STORY

I can still see my dad.  It was the last time that I saw him.  He was standing on the front porch of the home I grew up in in Ontario.  He was standing beside my mom, waiving, acting like everything was ok.

He had spent that last week telling all of our neighbours that I was going to come back home to visit him.  I had no intention in doing anything like that.

I had watched a parade of people walk through that house.  My mom had let them in doing her best to sell what she could before she moved out.  She had finally had enough and they were going to get a divorce.

The last few weeks the three of us were ever together were contentious.  My brother had moved out and was doing grad school.  I had just gotten a job that would take me across the country for the summer.  I wasn't sure where I was going to end up at the end of it.  Turns out my brother let me live with him and I started grad school in the same city where he was.

3 years almost to the day my dad was dead.  They found him in his apartment; many days later.  I still sometimes wonder if there was anything that I could have done differently.  Maybe he would have chosen a different path.

My mom often told me there are people who are greater and lesser than you.

I like to say that everyone has a story.  That story makes you unique.  

I share my story with many.  I share it because I want people to know I am there for them if they need it.  Not the token suggestion.  I am truly there if you need to reach out to someone.  

An open storyteller.  Another way to describe A Daring Optimist.

matt.skinn@gmail.com

MS