The Unlikely Path

Richard Stepanov

The Unlikely Path

The whole story

Introduction

Who am I?

Good question, I suppose that I am an average guy, getting on in years now, nobody special, I’m 73 years old, overweight, greying but still full of life and still ready for new ideas and opportunities, I have been happily married twice, I have two happily married sons, and two wonderful, blue eyed, blonde grandsons, I didn’t do well at school, I could have done better but I didn’t want to at the time, looking back, I have no regrets and a lot of experience now, in many different things.

I found myself in a difficult situation and decided that it was time to change, so I did, and now I feel that I have learnt many lessons, some of which I feel, deserve telling, so that others may benefit. I decided that I would do something that had never occurred to me before and that was to write my story, not from the beginning but from the point where everything changed, and I mean everything from an old ordinary life to a brand-new life, one that I would never have dreamed of in a million years!

So, here goes!

The Mystery of Unusual Opportunities

Life and Loves of an Ordinary Guy (Part 2)

This is not an ordinary auto-biography, it is story about a dramatic change in the life of a far from extraordinary man and what happened to him in a little over a decade of his life, a life that has some way to go yet!

Some would say that it was a series of coincidences but others, including me, sincerely believe that God had a lot to do with it!

Chapter 1

I was not HAPPY! I was sitting on the bunk in my truck in a car park on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Stafford, not far from the M6 motorway on New Year’s Eve 2009!

What had started out looking like an easy day had turned into a nightmare! I’d turned up for work to drive my truck, early in the morning of 31st December, at our large depot warehouse in Haverhill, the dispatcher had given me a straight run, drive a large chilled load of fruit juice and yoghurt from the local depot up to a logistics centre in Newcastle, unload, call in at the company’s regional distribution centre there and bring a load of dairy produce back home in good time to get home and celebrate the New Year of 2010.

I had got up early as usual that Thursday, 31st December 2009 and was looking forward to the celebrations that night with my wife and family, I was feeling quite cheerful, my start time was 04.30 am. so I’d set my alarm for 02.00, enough time to shower, grab a bite and hit the back roads to the depot, I really enjoyed the back roads, I could have some fun on the twisty lanes through the quiet sleepy villages without worrying about any traffic, there was never anyone about, nevertheless I still needed to be careful, you never know what might be round the next bend! But it meant I could drive a little more aggressively than during the day, I liked to test myself on the twisty roads and often liked to try and beat my fastest time from home to work.

This morning I’d managed to beat it with a minute to spare, impressive, “it’s going to be a good day!” I thought to myself. My old car was nothing special but I was pretty good at getting the best out of any vehicle, I could drive and enjoy just about anything, I didn’t much care for flashy cars, they attracted to much attention, I enjoyed getting the better of other drivers with the skills I had learnt, in cars that didn’t look fast.

So, I was clearly in a good mood when I arrived at the desk of the dispatcher, exchanged a little banter, chatted with one or two of the drivers who were also in that morning, then took the keys to a truck and headed for the yard to do my daily checks on the truck. I was unusually thorough this morning, I felt on top of the world, paid extra care and even ran the truck through the wash so it was looking good, I parked up and ran upstairs to get my paperwork and the trailer number.

Sandra, the dispatcher, told me to hang on for a couple of minutes while she retrieved the delivery documents from the printer on the other side of the office, when she came back, she told me that there had been an alteration in the route that day, instead of calling in at our regional depot after my delivery, I was to pick up a load from a small dairy in Yorkshire, somewhere on the moors. I thought, “no problem” it was only a small diversion on the way back anyway so wouldn’t delay me much and I would still be back home in time and would have the chance for a quick nap and be ready to celebrate later, I had only once ever missed seeing in the New Year, just the one time when I was much younger and didn’t have much money, when I had to work on New Year’s Eve driving taxis, to put food on the table, and promised myself I’d never to do it again!

I thanked Sandra, wished her a good day and gathered up the paperwork and went downstairs and out to the yard in search of the trailer.

It didn’t take long to find it and do the safety checks and connect up to the trailer and join the queue of trucks waiting to exit at the security gate, before long I arrived at the gate, I hopped out and went to the window, Clive was on that day and we had a laugh and joke while he sealed up the trailer. I climbed back into the cab, waited for the barrier to rise and set off with a couple of blasts on the horn and headed for the main road leading towards the motorway to head north.

I dearly loved that time in the morning, it was a Thursday morning but well before the heavy traffic of the rush hour and the roads were pretty empty, just one or two cars heading to work and the odd truck already on the way to distant destinations, there was a slight mist sitting on the fields but the sun was trying to poke through, the air was fresh and there was wildlife everywhere, even deer grazing on the side of the road!

