by Kylie Cullen

Before I was born, my dad used to drive trucks for a living. He’d drive trucks all over the United States, mainly in the New England area, but sometimes he would go deliver freight in other states outside of New England too. One day, like usual, he was on a delivery, unloading freight from the back of the truck. Apparently, the freight was a little to heavy for him to handle and when trying get the freight out of the truck, the weight of the boxes pushed him backwards and before he knew it, he fell out of the truck and on to the hood of a car that was parked behind him. A Lincoln Continental to be exact.

Unfortunately for him, he ended up compressing his spine and the discs in L2, L3, and L4, which is the lumbar or lower part of the back. Fortunately, no surgery was needed, but over the next year and a half that followed a lot of time and effort was dedicated to physical therapy. Physical therapy, as my dad described it, ‘really sucked’, and when I asked him how he felt about going through the accident and the physical therapy, all he said was, “it really sucked, but life goes on, shit happens.”

After the physical therapy, he was told that if he wanted to keep driving trucks and lifting heavy freight all of the time, then he would end up in a wheelchair. Because this would affect his life dramatically, he had to quit driving and pick up a new career. This meant going back to college. My dad decided in college that he wanted to be an Architect, which is still what he does today. He loves his job, but because he can’t stand his workplace and the hardships the company had to overcome recently following the death of his boss, he has really become stressed out.

My dad does not handle stress very well, so he has developed a temper that has affected not only himself, but his own family. For example, one day after a long day at school, I was relaxing on the couch just watching something and he walked into the house, put his dishes in the sink from lunch, and then came in yelling about how the dishes were not done and how dinner was not finished. It turned out, he was overloaded with work and he had too much to do and no one at work helped him out. So when he came home, he just wanted to come home to an easy day and when he saw that dinner wasn’t done and neither were the dishes, he took out all of his work frustrations at home.

My dad also likes to vent a lot about the people at work and I have to sit there and listen to him get angry and upset, but I would much rather do that then get yelled at.  He doesn’t know how to handle the stress and he’s definitely not good at holding himself together so he just gets angry. I know he doesn’t mean it, and I know he tries everyday just to keep himself together enough to work hard to make money for his family. I don’t feel as though this really affects me personally because I know he doesn’t mean it, he just wants home life to be different from work and when one thing throws off his mood then he lets out all of the stress he held in at work.

Although his personality has been changed over recent years, he is still the dad that I have always known. According to my mom, my dad has always been super sarcastic and witty and funny, but over the years he’s learned to be extremely compassionate and to not hold a grudge because of things that happened in the past. Also, he’s learned to not take anything for granted either. Before the accident, my dad held a grudge against my grandfather because of how he acted towards his kids, mainly when my dad and his three older brothers were younger. He won’t tell me stories about his dad personally, but my uncle told me that their dad would go to bars and get drunk after promising to come pick his kids up from their mother’s house. He would leave them standing outside for hours with their backpacks just waiting and he would never show up. Because my dad was the youngest, he took the situation the hardest.

Following my dad’s accident, after my siblings and I were born not much longer after, he quickly developed new pieces of personality because he wanted to be there for my siblings and I. Not only just that, but because he wanted my grandfather to be a part of my life, he needed to overcome what he felt for his own father so he could give his kids what his dad couldn’t do for his own. My dad tries really hard to be a good dad, and I see it more and more as I grow older. Now we connect more personally when he talks about stories from college and I have my own stories to tell him about being a student here at UNE. I love getting to know more and more about him as he starts to open up little by little.

This is just a little piece of what my dad is like as a person. This accident didn’t define who he is and he knows that too when he says “life goes on, shit happens.” All of the obstacles he has had to overcome his entire life have shaped who he is as a person collectively. As I learn more and more about him, I admire who has become more every day. No matter who you are, one single event in your life does not define you. It just adds strength and character to a person. Which is why my dad, in my eyes, is one of the strongest people I know. I love him to pieces and the more I learn about him, the more I admire who he is.