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On My Way

Growing Up Separated Part 2, Back with Dad

By Zachery LeePublished 7 years ago 15 min read
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My dad had never really been an easy person to get along with. Either he was upset all the time, stressing over the way things have been going with life in general: kids, money, bills, wife life, or whatever it was at that time; In his eyes, I always felt like a lesser person. I know now in my years of pondering what was, what is, and what could be..and WHY things are this way, I know he did everything in his power to make sure we were all taken care of. No matter the cost of self. He put all of his dreams and aspirations aside to make sure that the kids in this family were all fed, clothed, and supported. We made the best of what we had, and when things got rough, he was always there to make it right. Even though more times than less, it was all out of his pockets, and truthfully, ruined any chance of retiring for him.

There are 5 of us, and even though it was mainly the boys who had gotten into the legal side of trouble in life...well I guess that's all of what caused all the loss in money and retirement plan. I have some funny kind of fucked up stories about all that, but all you need to know in this read is that collectively, my brothers took roughly $160-$180,000 in court fines, legal fees, bailout money, and damage repair through the years of nonsense that they got into. As for myself, My dad paid for my license at 18, it was suspended at 14 so the cost to get it back was $2000. (Stupid). He bought my Durango ($3400), Bailed me out one time, and got my car out of the impound..collectively $750 in those instances. I paid him back for all but $2040, but he doesn't want to take anything else from me while I'm trying to get my life back together. The biggest expense my father paid was for my brain surgery, which I had at 16 years old. I will never forget that number, it pains me every time I think about it. $109,635.85. If one day comes, and I FINALLY get somewhere from a monetary standpoint. Income rising, and life doesn't decide to throw someone in my ring to fuck anything else in my life up...I want to give him the world on a silver, no, GOLD platter. This man has literally given everything to us kids, and look what he has to show for it. A shitty job with NO chance at retiring anytime soon..if he makes it past 61 what's left? Who knows. Even if I could walk up one day and hand him an envelope with 10% of what he's spent on us kids, that would be astonishing. Just to kindly, calmly hand him a yellow envelope, and walk away. That would be the best day of my life. Now, if I could scratch off a Million, Not only would I retire my father in a nice house with a built 1967 Pontiac Firebird in the driveway, but every one of the grandkids would have something put away for them when they turn 25. I want them to have to grow and learn, get over the ignorance of being a growing child in the world of mayhem and such. THEN, 20-30,000 as reward sounds like a pretty great way to open up a 25th birthday. With the addenda that if they aren't being responsible adults..drug addiction..no sense of direction..hurting not just themselves, but their family..they would be declined the money and it would be further put to use in any charity of their choosing. I'd probably be dead by then, but I know what I'll have left, and that makes all the difference.

Back to dad though. This man is a monster of his own making. A GENIUS in all that he practices, a craftsman of all sorts, he MADE his way, lived, learned, loved and lost. Now, a lone wolf who has a failed wolf pack behind him. I intend to change that of course but in the meantime, let's have some stories shall we?

I was just a little kid here, probably like 6 or 7, I had got my first bicycle that year and forced my sister Dani to take the training wheels off. I learned quick and before we knew it I was off on my 2 wheeled death machine. My brothers had their bikes and up at the elementary school, there was this dirt hill, we all went up there and over time, some of my brother's friends had shaped the dirt into an intense set of REAL jumps that were pretty difficult to get if you didn't hit them right. So we're all having a blast out on these hills, and out of nowhere these other kids come up from the apartments next to the school and started harassing us. My dad got a phone call and showed up in a hot second. The kids who were harassing us tried to step up to the plate and take a shot at my dad. Didn't work to well, got their face shoved to the ground. The smaller of the 2 stepped down and sat aside. The bigger of the 2 picked up the SHOVEL that we had over by the hill, we used it for shaping, he was about to try and hit my dad in the face with it. This kid swung as hard as he could but, just as fast as that spade tip shovel flew at his face, dads arm gripped the end of the shovel, RIPPED the shovel from his hands, and BOTH the kids FROZE in their tracks. Both of them quickly jumped at the fence behind them to climb up and over and run back home. Dad took 2 steps and WHIPPED the shovel at the fence, I had never seen anyone run so fast. We all went back to riding our bikes and were back home for dinner.

