Michael Oxford - AKA The Santa Cruz Mountain Goat@SCMountainGoat
A few months into Covid, in June 2020, my stepmom called me and told me my father had collapsed.
I stayed on the phone with her while she waited for the paramedics.
The paramedics couldn’t revive him, and I was on the phone with her when they told her he was gone.
Needless to say, this was a heart wrenching experience.
My father and I were extremely close, and he loved my stepmother very much.
They were perfect for each other.
My girlfriend was with me for this, and by the time the phone call was over, she already had the car packed - to drive up to Washington.
She was great, and she knew exactly what to do, without me saying a word.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t cry on the drive up there, the duration of our stay, or the drive home.
I didn’t cry for weeks after that.
I don’t ever cry.
Not because I’m tough or something, it simply isn’t a reaction I typically have, for almost any circumstance.
Then in August, lightning struck the Santa Cruz mountains, fires erupted, and I was evacuated from my home for five weeks.
I blew what little savings I had on hotels that decided to jack the rates up to $200 a night.
At some point, after my entire world seem to be crumbling around me, I broke down while on the phone with her.
She never looked at me, or treated me the same after that.
She broke up with me a few weeks later.
She was living with me, and she just packed all her stuff and left.
I will never cry in front of a female again.
