It wasn’t easy for me when my father ended up going to war.
He was out there someplace in The Middle East, and we were worried and praying for him all the time.
Then we got the most devastating news, that he was killed on the battlefield. This was news that was difficult for my young mind to process. I was already taking care of more responsibilities while my father was away, like taking care of the air filter changes and mowing the lawn regularly. I always picked up the mail so my mother didn’t have to go outside. My father actually told me he would be back before I knew it. I was expecting him to come back fine in one piece, but he never came back at all. Soon enough, my mother was getting the life insurance check and she said we were moving to another place. We could no longer stay in military housing, but at least we had plenty of money to get by for a good amount of time. My mother ended up buying a home with a pretty alright HVAC system and we just needed to do some work on the house. We were both incredibly sad and depressed, but we tried to keep eachother cheerful. My mother would always be crying whenever she didn’t think I could see her. I knew that I had to get some kind of career and fast when I graduated from high school, so I looked into an HVAC trade school. I ended up becoming an HVAC technician and I told my mother that I would always be there to support her no matter what. We still live together because I don’t want to leave her alone by herself.