The Year My Life Changed

         At this point, I had spent 2 years on my own. Mom died, and dad went away when I was young. I wasn’t missing much at this point, my relationship with my mother was strained at the best of times, and my dad phoned occasionally, however his long term severe drug addiction always kept me quite distant. I was struggling but not failing. with no real life skills taught to me growing up everything was new to me, and everything was trial and error. I made mistakes, but always found a way to fix them eventually.

         The very day my life changed, was a chilly spring night in April... I was sitting at home watching TV before bed. I sat up to change the channel and felt this stabbing pain in my abdomen. I tried to stand up but the pain made my knees weak. I had never felt anything like this before. at the hospital it was determined I had several cysts in my cervix, and was booked a couple weeks later for surgery.

         my dad phoned me one evening a few days after this, and I told him what was going on. living in a rural reserve a few provinces’ away, there was not much he could do. he hardly made enough money to support himself, he lived on someone else’s land with no electricity or running water in a run down camper in the woods. he kept himself warm by cutting down the trees around him and burning the logs in a rigged up wood stove built into the side of the camper. He’d done nothing with his life, drugs and alcohol have consumed him for the most part. But he told me not to worry, and that he’d find away down to Ontario to support me.

         I had my doubts up until the minute I picked him up. the farthest he got was Montréal, so one night I left at 6 at night for a long drive into the night to Montreal where I found him standing on the side of the highway in the pouring rain. To be honest I didn’t recognise him--he hadn’t cut his hair or trimmed his beard in years. his clothes were all ripped and torn, he had a small light jacket on for this cold night and a small bag with personal belongings on his back. we had a awkward drive back to my hometown, but all I remember is the big smile he had on his face the whole ride back.

         Right Away he started working for an old boss of his, and his drug use remained the same. he seemed to pick up in his old stomping grounds right where he left off. Being 6 months clean myself from a severe cocaine addiction his drug use infuriated me. I was angry, upset and confused I felt that it wasn’t fair he could be high around me. he’d ask me if I wanted some even---he always says “I’d rather see you smoke a little grass then be an alcoholic!”

         my first surgery came and went, though my dad wasn’t at the hospital with me, he was at my house when I came home. I was informed they’d found cancer, what they thought it might have been all along. More surgeries, and more treatments came, my dad seemed to take a backseat to all of it, later I understand him as being confused and scared about it himself, and unable to cope with loosing his daughter as well as loosing my mother-the one woman he loved so much in his lifetime. there were times I thought I was going to die, the pain was unbearable for the most part, and I spent weeks in a bed my dad made for me downstairs so that I wouldn’t have to keep going up and down the stairs in my 2 story home.

         That winter I stopped the treatments, and had one last surgery to remove everything they could. my dad plowed out my driveway for the whole winter, stopping by every night on his snow plowing shit to see how I was.

         Spring came, and so did my rebirth. slowly I was getting better, and my strength was returning. one day, I drove out to see my dad at his work. he was working at a farm/excavating company. he had various duties--he had farm animals to look after, fields to work, and diesel trucks, tractors and earth moving equipment to fix. he worked a steady 7 days a week 6am to 8pm each day. all though his drug use hadn’t changed he’d found ways to get high at work and properly fund his addiction without living on poverty’s door. he was living in a place his boss owned, and all his bills were paid for first through his pay check and then the rest of the pay check was given to him to be spent on what he wanted.

         my 1 year experience as a child on a rural farm in England started my love for farming and the country. After spending a few days at my dads work with him, he started teaching me and showing me various jobs around the farm, and after I showed interest back his boss hired me on as a general labourer. I cut the grass around his house once a week, picked up parts, and did things like cleaning and painting. Eventually I got more duties, he taught me how to drive a tractor and I was soon feeding and maintaining the farm animals, and cutting the fields. Baby calves were born and I was the one they came to every morning to be bottle fed.

