My sister Linda began dating a guy named Don in the summer of 1977. I was 6.
Cue "Come Sail Away" by Styx.
I would need both hands to count the amount of times he's saved my life. He would be part father, part brother, part best friend, and all mentor.
There's a scene in one of the Rocky movies, where Pauly tells Rock that if he could be anyone on Earth, he would be him.
I wrote that in one of Don's birthday cards. Except for, you know, I changed Pauly to me and Rocky to Don. Otherwise it wouldn't have made any fucking sense.
You see, there was a time in my life where I had next to nowhere to go. For weeks, Linda gave me as much area as she could in her one bedroom apartment. I know I was eating up room, taking time and space from someone who needed theirs. Linda never complained.
Don swooped in, gave me a bed and a room, storage space for what I had, a room for my kid so Aidan would have his own place to go when I had custody, and an indefinite soft landing as I tried to re-gear my broken machine and get it running again. While there, he paid for me to fix my painfully broken dentistry in an emergency situation when my insurance would only cover half. Once again, he saved my life.
Once again. Linda was right there. Though they are no longer together, they communicate, and she told Don to make sure I was eating, that I was taking care of myself.
In 1989, when I was attending trade school, Don and Linda rented me their basement at an incredibly low rate. When semester change came, and I couldn't swing my books, he skipped the rent. This happened more than once. He gave me rides to work and school when epilepsy took that ability away from me.
In 1987, my parents wanted to jump from southern to central Wisconsin when I only had 7 weeks of school left. With all the changes that had taken place in the previous two years, I couldn't do it again. Don and Linda let me stay with them until the school year ended, to dull the sharp edge of another major shift.
In 1988, there was a time when life was pushing me to the edge of a jagged cliff. Don and Linda took me into the woods for a week to get my head right. The level in my head had its bubble returned to the middle after that trip.
Don was there when I was 6. I remember the first time I saw him. He let me pretend to drive his car. He dropped 10 years of age to entertain me frequently. When my Dad died, he did his best to partially fill an impossible void. He taught me things about fixing cars that pretty much don't apply in today's age of ridiculous engineering, but it got me through a long time. He taught me to drive. He taught me how to string and fire a bow. He took me hunting and taught me how to do it. He informed a large portion of my taste in music in my youth. He and Linda took me to my first concert.
He always answered the phone.
He always listened.
He was always there. Even in situations where distance, and even time are a preventative, I know he's there. When my kid wanted to visit me in Texas in 2012, it was Don who picked my kiddo up, Don who took Aidan to the airport, Don who made sure the first-time flyer got on the right plane. Aidan is actually Don's Godchild and means the world to him. We had some fun together while I got life back in a flight pattern at Don's place. We saw Blue Oyster Cult, multiple movies, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas together, and had more than a few hundred laughs as a trio.
One time, during that period where I lived in his house, we were standing in his kitchen, and I began to cry because of all of the too-much-ness. He gave me his usual grunt and "Aw, man there's no need for that shit" before wrapping his arm around the back of my head.
"Why do you do this for me, why do you keep saving my life?" I asked. "I haven't done shit for you, man."
"That's not true. You always make me laugh, Robby" he said, before dropping a handful of peanut M&Ms into my palm, and making me a Whiskey and Coke.
Imperfect though they may be, there are still heroes.
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