The drive up north was fairly uneventful, I listened to the radio a bit, discovered half-way up the motorway that it had snowed locally but the motorway was clear so I arrived at the warehouse complex well in time for my delivery slot, there was a little bit of a wait before I was given a bay to unload but not long enough to worry about, I had plenty of time in hand. The unloading was quick and I soon got the green light to pull off the bay and was able to park up for my legal break before I could set off back down the motorway for my Dairy pick up.

The Dairy wasn’t difficult to find, I had soon found the exit off the motorway and headed along the ‘B’ road out onto the Yorkshire moors, there had been an overnight snowfall in the area and the roads were a little bit icy and tricky, the motorway was fine but the moorland roads were higher up and exposed and there had been drifting snow so it was slower going as the local authorities had not been out yet with the gritters and the snow ploughs, the countryside looked wonderful with its covering of fresh snow but the road turned out to be not too bad and at last the dairy came into sight.

It was here that the day started to turn sour and I began to suspect that somebody had something against me, my good mood took a jolt, things were taking a turn for the worst, as soon as I arrived the clerk told me that my load wasn’t ready and it would be at least a couple of hours before they could load. “Crap” I thought, “nothing much I can do about that”, so I decided the best thing to do was to have a nap on the bunk bed in the cab, you grab sleep wherever and whenever you can, I had become rather an expert in that skill.

Sometime later, not sure how long, my sleep was disturbed, I felt the cab move, they had started to load the trailer, great! I’ll soon be on my way! And sure enough, about 45 minutes later there was a knock on the cab door, one of the loaders was there, holding my paperwork in his gloved hand, I thanked him, relieved that at last I could get moving again.

I climbed down and walked into the warehouse and round to the back of the trailer to check that the stock was loaded safely, all seemed to be in order so I returned, got back in and moved the truck forward a couple of metres so I could go and shut the trailer doors and then waited while the loader put seals on the trailer doors.

I climbed back into the cab and sat behind the wheel and started to read through the delivery notes, I swore loudly! It was then that I got the first real shock of the day, this load wasn’t for my Home Depot, it was for the main warehouse at our head Office Depot on the outskirts of Stafford, on the other side of the country! I grabbed the radio phone in the cab and called up my home dispatcher, they had changed shifts and it was Ken that answered, I said, “What’s going on Ken?” and told him the story, “What’s shall I do, I’m supposed to be at home tonight, can you find out what’s happened? Ken said, “Give me a minute, I’ll find out from Andy”.

Ken put me on hold while he went to find the duty manager, after a couple of minutes, Andy, the duty manager came on the line, “I’m sorry Stuart” he said, “I’m afraid that there has been a big mix-up, someone else has taken your load by mistake and left the other one! I’m afraid that there is nothing I can do, I can’t authorise you to come back empty, so I’m sorry, you are going to have to take it, and it looks very much like you are going to have a night out”. I swore under my breath but said “Ok, I know it’s not your fault, just a pity that’s all!” it was absolutely the last thing I wanted to hear today, of all days! I would have to negotiate a tricky road over the Yorkshire moors, which could be blocked anywhere on the way with snow, then the long drag down the motorway to Stafford, Andy was right about the night out, I won’t have enough driver’s hours to make it back home, I’ll have plenty enough to reach the Stafford Depot but certainly not enough to go anywhere else, so I was looking at seeing the New Year in from my cab in the depot car park! Lovely!

Chapter 2

I spent a miserable and very lonely New Year’s Eve that year, I’d made it, just! driving my truck across the moors, it was very slippery and there were several stretches of road that were covered with deep snow. It was tricky and I took many chances but carried on steadily and carefully, doing nothing suddenly, expecting, any minute, to slide off the road and be brought to a grinding halt and have to dig my way out of trouble, there were a few occasions when my truck started to slide but fortunately didn’t slide too far and I managed to get carefully back on the road again.

Finally, I reached civilization again, there were street lights in the distance and I soon found myself on the outskirts of a small village and the roads got easier, after that it was relatively plain sailing, I came to a town that I knew was on the edge of the M6, the roads had been cleared and I soon turned onto the approach road for the motorway down towards Stafford.

Thank God, the motorway was almost empty, people had left work early and although it was early evening there were none of the usual traffic hold-ups that you usually find on that stretch of the M6 and finally, after several miles, I peeled off the motorway into the outskirts of the city and threaded my way through the industrial area until I reached the company’s distribution centre.

I checked in my paperwork at the security gatehouse, after a couple of minutes they gave me a bay number and I drove through the gates and backed onto the bay, after opening the trailer doors, I jumped out, wound the trailer wheels down and unhitched my truck and headed for the ‘lorry park’, they call it a lorry park but really it was the company car park with a section reserved for tractor units. I parked mine in a convenient space away from the busy end, so that I wouldn’t be disturbed that night while sleeping, I was pretty tired by now and in some way relieved that my day was just about over, I wasn’t really happy with where I was but that’s life!

