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As I watch the clock tick away each minute that my dad has left in this world, I just think of all the things he has said to me through the years. Some of it was wrong but allot of what he said makes allot more sense now than it did back then. Sometimes he was kind of mean to me but it seems he was really trying to get me to see what life is really like. I just I had listen to him back then, back when i was young and able to avoid the pitfalls of life. Now in retrospect i see how I made the mistakes he was warning me about and how I missed opportunities he told me that would come.
As the clock ticks away each hour that my dad has left in this world, I realize how much he means to me and how much he has influenced my life. I will miss that man who was my father, hero and friend. I never got to be as close to him as my brother but still in a way I believe that me and my father had our own special time and place in life. Knowing he only has a few weeks left does not make it any easier to face his and my own mortality. I maybe prepared for the day but I am not prepared for the loss that i will suffer on that day.
At least i was able to get his half brother to call and his sister and half sister to visit them, the half brother has been avoiding him for some reason for over a decade. Guess that dont mater as long as he did call and that made my father so happy. Well on the brighter side of life, I have me a little Niece that is like 15 months old who keeps my heart full of joy and always seems to break my bad moods. Unfortunately I don not have a child of my own but my niece Harley is like a ray of sunshine wherever she goes.
Well Till The Next Time, May Gods Grace Be With You All
From the short time we knew each other , I know of how he strived in helping others through church , work and just his everyday life. The Irony that he would find his end in a auto accident when he worked hard at his job at the Georgia D.O.T. to improve road safety. I know he has volunteered for many Church outings as so has his wife Angela. He was a real intelligent and thoughtful person. a good friend to know and have.
This world will miss his contributions and his family and friends will be missing him too. For a Brother in law he was one of the best. He didn’t Judge me when I Divorced his sister in law nor did he judge her. He is survived by two great children Abby and Sam, Abby is allot like her dad in her heart and she takes after her mom in spirit. Sam is from what I remember quite a handful. So much like their parents….
Needless to say I could not have asked for a better friend or Brother in law
Rest in Peace My Friend..
Raymond Barbier
Flowery Branch man killed in wreck
By Mike Morris
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/15/07 8:40 AM
A Flowery Branch man was killed Thursday night in a single-car wreck near Duluth, Gwinnett County police said.
Gwinnett police Cpl. Darren Moloney said 40-year-old Dennis Scott Rice was eastbound on GA. 316 near Boggs Road when the 2002 Mustang he was driving left the roadway, struck a traffic barrel, ran down an embankment and overturned.
Rice was pronounced dead at the scene of the wreck, which occurred about midnight.
Seems through out life we all must endure changes, some that were planed others that were created by circumstances beyond our control. Most of the small common changes seem to be dealt with with ease but there are usually several changes in most of our lives that really recreate our path in life. In my life the first of these changes that recreated my path was the day I had to move from my home town of Overland Missouri to where my father got stationed in the army.
He was stationed at Fort Gillam a base located outside of Atlanta in Clayton county Georgia. The move created the new circumstances of finding new friends , learning a new area and once again to find a way to fit in to the society. Being I was 16 when I moved it was a bit of a shock to have to relearn the social behavior of a slightly different culture. Beside the difference in accents and lingo there was differences in the mind set of my peers to what I was accustomed to. Yes they had allot of commonalities but believe it or not there was enough differences to create a challenge to this outgoing yet passive teenage boy. Needless to say I braved through it with little popularity and eventually I gave up on trying and quit school which I regret to this day. Just when I thought things where settling down I had a new challenge before me. At age 18 my parents went through a divorce.
So once again I had to adapt to yet another change in life. At the time it did not seem to effect me much, don’t know if I was indifferent at the time or if I was just repressing my feelings at the time. From that time on I seemed to have put myself into neutral and just coasted through life till my 20’s. Having no ambitions or personal drive I was just being a financial burden on my mother. Eventually I did leave home, but after a long time of going back and leaving I finally found me a woman to become my wife. Though looking back on it now I think both me and her chose to be a couple out of need instead of love. I was 27 at the time we married and the years to follow both had some good times and some very bad times for both of us. Needless to say in the end we divorced due to her infidelity and my shortcomings as well. She is a good person, but she wasn’t happy with me.
Divorced and bankrupt at age 37 I had to start all over again. Not only did I have to be single again I had to start over due to a fire that burned down the home me and my ex wife once lived in. Forced by situation I had to move in with my older Brother Jim, though we are brothers we are like opposite ends of a magnet in personalities. But Jim still was there for me when I needed him even though we fight allot between us. To give you an idea of our differences Jim is the macho ladies man type as I am the laid back intellect type. Though not totally incompatible it seems to cause some problems from time to time. So here I am again needing to adapt to new situations. Did I mention I am not to found of change? Well anyway after about 6 months at my brothers Jim talked to a online friend of mine who I knew through out my previous marriage and convinced her to come visit me in hope that we may hit it off. And with luck my brother actually did me the biggest favor anyone could have done for me. Yes we hit it off after the 3rd visit we were headlong in a new relationship. Her name was Trish and she has been there for me as a friend for years and now the love of my life. about a year has passed and the convenient store I worked at was selling out so I took advantage of the situation and filled for unemployment insurance. This gave me the opportunity and ability to move up to Tennessee into Trish’s Parents lake house to further our relationship.
For about five months I lived in the lake house while Trish and I were arranging to have a place of our own in Kentucky. Now that unemployment insurance has ran out and on top of that my car insurance canceled for unknown reasons I find my self in a new place starting from square one with a bit of a disadvantage.
Basically this is my life in a small nutshell, stay tuned for more entries…
