In March of 2023, on my birthday of all days, my dad called to say happy birthday. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, but it felt… kind. He was out with his new girl, living his life. I was happy for him. I was where I was. It was fine.
Then around 3 AM, my phone lit up. His girlfriend’s name. I answered half-asleep, expecting something dumb or drunk or funny.
Instead I hear:
“Hey… I don’t know what to do. I needed to call you though. Your dad stopped breathing while he was sleeping.”
And I just sat there. Staring at the wall. Trying to understand the words but not really feeling them.
I had literally spent the night in and out of the hospital with someone I loved — on my birthday — so honestly? Nothing surprised me anymore. My luck has never been cinematic. It’s more like a sitcom with bad lighting and no laugh track.
But this… this was different. I was numb. Unresponsive. My brain just refused to load the update.
I was about to go back to the hospital to pick up my person. I was alone. I had just talked to him. I kept thinking, I must be dreaming. This can’t be real. Not like this.
My dad wasn’t there much in my childhood, but when he was, I lit up. I didn’t take the absence personally. Life is messy. People are messy. We had our moments. But this? Unreal.
I scribbled something on a piece of paper while I stayed on the phone with her — while paramedics tried everything they could in the background. I don’t even remember what I wrote. Probably nothing useful.
And honestly… this isn’t even where my story begins. Trust me, it’s been a banger all the way through. This was just another hiccup in a long line of “are you kidding me?” moments.
I drove to the hospital to pick up my family. Then back home. Destroyed, but not for the first time.
The next two weeks were a blur — a new job, scrambling to find a place near it, trying to keep my head above water. The job was simple. Someone there meant a lot to me. It felt like a good place to land.
We ended up in a respectable apartment/double‑wide trailer. Fresh start energy. There was a walking trail by the river we hit every morning and afternoon. Summer was beautiful. People were kind. I felt… almost human again.
There was this new sense of pride. Of self. Of “maybe I’m not doomed after all.”
Up until then, I had joked about starting a web design service. Joked because I wasn’t formally trained, and like I said — luck? Not my stat. But I was young enough to still see the better side of things, so I pushed forward.
I had taught myself HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, MySQL. I was studying design, graphics, color theory — the fun stuff. But suddenly I was learning marketing, business, communication.
I didn’t even know those were part of the job. You just grab your cards, your laptop, your phone, walk into shops, talk to startups.
It was a blast. For the first time, I felt like somebody. Like I had value.
People responded… but nothing happened. So I learned about product design. Packaging services. Generating leads. Following through.
Then one day my boss comes up to me and says:
“Hey, I got a guy who sells handmade flags. He wants to talk to you about a website.”
And I swear, my whole chest lit up. Finally. A chance.
Stay tuned for the continuation…