Wild Times To Father Life

Reilly White

“My mom was very difficult, the day before they were married, my step-father found out she was undergoing felony charges for stealing 7000 dollars worth of checks, money, and an elaborate credit card scheme from her place of employment, which was also my step-father’s, a ski shop in Cleveland, OH. My step-father had a choice to go through with the marriage even though he didn’t know how the court case would play out, or if it was even true; but then he said he thought of me and that it is so easy to walk out and leave, but he chose not too. The reason why he married my mom was because he wanted me to have a father. My step-father was able to step in when I was around 6, and he became a father figure.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He had a wild time. He went to jail for fighting and cocaine, and he cleaned himself up, and he had these amazing stories of his adventures. When you start parenting a baby it’s different than starting with a 6-year-old. If he had not gone through with that marriage, I don’t know where I would have been. I think I would’ve been like many kids in situations with broken homes and not have a future. Whatever life I would’ve had, he changed it for the better. He had a difficult time and lived through it and he learned to respect and choose the role of responsibility and goodness and that is what I admire most about him. The fact that I am a finance professor is because he himself went through a doctoral program when I was in school and became a marketing professor and he did it before me. The life that I had and the life that I choose is based on the sort of the roles I saw him take growing up. He chose the root of responsibility and goodness and that is what I admire most about him.”