A Hard Time Losing Man!

I know I am getting old these days, and I have lived a full life for sure. In many ways, I lived a life many would have loved to have and others would hate me for. Yet, as of now being 63 years old, I still survive, I still do my best to get by and I still take care of my wife and home the best I can.

Now I suffer from many things in my older age and I do prefer peace and quiet most of all. I have so many things wrong with me I wonder at times how long I can last, I just hope I don’t go before my beloved wife does, who has breast cancer, that has spread to her bones. I don’t want her going without me being here, she doesn’t deserve to die alone or in any pain, all she ever did was help others.

Myself, well I did what I could as a kid to help my main family. I babysat the younger three under me. I worked with my step-father rebuilding the home he and mom bought in 1970. We redid the entire house almost while I still lived there in the 1970s, we did floors, walls, electric and more. We never finished the third floor, and dad never got to it after I left, it remained unfinished when he died in 1990, I know I saw it.

We redid the basement too and added a toilet down there and a floor. At some point after i left dad had a new furnace put in too. Other than that the house remained the same.

My life after I dropped out of high school in my junior year led me, to places I never thought I would go. I did nothing but work for a year or so in factories. I was never happy in them anyway, so I joined the U,S, Army. I only stayed six months there, for I was immature and couldn’t handle it, so a Sergeant put me in for a Trainee Discharge under Honorable Conditions, I came home.

I went from home life to living in a YMCA in my hometown then, eating in diners, cleaning diners and helping them for food. I went from there to join the Connecticut Army National Guard, trying to get back on my feet as I worked odd jobs in factories more, that I hated. I refused to surrender though and survives the 1970’s till I had no jobs to find anymore and no reason to stay home.

I walked into a Navy recruiting Station and signed up. I became a U.S. Navy Sailor,a Boiler Technician, and served total service 16 years, finally being discharged medically under Honorable conditions. I fell aboard a navy ship and fought the Navy for seven years to stay in, but I lost to a Doctor in the end.

Since the Navy I fought to try to find a job and save my first family, but it fell apart when my first wife couldn’t handle her past, of being raped and abused by her own father. She turned her anger on me, and we divorced when she told me she wanted one. The divorce took two years to get done. I lost everything I owned and my two daughters in it. Yet, I survived, in pain and tears, but I did survive and overcome.

I sought help from the Veterans Administration, and got it. They sent me back to school, college me a high school drop-out right? Guess what I did it working as a Hotel Clerk, over a year period. I graduated at the top of my class, a 3.7 out of 4.0 GPA. I got my degree in Hotel Management and Restaurant Management.

I went to work as a Hotel Manager, and ultimately left the job for medical reasons and more. I couldn’t keep up with it at 41 years old and six herniated discs in my back. I stopped working and was given 100 percent unemployability under the Veterans Administration, and have not really worked a day since.

I recovered with second wife and we have been together now 26 years going on 27 next May 2020. So I live day to day and deal with pain in my body, in my neck, back, shoulders each day. I have survived Lung Cancer in 2013, I got lucky, the Veterans Administration Hospital found it in me and removed it at stage one.

Is my life the best, no not always. Am I a Hero no I am not, I am a man who served his country and is proud of it.

I live in peace and quiet with my wife and bother no one. At 63 years old i don’t need to bother anyone, I care for my wife, my home and my cats. I keep to myself and have few friends and barely see any family I have, My children live 500 miles away, I hear from them now and again on the internet. My best friend is two or three towns away and three years senior to me, and I never seem to see him. He is busy and I am too, we talk sometime son the phone.

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me peace is all I seek, so I write my lil books and stories and blogs and poems as I go sitting at my computer. I don’t make a fortune anywhere and or in any way there is no money in my accounts really. I am old, tired and we live month to month now.

But when I look back, I see a life full of helping others, watching others live and die who I knew and cared for. I see a life that makes me think maybe just maybe someone will remember me when I am gone. Who they will be and why they will remember me I am not sure, will they remember me for being a good person, for making them laugh, or for stopping their tears, will they remember me as a high school kid running the streets, or a military man doing his duty?

Will my daughters remember me as their father? Wll my sister remember me as a good brother? I know not, I only know, you reach an age, and you know, things are winding down and you hurt from many things physical and in my case mental too, like PTSD from childhood and military life. You refuse to surrender for you have that one special person you can’t leave behind and won’t unless you go suddenly. So you hang on in pain and keep going for them, not for yourself, anymore. Each day, you wake up in pain, each day you stumble from bed and each day you check that special person to see if she is breathing, is she moving is she still alive. Then, she moves, or you can see her breathing and you tiptoe away so as not to wake her up and you know a new day will start when she awakes. It’s all about that special relationship, that makes life special.

There is a song out there that says it best for me, It’s My Life!

The second song that says it for me, was written in the 1970’s by Jim Croce, he said it best about me, A Hard Time Losing Man!