The Child Nobody Wanted Became the Man Who Refused to Let Anyone Die Feeling Unloved
PART 3 OF 5 — I Couldn't Change My Past, So I Drove Toward a Different Future
By Jeffrey Badders
I always told myself that if no one loves me or I can't find anyone. God will always be if they can't fire. If it's just us too, then that's fine with me. Because I know i'm going in the right direction
I just kept learning, and I just kept moving forward. Because the scene always says to me. The rent is due every day. And if you're not in motion, you're not gonna go anywhere in life. I had to keep the fire inside of me, burning
There was a time that I was very depressed, and I wanted to give up what I told myself. I made it this far and I'll make it to end
I always learned to stay positive and stay in motion. Listen more than talk when people are talking to you. I learned that
I just kept working, and that started to save money. And I just told myself that no one's gonna say, I have to do it. Myself that's what I did
I decided that I would just keep doing what i'm doing in nebraska, and eventually I would go to a different state. And the next state was iowa
At the time, I was working in different areas like in council, bluffs, iowa and omaha, nebraska, and I decided I wanted to try something different. But what I had to do I had to wait to get my license. So during the time I was in nebraska, I was studying myself up for the iowa one, and then I got my license, and then I moved on to state of iowa
Well, I went back to the papers, and I put it add in that I was looking for her. A hospice, a position, and the place I was at, was red oak. Iowa
I got a response back from a hospice company, and I told him my situation, and it started out part time, but then I still had the weekend job of my the medical staffing. The medical staffing went through all fifty states, so I just transferred to iowa with medical staffing. Got a hold of their office. And then I started working throughout iowa, mostly counseled, bless iowa. Davenport
My first days was different because I worked the weekends on the medical staffing, and with medical staffing. You picked the ships that you want to work. They ask you, is this what you wanna? Do you just? You have a lot of availability, and when I started working part time for hospice, you know, at least I had a solid income. So I signed up for a gym to keep myself in shape, and I found a room and had a roommate, and at the time, it wasn't that much. It was like one hundred a month. It was eight hundred for the whole thing. But it was split it up four hundred a month. So I had a place to stay there for a while
It was four hundred dollars apiece
During that time in iowa, it wasn't the best place I really didn't want to be, but I just thought, you know, why not try another state. So I wasn't there for very long. Maybe six months and I decided that I would go from iowa. I would go to south dakota
Well, I got with the different company. Like it was like a traveling c n a where they travel. All over and they gave me a contract. But I told him, I can only work on the weekends, because i'm gonna have a job in hospice because I always wanted hospice, so I would work the weekends. So I got a contract up there, and then I found another small hospice that would work with me
With the new company that I was with, I was able to transfer my c and a license to the other state because they had fifty states. As long as I was in their system, then they just gave the information to the next state
Well, my contact was in spearfish south dakota, and I was able to find a room and a cabin in the black hills
Second voice, the correct. Well, there was this long driveway, and it was paved, and I would drive on that sometimes early in the morning and I would see deer coyotes, when I was driving to work .
I remember with the canyon was beautiful. You could see streams on side of the road. And it was just a beautiful priceless picture of living in the canyon
I learned how to
This put rainbow trout cause. I was right down there by the river. So I bought some waiters and did some fly. Fishing? Now I learned, fly fishing was there's a neighbor that did that for many years. He's an older gentleman, and I asked him to teach me how to do this. We would go with the our wooden like sack that would put the fish in. It's kind of a wooden basket like thing. Of course
I remember the older gentleman that I was flying fishing with, he would tell me sometimes you have to stop and appreciate the things you accomplished in your life , and give yourself credit for all the battles and victories you won in your life and most of all never take your life for grant because your life can change in a moment over time .. Be happy of what you have instead of looking for the things that you think is missing in your life.
I just told myself to live my life to the fullest. Because you cannot rewind the tape of your life to become successful in life
I explored the state. I played texas holding my first time in deadwood, south dakota. When that was quite an experience, people took my money and I'll never forget it
And I started running, and I would run through the canyon cause running, was something that just I was able to release the pain and bring in the warmth. And the vision of what I need to do next in life, and then I entered in a contest backwards running in a contest. It was north of spirits, south dakota, and I run around the track backwards, and you can you can tell that I showed you that I can run backwards at six point eight miles an hour backwards on a treadmill. And that inspired me to sign up for this thing. And running backwards on a track
There was twenty contestants, and I placed thirteen at all
I've always been curious in my. I always wanted to learn in life. The more you learn, it can be, a lot less stress on life. Because you're focusing on positive things that you want to learn, and instead of negative things that you've learned, tough lessons that you don't want to live in that state of mind
I started panning for gold, so I bought him like a gold kit with a pan that you could buy at a store. And I just went down to the stream and start trying to pan for gold. I wasn't successful because I didn't know what I was doing
I didn't know what I was doing. Trying to pan, and I would watch the discovery channel, and they showed how to pan, but I didn't understand it. So I just kind of gave up on it, but I at least tried it
What I still on spiritual south dakota, I went to the bike rally in sturgeon, south dakota, that was quite an experience
There are some really beautiful bikes, beautiful women. Some women didn't wear clothing. It was quite a shocking experience that I never experienced before. And you could see people doing some things that they weren't supposed to be doing a lot of drinking. And drugs and all kinds of crazy stuff, but I wasn't a part of it. I just went there and and wanted to experience something like this. So I just went up there and walked around
I drove up to devil's tower
I remember it was this tall rock, like red stone, and it had this on top of it. It was flat, but it was huge, very interesting. I don't know why they called it devil's tower. I never really looked into it. I was just curious what this is all about. When people said, if you turn south dakota, go check it out and said okay, I
And then I went on to Yellowstone, and the tetons for vacation. I got a week vacation from the hospice company. That's why I worked there for a long time. And I took a vacation
Remember, I still had the white van with the bed in the back
When I visited yellowstone for like two days, I got to watch old faithful, go up every hour on the hour. And I remember walking on this path, and you could see the lava just bubbling, I'll never forget that. And I was kind of scared, but I i stayed confident myself that i'm gonna experience this and get back safe, and I did
When I got to the tetons, I looked over the water and the reflection off of the mountains was a reflection on the water. It just looked like a priceless painting. Beautiful I'll never forget that
I thought I just sat there for a couple hours and setting where you could actually view all this. It was amazing. It was so beautiful. It was like I was in a movie and I'm sitting there looking at this beautiful priceless picture. I'll never forget that it was so relaxing. And it was like there's hope out there, you just have to believe in yourself. And that beauty brought me to another level of telling myself, you know, life is not fair, but you can make it beautiful, because you are the author of your story
I just enjoyed the moment I refreshed. Myself, and it was time for me to get back to my passion working in hospice. So I drove back home to spear fish and I rode in my journal every day that I was on the road vacation of all these beautiful things. I got to experience and thankful for the people that I met during the journey of my life on this vacation
TO BE CONTINUED… PART 4 OF 5