On Feb 10, 2017, my life changed forever.
My two year old son passed away.
I've never had much of a family. On my mother's side, I was cast out for not conforming. On my father's side, I was told I wasn't even my father's child. My whole life, I didn't have family. No one that cared whether I lived or died. It made me hard, mean. For the longest time, I didn't think I could feel. My parent's went to jail when I was 16, and I had to take care of my brother and myself after that. I finished highschool, went to college, even got myself a scholarship. All on my own.
In college, I partied, drank, did drugs, got into fights, never went to class, and only took the midterms. Graduated at the top. Then I drifted across the States and Mexico. Doing odd jobs, selling drugs, loan sharking, and trying my hand as a bookie. I went to college for the party, not the degree, and it was free.
I was 24, living in a trailer park in TX hiding from the Klan, and working for a car rental agency when I first met my wife. I had dated, I was good with women. But I never felt anything for them.
She is the only truly good person I've ever met in my life. One who has no ulterior motives when she offers to help. Who tries her hardest, and feels the failure most. And she loved me. At the time, you would've found that hard to believe.
With her, I discovered I wasn't a sociopath. I felt an emotion for another person for the first time. And it grew. She became my family. The first one I ever had. And I took her on adventures. I showed her the world. She made me want to be good. And so I stopped hurting people. I started helping people.
And my first child came along, my daughter. And for the first time, I felt what it was like to love something so much you would die for it. I wasn't even there for her birth, I was stuck in the States, while my wife was in Canada with her family. And I missed alot of her first years, working, in sales 100 hour weeks.
And it hurt. By the time my second child had come along, I was the boss. So, I setup my virtual office, converted our entire region to a new digital system that allowed for digital signatures. And I moved to Canada and became a stay at home dad. I worked from home.
I never missed a day of his life. Not one. I changed every diaper. I stayed up with him every night. I fed him every bottle. He was my son. Mine. I taught him how to walk. I taught him his first word. He was my world. My entire world.
It wasn't easy. Society isn't very accepting of stay at home dads. Even though I am wealthy, when my wife decided to go to work because she missed it, I was looked down upon. Our neighbor at the time an old woman would prowl around our house, and call child services and the police on me whenever one of my kids would cry. I once had someone scratch goof on my door. Which in Canada meant pedophile.
But I didn't care. I had my own family.