I then headed into the warehouse and up to the office, handed in my delivery notes and told them I was having to night out, the dispatcher nodded then asked me what time I would be back on duty and what vehicle I was driving and wished me a good night! He would organise, hopefully a trip for the morning that would get me back home, no guarantee but he would do his best, I thanked him then walked through the warehouse towards the canteen because it suddenly dawned on me that I was dying of thirst and my stomach was rumbling and crying out for food.

My Thermos of coffee had died hours ago and it tasted like mud and my last sandwich was stuck to the bottom of my lunch box grinning evilly at me and did not look very inviting. So, I headed for the counter and ordered, then made an easy job of clearing a large plate of food and two mugs of coffee. After reading the day's paper, that was lying on a pile of magazines and books and chatting to couple of other drivers who were in the same boat, so to speak, I made my way back to the truck feeling much more human and a touch revived after food, I called in to the rest room on the way back to the truck and had a wash and brush up!

I then felt a little bit more like calling home to my wife, I had called earlier that day to tell her my bad news, that I wouldn’t be home, she’d been a bit upset, probably more upset than I was, it was a close thing but she knew that it couldn’t be helped! So, I steeled myself and dialled the number and wished her Happy New Year and asked her how she was feeling but it was a very strained and difficult conversation, she’d been drinking again and wasn’t very coherent, I did my best to cheer her up but it wasn’t easy! My wife had been ill for a long time, many years, it was alcoholism mixed with clinical depression, with very little hope of getting better and I hated to leave her alone, especially as it was New Year, and she had been in tears, she had sworn at me and sounded very depressed. It was a very bad start to 2010 and unbeknownst to me at that time, it was soon to get a lot worse!

Anyway, next morning arrived, I didn’t get much sleep because of stress and worrying, but they found me a load, not to my Home Depot but to a supermarket close enough to home, it went OK but I was far from cheerful and very relieved to finally get back to the depot, sort things out with the truck and park it up. Then I headed upstairs, Andy, the manager was there, he tried to apologise but really it wasn’t his fault and I couldn’t blame him. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine and went back to the desk where Sandra debriefed me and then made my way down to my car, climbed wearily in and drove home in a much more subdued mood than I had been the day before when I had driven to work!

The next couple of weeks flew by, my wife had been very distant to me when I got home and we hadn’t talked much, work was just the normal five days on and three days off which suited me fine, no more nights out, which also suited me, I could have three days off with my wife and could get things done on these days off because they were not always Saturday and Sunday when offices were closed, I had free days during the week if I needed, to see someone important or get my wife to the doctors or the local clinic if she needed to go!

Chapter 3

On about the 10th January 2010 my wife Leslie became ill with some sort of stomach bug and was very sick for a couple of days, she couldn’t face food and was certainly not drinking enough, she was getting very dehydrated, I began to be very worried and I called the doctor out to see her a few times but the doctor kept on saying that there was not much he could do and said to keep her as hydrated as possible and try and get her to eat a little plain food. On the third and fourth days she seemed to recover a little and started to eat just a little bit but on the fifth day she was much worse in the morning, vomiting and crying out with pain and by the middle of the evening she was suffering with terrible pains in her stomach and it got slowly worse until I told her I was going to call an ambulance, Leslie was not convinced, and said no but the pain was getting worse and, in the end, she agreed to let me call.

They came fairly quickly, must have been all of 10 minutes, it was late at night so maybe things were a little quiet in the city, I let them in and showed them the way up to the bedroom, where they started to examine her straight away, blood pressure, pulse and many more tests, after a short time they told me that it would be best to get her to the Hospital and they told her that they would look after her, it seemed as though she was relieved at last to hear that and she relaxed a little, I quickly agreed and they started to prepare her for transfer, she was lifted carefully into a chair like contraption so they could carry her downstairs then suddenly one of them said, “her heart as stopped!” there was a flurry of activity and it all seemed like a bad dream, they managed to start her heart again and got her to the ambulance.

I locked up and turned the lights off, phoned her sister and my youngest son and set off for the hospital as quick as I could.

When I arrived at the hospital, my wife had already been taken in to the operating theatre and I was shown into a quiet waiting room, soon after my sister-in-law, her husband and daughter arrived and just after my youngest son Kevin and his wife. My eldest son, Philip, lived and worked in the US, I sent him a message and asked him to phone when he could, as his Mum was in hospital! We all sat there, not quite knowing what to do, we talked, trying to look on the bright side, the smokers among us went outside frequently, it was difficult to sit and wait not knowing what was going on, the time dragged but seemed to pass unnoticed and I have no real recollection of how long we were there, it all seems like a very bad dream now!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity one of the doctors made an appearance, from the look on his face it wasn’t good news! He broke it to us as gently as he could but it was still much more shocking than we expected, we found out that Leslie’s heart had stopped again on the way to the hospital, they had managed again to restart it, but when they finally got to the hospital it had stopped again in the operating theatre and try as they might they couldn’t start it again, she was in a weakened state from her illness, her heart had suffered from the alcohol and cigarettes and it just gave up the fight.

