It was difficult coming up with only our mother.
- Our father passed away from a major heart attack and he could not be revived.
It was a sad time for us all, but I can’t even imagine how our mother was able to carry on. She worked at a local soup exchange. It was actually a buffet style place and they let her take home leftover food that none of the customers wanted. She could only take the soup home when it was about to expire and sometimes she even brought home some tasty treats. All of us kids split everything evenly when there was enough food. We were mostly just thankful for a roof over our head, even though we didn’t have a cooling system to keep us comfortable. Still, it was better than being outside and getting rained on or not having shade from the tremendous heat of the sun. We had a gas furnace in our apartment, but it was expensive to use, so we had to keep it on minimal heating levels just to keep us from freezing at night. Sometimes, we didn’t eat at all, but I hated when that happened. If I could ever get food, I let my brothers and sisters have the food before I ate anything. I have always been protective of them. I actually started working for an HVAC shop when I was young and the owner taught me how to take care of many types of repairs. He saw great potential in me and said I would make a fine HVAC professional. With the money I earned, I even helped save our home by helping my mother with the rent when she was short. Eventually, I did become an HVAC professional and made enough money to get my family into a better home with a nice HVAC system.
HVAC tech