Dillan Dove - Flash Memoir
To suffer is to Learn
“Why do we have to move dad?” my 15-year-old self asked my dad. We had recently moved into a new home that my father had built in northern Utah. It was our dream home. No more small and dirty apartments. No more classy condos with noisy neighbors. From this point forward, this was ours. It was well deserved. Long hours turned into long days to allow us to live in this home. Though I didn’t see my father much growing up, I knew he loved me and my family due to the fact of having everything we wanted. Boats, ATV’s, cars, electronics of every sort. This was the life… for now.
Hours prior, on a warm and bright Sunday morning I sat in the green thick grass outside of the church. The laughing and conversations of children of other families surrounded my sisters and I. They seemed happy and so did we. I heard the sound of my father’s shoes coming down the stairs leading outside of the church; I could have recognized his distinct foot pattern, the way he trotted down a set of stairs, anywhere. We stood up and joined the other seemingly happy families looking for our cars to return home.
One time around the church, two times around the church, it was getting hot outside and we were getting antsy. The car was nowhere to be found. A look of brief panic came over the face of my mother, the fear I saw in her eyes is a sight I will never forget. It is something I would have nightmares about 8 years later.
Ty, a family friend picked us up and we piled in his 1989 Jeep Wrangler. Comfortably the Jeep would fit four people however, there were six of us. The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable. No one said a word; I could feel the tension as if it were a thick smoke suffocating us all.
I could see the house. All I could think of was the amazing air conditioning, a fridge full of delicious food and…, the boat. Our boat. It was gone. The garages were open. The 4-wheelers, my mother’s SUV and the new car my father and I had picked out, only weeks before, gone! I then saw the same look of desperation and fear that my mother had had come over my father’s face. Had we been robbed? I had seen things like this in the movies. Was my dad in trouble with bad people?
Perhaps had my 15-year-old self known that the average household in the US is well over $203,000 in debt, I wouldn’t have had such silly ideas? (US News) A handful of days later, my dad returned home from the hunt to find a new job to support our family and reestablish everything we had lost. The news he brought home was completely unexpected and not what any of us hoped for. He proceeded to tell us that we would need to move from our new home the following week.
This was the first time I began to understand what debt and modern day slavery had in common. How many other people were facing this same thing? Some would call this a terrible loss. I prefer to call it, a life changing learning experience.
“Why do we have to move dad?” my 15-year-old self asked my dad. We had recently moved into a new home that my father had built in northern Utah. It was our dream home. No more small and dirty apartments. No more classy condos with noisy neighbors. From this point forward, this was ours. It was well deserved. Long hours turned into long days to allow us to live in this home. Though I didn’t see my father much growing up, I knew he loved me and my family due to the fact of having everything we wanted. Boats, ATV’s, cars, electronics of every sort. This was the life… for now.
Hours prior, on a warm and bright Sunday morning I sat in the green thick grass outside of the church. The laughing and conversations of children of other families surrounded my sisters and I. They seemed happy and so did we. I heard the sound of my father’s shoes coming down the stairs leading outside of the church; I could have recognized his distinct foot pattern, the way he trotted down a set of stairs, anywhere. We stood up and joined the other seemingly happy families looking for our cars to return home.
One time around the church, two times around the church, it was getting hot outside and we were getting antsy. The car was nowhere to be found. A look of brief panic came over the face of my mother, the fear I saw in her eyes is a sight I will never forget. It is something I would have nightmares about 8 years later.
Ty, a family friend picked us up and we piled in his 1989 Jeep Wrangler. Comfortably the Jeep would fit four people however, there were six of us. The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable. No one said a word; I could feel the tension as if it were a thick smoke suffocating us all.
I could see the house. All I could think of was the amazing air conditioning, a fridge full of delicious food and…, the boat. Our boat. It was gone. The garages were open. The 4-wheelers, my mother’s SUV and the new car my father and I had picked out, only weeks before, gone! I then saw the same look of desperation and fear that my mother had had come over my father’s face. Had we been robbed? I had seen things like this in the movies. Was my dad in trouble with bad people?
Perhaps had my 15-year-old self known that the average household in the US is well over $203,000 in debt, I wouldn’t have had such silly ideas? (US News) A handful of days later, my dad returned home from the hunt to find a new job to support our family and reestablish everything we had lost. The news he brought home was completely unexpected and not what any of us hoped for. He proceeded to tell us that we would need to move from our new home the following week.
This was the first time I began to understand what debt and modern day slavery had in common. How many other people were facing this same thing? Some would call this a terrible loss. I prefer to call it, a life changing learning experience.