What a Difference a Year Makes
One year ago yesterday, my life started to make a big change. It had been building up for more than a year, and I knew there was change coming, but NOTHING prepared me for what happened, especially in an EXTREMELY short amount of time.
August 2009 will forever be one of the absolute worst times in my life ever.
On August 1st, I had to be moving out of my house, as it was being foreclosed on, as well as millions of other people all across the United States. The plan was to move in with my mom and sort things out, and get back on my feet. That morning, I was awakened by a phone call from the ER saying that my mom was being flown to another hospital because she had suffered a heart attack.
I jumped in my truck, started to frantically call my sister, and drove like hell to the hospital that was just over an hour’s drive away. I made it in less than 50 minutes. I had tried calling my sister, but she had her phones turned off, as she had a pretty busy week, and needed the break from the phones. I did eventually get in touch with her, and she made it to the hospital that afternoon.
Mom came out of the procedure and was a bit loopy, and quite comical. We had a lot of laughs. Her brothers and sisters all came in to see her. She then had a second heart attack, and they had to perform an emergency triple by-pass. We found out later that she had an infection that was so bad it was in her spine. She never recovered, and passed away in the early morning 10 days later.
This was a blow. She passed away completely in debt, and the house went back to the bank. At this point, I became homeless. I was not just dealing with the death of my mother, but also this realization of not having a place to stay. My sister simply does not have the room at her house for another adult. And the rest of the family really didn’t have room for me, either. We sold everything we could of mom’s and I kept part of it to get me through the next few months. It wasn’t much, but it helped.
During all of the funeral arrangements, I decided to end an eight month relationship with my then girlfriend. I simply was not in any mental state to be in any kind of relationship. I am still not really in any shape for that at this point. My ex-wife also had moved back to her hometown, 700 miles away, and took the kids with her. That was with my blessing, as it was a better environment for the kids, and is still the right decision. They did come back for the funeral.
I had to do some serious soul searching, and really decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had realized that there was nothing keeping me in that small town. I could go anywhere. So, I really thought, “What is it that I truly love to do?”. Well, I would love live on a nice island, in a small community, but not too far from anything. I had to think of what I wanted to do while there, because I was burned out on programming. I thought that I could have a business giving people tours, boat tours, fishing tours, whatever I could think of. That would be awesome. The problem was that I had to compete with local people already doing that, and that did not sound like the best plan.
So, I looked up how to give tours, and found a school in San Francisco that teaches you how to be a Tour Director. I read more into it, and realized that it is getting paid to travel to awesome places. I thought it was too good to be true, so I looked at the school closely, as they did want a lot of money to go there. I couldn’t find anything bad about them, so I called.
I talked to Randy for about an hour. He had convinced me to apply and give it a shot. I signed up for classes that would run between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I thought “Perfect!”, I can go out there and be ready to rock and roll by spring. The closer the time came, the more I realized I wasn’t going to have the money. I talked to the owner of the school, and he tried to work with me, but the bottom line was that he needed some kind of money, and I didn’t have it. We rescheduled for March, 2010.
During all of that, I had to move out of my mother’s house, and deal with that pain, and find a place to live. I lived with some friends until the beginning of October, then I moved in with a friend in Chicago.
So, to recap on August:
- I lost my house
- I lost my mom
- I broke up with my girlfriend
- My kids left town (bad for me, great for them – long story there, too)
The only good thing was that at the last day of August, my divorce was final. That was a good thing.
So, it is best that I didn’t go to school during the Thanksgiving and Christmas, because I got a good paying contract for 6 weeks. That pay helped me pay for the school, and pay bills until school started. After I returned from school, it was hard, and still is at times, but I did get a hit on my resume. That is why I am in Fairbanks, AK for the Summer. That is how I spent last weekend in Denali, AK, and had a blast.
One Year after the worst time in my life, I have realized that I am truly living a dream. I got to fly OVER the summit of the tallest mountain in North America, I went White Water rafting for the FIRST TIME EVER, and I went on an ATV tour just outside Denali National Park. More about that trip later 
.
I have also realized that I have some of the best family and friends money can buy, and I haven’t had to buy them, yet . They have been fully supportive of me, and I love them all for it (see the about me page ).
I have yet to truly break down over my mom’s death, but it lingers under the surface, and will probably surface at the worst possible time. I only hope that I can lose it when there aren’t a lot of strangers around me .
I was just thinking about all of this today, and tomorrow… I am getting PAID to stay in Denali (ok, Healy, about 12 miles from Denali). 
I LOVE MY “JOB”!
Thanks for reading,
Brad