         At this point, I made a very bad decision, all though I was not completely well--I still experienced chronic levels of pain, and my frustration level grew when I started realizing my fitness level wasn’t nearly as good as what it was before I got sick. the pain I experienced doing basic jobs at work brought me to tears, my dad would always say to me “Pull your shit together! don’t be so lazy!” he never really understood that I was giving it my all, and that my body just couldn’t handle it. my doctors couldn’t do anything about my pain, and for a while gave me narcotic pain prescriptions. I soon found myself consuming quite a bit of these pills, just to keep a normal functioning level at work around my father. I soon realized the relief went far beyond physical. these pills allowed me to block out the pain of my fathers put downs.

         Some people would ask me why I wouldn’t quit? my actual boss--and my dad’s boss was a great patient man who constantly encouraged me. if he’d see me cry from extreme frustration, he’d say to me things like; “don’t worry, I’ll be patient, you’ll get this eventually.” he inspired me to come back each day. he made me feel like I was useful and competent. I had also reached a point where I had fallen in love with the job, and out of my own stubbornness and fear of regret I couldn’t quit myself.

         soon, my doctors stopped giving me the prescriptions, and the addiction began to show. in fear of loosing my job, I searched for a accessible cheap drug to switch to that I thought would be safe to control my pain. Marijuana came into my hands one day, and I soon realized that smoking large amounts of it allowed me to work and go to work pain free. it numbed the pain my dad caused and numbed the pain of the past. after I did this a while, I started exposing my addiction to my father who seemed to embrace it.

         my attempt to control my pain had turned into an addiction that was fuelled by my father. when I was low, he made sure I always had drugs, when he was low I began making a priority to look after his drug needs. Our relationship turned into a buddy type of relationship. and I soon began realizing that in his twisted way of damaged thinking, he was perceiving me as a job threat to him. he stopped teaching me things, and everything I was learning was from everyone else.

         dad was always so complicated to understand. he’s a gentle harmless drug addict with a vicious selfish streak in him. he spent up until grade 5 in a government run reserve school where he dropped out and started working full time. All though he was the only birth child of his parents, his parents also adopted and fostered many orphaned native children from reserves all over. His mother, after a long battle with diabetes and breast cancer died when he was 18. Dad explains the day his mother died as the day his life ended. Apparently he sold his car and spent all the money on a bunch of hits of acid and alcohol and spent the next 3 months out of his mind. His dad remarried a young white woman from the same town, and my dad was rejected by her. After he met my mother and I was born, my mothers family deemed him unsuitable for a husband and my push-over mother was ordered to get rid of him which she did. he then spent the next 18 years of his life getting high and living anywhere he can. his extremely selfish, childish behaviour stems from all the rejection in his life--all he wants is for someone to love him.

         I soon began looking into schools, thinking I’d like to do this sort of job as a career I looked into related fields, I always wanted to be a mechanic, but I never imagined myself as anything more then a simple car mechanic, however at work I was fixing big transport trucks and farm equipment I never dreamt I would ever work on. My dad was less then enthused. he started telling me I wouldn’t be able to do it. he told me I wouldn’t follow through with it, and don’t have the right skills for it. I tried to ignore him and started pacing myself to quit doing so much drugs and focus more on getting ready for school. he laughed in my face every time I told him I was trying to quit the drugs. he told me that its better I just keep doing it.

         so I did, and I realized more and more that my world was beginning to fall apart. everyone was encouraging me and expecting me to succeed and yet I was stuck--if I stay on the drugs and I’ll kill myself eventually, if I go off of the drugs and I won’t be able to cope with the physical or emotional pain. the thought of loosing my dream of becoming a mechanic broke my heart. there was nothing else I decided I wanted to do, this was for me, this was my calling.

         All though today I am in a better place I am not completely there yet. the drug addiction is a daily struggle, and my relationship with my father is a battle sometimes. School has provided me a nice balance, while still working has given me drive to keep learning more and working towards my goals. I don’t know what the future holds for me, or my dad. but at this point I’m ready to take whatever comes my way.







*will add more to this, i'm pretty much writing what has happened, i'm still working on healing, and when i'm clean then my story will be done completely. sorry guys!*