my journal is still there. But so many people just helped me. I never asked for anything or any support but people just gave it. When I completed my hike I was on the street in Millinocket, MA and two guys ran into me I had never seen in my life. They invited me and paid for my dinner that night. I would get alone on trail for a few hours maybe a day or so and just cry. This was an unbelievable social experience and the best one I have had in my life. I kept in contact with people from the trial for years afterward. Other people are the reason we are here and that experience was exactly what I needed at the time when I needed it. God doesn't give you what you want, he gives you what you need. I read that one time. I am so thankful I was given that and I did not see it coming.
That is how I restored my faith. Did God give it to me? I do not know. But what I was given was the ability to make that choice. Our lives are about choices and the ability to make them in a intuitive way is the gift. But it is why I trust my intuition. That intuition and the ability to trust it is a gift also. I have no way to fully express that. It is all about love. I say that because love favors intuition. No I think love is more about faith and intuition is just a way to find it.
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