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I then got a call from a recruiter who asked if I would like to work for IBM. Well at that point in my life what did you think I would say??? I accepted the offer of an interview, and after all of the interviews, and paperwork, and background checks, I was officially an IBM'er as of October 22, 1996. I still work there to this day and my current title is Senior IBM Netfinity Systems Engineer. For those of you who arent familiar with the IBM Netfinity Server line I cannot tell you enough to check it out, they are the best machines on the planet, hands-down. ((Now to digress a little bit) After Dad's surgical mishap, my mother and sister lived in NJ for about 3 years taking care of Dad and trying to make ends meet. In the Spring of 1997 I decided to buy a house and move my family to Atlanta to live with me. I was 23 at the time and found a good ranch-style house about 40 miles outside of Atlanta that met most of the criteria I had set (no stairs, wide open rooms so Dad could move about in his wheelchair, lots of acreage, quiet neighborhood, good access to the interstates and shopping, etc..). I closed on the house on April 30, 1997 and we moved in. Its been a definite change for me. After living on my own for almost 5 years, I had come to live and do what i wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. It was a big change for me to say the least. We had a pretty good life and things were moving along at a good clip. I was doing a lot of travelling for IBM and got to visit a lot of the major cities in the US and even got the chance to go to Manila, Phlippines for 2 weeks to install some hardware and software. Things however took a turn for the worse last year. My mother had been a severe diabetic for some time and it finally got the best of her. Early in the year she had some circulation problems and then in the mid part of the year Mom had her toes amputated. Eventually it got so bad her entire right leg was amputated just above the knee. Since Mom was a diabetic she eventuall had renal (kidney) failure and had to go on dialysis. She was on a type of dialysis called Peritoneal Dialysis where fluid sat in the peritonium (a hollow cavity and membrane covering your internal organs) and cleansed the waste out of her blood. She was always at risk for a disease called Peritonitis which most dialysis patients get on more than one ocassion, but it can be cured and is usually not life threatening unless yyou let it go for a while before heading to the hospital. Well to make a long story short, Mom got a nast kind of peritonitis and it eventually led to her death on October 8, 1998 of last year. My Mom and I were close and losing her took a huge chunk out of my heart I think about her every day and miss her like crazy. But as they say, life goes on and unfortunately so do the bills and the need to pay them. Ill never got over missing my Mom, but I can get through it as long as I keep a piece of her in my heart, close where it belongs. I would like to close by saying a few things, 1. Remember to live your life the way you would want to be remembered. 2. Remember to tell your parents and siblings how much you care for them, you may wake up one day and find that you dont have the chance to tell them that ever again. 3. If life seems to have gotten the best of you, step back, look at all the good things you have and then remember that things *could* be a lot worse. Thanks for visiting and for reading this small novel. Take care and live life to the fullest! Carpe Diem |
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