As I've said, my father is a MONSTER of a man. He stands around 6'4", gotta be somewhere around 270-300lb, and he is SERIOUSLY, solid as a fucking ROCK. Well, boulder if you wanna play technically. Either way, this man was more than any of us kids could ever dream to be. He did what he had to, put his life in danger in some cases, survived the hell we all live in, and built off of a shit life, with a shit wife, and VERY troubling children. If anyone deserves to be admired and respected beyond being....it's that man. I really don't have any other cool stories about my dad as I didn't get to grow up with him. My dad and I got back to living together when I was 17, I had come with a court order after I got kicked off a 3-year probationary period cause Jackson County gave up hope on me getting any better. I took advantage of this on more than a few occasions to be honest..but I spent a lot more of my time by myself. We moved into a condo out in Wixom, and after about a year, or close to it, I was back in school, I got approved by the board after a psych evaluation that uncovered that SOMEHOW, I was a 36-year-old man, inside the body of an 18-year-old boy. Mind fucked on SO MANY LEVELS that day, but it was pretty revealing to myself on the same point. My dad and I didn't see each other that much, with him working, and me doing school work.Things kind of started slipping for me though and I'm sure dad noticed. I said some things that weren't exactly OKAY. Unfortunately, after I had made a few friends, I found a connection to weed and drinking all over again. That became my downfall in an instance, but it took a minute to catch up, and it was total bullshit HOW it happened.

Fun fact, on the first day of school, I shaved my head, bald, to show everyone my scars from my brain surgery.

I didn't want to be recognized, I didn't want people to bother me, I was there to do work and get my life back on track. For a great while it worked, then I made a few friends, they brought me around others who wanted to see what I was about. Soon, I found myself smoking and wandering around late nights, pondering the existence I had fallen into..in that, I started slipping in class. One fateful day, I woke up late and rushed out the door, hopped in the truck (Dad gave me an ok to use it after I got my license) and darted down the road to the school. I was wearing the same pants I had on the night before. In that night, I went for a walk and smoked a joint, I had a pack of them. Only about 3.5g of weed altogether, but I ended up having it on school grounds. Didn't think much of it. In my first hour class, this girl Chelsea Turner asked me if she could buy some weed off of me because she could smell what I had on me and she wanted a taste. I told her, "I just smoke it, I'm not a dealer.". She didn't take too kindly to this though after I turned her down a second and third time, I just went on through the day and kept to myself. After lunch, I walked into my 4th-hour class, sat down and waited on attendance to pass so I could get through and move on with my day. Next thing I knew though, the principal of the school showed up with the chief of police. They stood me up and asked me to walk with them down to the office. I picked up my bag and walked out. I found myself in a pretty decent predicament, not knowing what to do about the pack of joints I had in my pocket, I just went down, knowing I was about to get SEVERELY screwed over. What was I going to do though, I should've had them in my backpack, cause that would require them to jump through some hoops to get what they were looking for, but I had them in my pocket at the end of the day, I didn't get arrested, but I did get expelled. There was a motion set that upon review, I might be able to come back, given that I follow the guidelines of the school and agree to keep my distance all around. First, a year had to go by, so in the meantime, I reflected on myself and made the attempt to grow as an individual.

I was very damaged at the time, so from time to time I kind of lashed out at my dad, who clearly didn't deserve it but, I had nowhere to point my anger, so he got it...and I IMMEDIATELY regretted it. I told him one day, yelling over the phone, trying to hold back tears..(Don't even remember how it started) "You're never there for me when I need you!". He hung up the phone without another word, slammed the front door open roughly 10 minutes later, stormed upstairs, gripped me up by me shirt, tossed me in my room and as I stumbled back to my feet, SMACKED my face so hard, my stretchers fell out and I dropped again. I didn't want to cry, I wanted to murder him. Couldn't figure out why, but I knew inside of myself that ULTIMATELY, he was right, and I was just being wrongfully emotional. My father and I slowly got on better terms over the time that went by considering the circumstances. I got back to working things out for myself, stayed considerate towards my father, we still didn't talk all that much, but we were good with it that way.

