In order to follow this post, you should read post 1 and 2 first.
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My response, and I will never forget this as long as I live was… “school”. I went to school full time, worked full time, and studied in my free time. By this point, we had two kids and my daughter would be over on the weekends.
Moving forward. I got sick in 1999. Very sick. Death bed kind of sick. The doctors transferred me to a different medical center for further care because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Before they medivaced me, they told me “you are going to be changing hospitals, before you go, we thought you might say good bye to your kids.”
Talk about a kick in the nuts. I am sorry. Talk about a kick in the gut. At this point, I had a good job, was still in college, we had three kids together and my daughter in the summers. Nothing in the world can prepare you for a statement like that. “say good bye to your kids.”
I got healthier. They diagnosed me. I went home. I reevaluated what was important. School not so much. Work yes. So I substituted a second job for some school time. I worked full time, taught two and three courses a week at the college, and went to school in my free time. Hey, I had to support my family. Right?
about 5 years later, my wife told me I was becoming someone the kids were afraid of. I was angry all of the time. Everything hinged around work, and the next class. I took a step back and evaluated my life again. Together my wife and I decided to give up the good job and concentrate on school and teaching. I love teaching. Then, my position at the college was eliminated. We moved to another community to a house that had space for our family. By this point, my daughter was living with us full-time, and we had our fifth child added to the home in 2002.
Want to read more? Part 4 can be found here.
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