I was devastated, it was difficult to understand what had happened, she had a stomach bug, that was all, how did that kill her? I had been used to her being ill, it had been going on for many years now but didn’t expect this, it was a huge shock to my system, I couldn’t think, I was smoking non-stop, I felt as though I needed a stiff drink but that was out of the question, my wife’s alcoholism had put me right off drinking, I couldn’t sit still and the strangest thing of all was that I felt dead inside, I couldn’t even cry! It was the worst day of my life by far.

I was so grateful for my family and friends, they gathered round me, they shepherded me home, they surrounded me with love and support, kept asking me who to call, who to contact, what could they do for me and without them I have no idea how I would have got through those first few days, there were lots of tears, none from me, but I oh so slowly I began to function again but only just!

I felt as though I was in a dream, nothing felt real, I couldn’t bring myself to organise anything in the house, there was a lot to do but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, I managed to take our dogs for a walk, I had to, they needed the exercise, but so did I, it was a little bit of a relief to get out of the house and a little fresh air in my lungs, I had been smoking non-stop since it happened and my throat felt like an old chimney. And the woods and the fields around the village where we lived allowed me the time to think and come to terms with what had happened. Slowly, slowly, I began to be able to do things and gradually I started to feel as though I could function again.

My friends were great and my boss and his management staff at the logistics company where I worked was very supportive, they didn’t allow me to feel sorry for myself, my boss, especially, was very sympathetic and helpful and told me not to worry, to take my time and not to come back to work until I was ready, the job would still be there, that was very reassuring.

I got on well at work and was liked by most of the drivers and staff, there were one or two that seemed a little unsociable but that is just life, I tried to treat everyone with respect and kindness, I had always had a good work ethic, whoever I worked for, I gained a lot of respect and many good friends and they helped me lot in my time of need.

I began to heal and to smile a little again. Walking the dogs turned out to very therapeutic along with the lovely countryside around where we lived but unfortunately these feelings were not to last for long!

Chapter 4

I suddenly found that I was all alone and I didn’t like it! I felt that before all this happened, I was quite alright with this life, OK it wasn’t ideal but it was, I thought, doable, even though it was just work, sleep and eat and of course keeping my wife safe with a roof over our heads and enough money to survive but our relationship was not what it had been, we had begun to drift apart, mainly because of her mental illness and the drinking but that was OK, I had made a promise when I married, ‘for better or for worse, richer or poorer!’. Now everything had changed and it was very unfamiliar and uncomfortable and I didn’t know quite what to make of it, I didn’t know what to do next.

There was another event that sort of took my mind of these immediate problems and that was the funeral, my wife wasn’t religious and wouldn’t have liked a priest to be present so I set about finding an alternative and by chance found a so-called humanist minister to officiate. I had found that I could buy a plot in the village cemetery, it was beautiful there and very peaceful, I had decided against cremation because I thought about joining her there when I passed.

Everything was arranged and many of our friends and family had said they were coming, and my eldest son had made it over from the states; I had decided to speak a Eulogy over the grave. Easier said than done, it took me some time to put together what I wanted to say but finally I settled on what I wanted to say. On the day I was extremely nervous but found the strength to step forward and deliver my thoughts, probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in public and I nearly didn’t make it to the end because the tears finally caught up with me.

We’d arranged to meet after, in the hall behind the pub and when I walked in someone put a pint of beer in my hand and after a few gulps I felt much better, everyone was great and I chatted with everyone and it revived me in a way I can’t describe but it was exactly what I needed.

I wasn’t quite alone at home, our two dogs and two cats were still there but that had produced a further problem, I couldn’t really go back to work as a trucker and leave my dogs at home with no-one to look after them, I couldn’t guarantee that I was going to make it home every day so who was going to feed them if I didn’t? There were quite a few of these basic problems but I couldn’t quite get my head to resolve them, I was still wandering around the house, not quite knowing what to do and on top of that I still couldn’t face going back to work and I couldn’t face the problems!

This went on for about three weeks and then suddenly, like a switch being flicked, I knew exactly what I was going to do, things had to change and I needed to get back to work if I was going to keep my sanity, so I started to formulate a plan.

I had gradually been sinking into a lethargic stupor and nothing was getting done at home. I had been worrying what to do about my dogs, they were getting old, ten years and very grey, so if I couldn’t look after them who would, I didn’t want to separate them because they were very close, I couldn’t lump them on someone else at their age because soon they would cost a fortune in vet bills to keep them going, the only other option was to put them down, this was an awful thing to think of, they were like family, my kids!