I have been very sick for the last three years. The last year has been really horrible. Three years ago I developed MRSA in my spine which caused a spine to slide into the cord and crush it, this left me with pins and needles from just over my knees to my feet. I had work long hard hours almost all at night for years until then. It was we can't let you bump to another shift, we can't let you have a summer vacation because this single mother has to have it then, you have to work twelve because this guy has a son on the varsity team and you don't have any kids, just shut up and don't make waves you will be able to do what you want latter.
This is what I heard from the time I was twenty on, I was in some really bad arguments with my wife and father about when I was going to be able to think of myself for once. then I hear why does someone as big and tough as you are need to put his wants before the needs of others, just go with the flow it will happen one day, just don't get our friends coming up to us and telling us how unfair you were to them by using the rights you get by senorety, you really don't need days that guy needs days because he has a family. Be agreeable or you wont get to do what you want!
This is what I heard from the union. After a while I just gave up until I thought I was stainless in my thirty first year. I decided that the rights of my union brothers counted one night, We had a rule that trucks carrying over 300lbs had to be taken by someone with a CDL and union card, a company locked all their people out one night and sent an unsafe truck in to pick up a load of scrap, 18000lbs. the drivers spoke Spanish, did not have either a CDL or union card so I refused the load. The company's CEO came in a little while latter, opened his briefcase, and handed me a fax from the governor directing me to turn the load over, again I refused. I was asked to retire the next day.
My wife and father said I did not have the right to tell the governor of the state no. I still maintain I did, they were furious. I reminded my father and wife of all the promises that had been made about just wait you will get what you want one day. Their answer was you think you will now?? Like hell. I moved down to Indy and went to work at the FED EX airport hub and really liked that job except that it was outside and midnights. After bruising my back after falling from about twenty five feet up. A couple of months later I started having real bad pain, got so bad I begged to die. It was found to be a MRSA abcess in my spine that caused my spinal cord to crush. I have suffered from immune problems triggered by the MRSA including Leukemia, I also discovered my wife in an affair with an old boyfriend.
I caught them after he pulled into the drive with her. She had said it was a night out with an old girlfriend. My wife asked that we take it into the house to at least not air it on the street. I followed them in and he thought he was funny as he kicked my cane out from under my hand putting me on the floor my wife tried to get him to leave but before he was able to get out of the room I got hold of my cane and threw it hitting him in the side of the head end on and dropping him the I really went to work as my wife called the sheriff He ended up with a concussion several broken ribs. a dislocated arm, and a wife throwing him out of his house and filing for divorce. I was put in a stress center for anger management.
My father said I had not been a good sport, that I ruined his life for what, my worthless self, why could I never learn that I was not worth anything in life compare to others. He said I should just let my wife have what pleasure she can get without my interference,
I asked what was due me in this life, his answer was that I was supposed to work and be of service to others and never think of my self. I said I was not a priest or a saint. He had the gall to say what will people think now you have proved you are a barbarian. I said that I frankly could care less. I decided at that point his interference was over told my wife she owed me for many years of support. Then I got an offer from my California cousins to take care of a property that belong to my uncle before he died in Wyoming way off the beaten path. I told my wife we were selling and moving, out there. I told her she could come or stay but now it was my turn to live.
We got out here last Sunday, got moved in, all my electronics hooked up, plenty of food laid in. The reality is however I came here to die, MRSA is still causing problems, I am under chemo therapy. I let my life be stolen from me, To others that let wife and family push you into this problem I say fight for your life no one else will, if you always go along to get along you are no longer a person, but you are a non entity.
There is not always if you respect others then they will respect you. My wife says that she feels like she received a sentence of life in a Gulag now. I wonder if people feel I have been unfair, if I have turned tyrant, or am I just redressing some injustice?? I don't think that I have two more years left, it is such a place of beauty here and no society to deal with.