I looked for a job, and I started working at Jimmy Johns when I was 18, I went back to school in an online place and was working toward my diploma. Turns out, all my credits from the school had been taken away cause I didn't finish out the year, so I had to start from scratch. Didn't like the idea, quit going to school. Dad was very disappointed in the decision I made to do this, but I think I proved myself in the long. I switched to full time at Jimmy Johns for a minute and lost interest in the low paying job aspect. Decided I would take a crack at being a garbage man and then moved over to Duncan Disposal as a loader on the back of the truck. Took it all in my own terms, everything was on me this time and I dug it. Woke up before my dad, went to work before him, and got home after him most days. I was working about 60-70 hours a week, and making shit for pay, but, I was there, owning my life because that's what it had to be. I got a few people jobs with me, and we all killed it every day we were on route. It was a great way to get fit too, I got really muscular, and even though I smoked like a chimney, I was cut up and stronger than I had ever been. I walked in from work one day, and my dad approached me. He said with a tone of sympathy "I know you've been working hard over there, but if you want, maybe I could talk to the guys at the shop and see about getting you a job.". I saw the look in his eyes that was, he saw how hard I was working and I knew what had to be done, so I was doing it. I watched as he walked up the stairs and back to his room. I said thank you and he went and put in a good word for me at the shop.

Another fun fact, BOTH of my brothers worked for Moeller Manufacturing, multiple times before me. They had worked with my dad, under him and running their own departments. They both fucked themselves out of the place creating a bad image for when I walked into the picture. This is where the addiction to painkillers and excessive drinking became more of a thing for them.

Anyway, so I took the job at Moeller, and rose up decently. I had my own car I made payments on, I paid my way for everything. It was pretty great actually. The workers loved me, and I genuinely enjoyed working there. I started getting really good at the job and was asked to fill in for other people at other shops. By this time I had moved out of my dads and in with my brother and his girlfriend (Now baby momma). Things started slowly deteriorating though, Al and Steph planned on getting a house, I was glad to take over the apartment, but I wasn't ready to take everything on at once. Before I knew it, Al and Steph had packed up and left, and it was just me and my pooch, we'll have stories about her too, but not now. Then, just as I was getting solid with the plot lines, I lost my job. Just like that, had to move back to dads. Moeller hired me back a few times after, as a janitor for the second and third run but, instead of letting me make it past my 90-day trial, they fired me.BOTH times I got to the 90th day. BULLSHIT. Dad had to watch it all too, he knew it was fucked up, we talked about it each time it happened. Couldn't do anything about it though, he had no power over the people in the office who had made the decision. So again, the one man I wanted to impress, to fill with pride and a sense of accomplishment, had to watch me work SO HARD to make a name, and then have that name THRASHED away because of my brother's idiotic tendencies from years prior. In the meantime, every time I got around my dad in the shop, you could just tell that all he heard of me was good things. We talked about it on a few short occasions but, like I said before, we didn't do a TON of talking. He was never really an emotional guy, and when he was, it showed in a pretty hard way. There was always a glow on my face from enjoying the place I was in, and there was never a dull look on his in seeing that, MAYBE, one of his kids was going to do it right. One of us was going to make a difference in the game that we're all involved in.

My father is probably..definitely the best man I have ever known. Even though I really didn't get to grow with him, I know all I need to about him. The fact that he had done for this family, what most others wouldn't for theirs, really changed my views on everything I'd ever really known about family. I still don't think my siblings are the greatest..mainly my brothers..they were undoubtedly the WORST..but he stood by, and even though I'm pretty sure he's given up hope for any of us to actually DO SOMETHING with our lives, I know he will always be there, if not physically, mentally. For the things I have learned from him will stick forever. Appreciate your father, he won't be there forever.

I have a lot of other side stories within this one time frame, I will be continuing them on into the next set of articles for sure, please, keep on reading, I hope you enjoy what you've seen so far.

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About the Creator

Zachery Lee

Just a loner kid who's been through some things in his life. I have mountains of stories to tell, not all of them clean... I hope that my stories inspire, and maybe even teach you a bit of something about life.

Proceed with caution.

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