July 11th, 2010. Eight years ago this day a great man passed. Someone who adopted me as if I were his own son, at the age of 6 I was taken out of my toxic family household. Those were dark times, I remember the beatings and abuse I suffered. Luckily I was pulled out of the house, but a problem arose of where I would go. My adopted father Eurik came into play. At first I didn't warm up to him being a foster parent and all, but eventually he became the most important person in my life.

Where everyone else abandoned me, he never gave up on supporting me and teaching me everything he knew. He worked in foster care for individual cases due to his desire to want to have someone to raise and teach. I found out when I was 9 that he had sons from a previous marriage, but of course a divorce and everything was taken away from him. He never remarried and he shared his stories of traveling the world when everything was taken away from him. He simply wanted peace much like the famous WWII hero Captain Winters of Easy Company. Eurik met him once before and talked a great length apparently. That's where my father's spark for the life of peace and freedom began completely I would say. He was a war veteran himself from Vietnam so he understood what a true desire for peace was.

I remember the first time I ever called him father, age of 10, he was puzzled at first saying, "you know I am not your father, why would you call me such?". I looked him right in the eyes and told him, " You are to me what a father should be." Never before had he ever cried. I still tear up thinking about it at times. To him I was his son, knowing full well nobody could ever turn me against him especially in the case of my mother.

My biological family tried getting me back after supposedly cleaning up. Eurik fight tooth and nail to keep me. I am glad that he did. Everything I owe to that great man. He never dated again after his marriage seeing the truth of women. He lived a happy life of doing what he pleased away in his own world separate from society. Unfortunately he passed away from cancer this day 8 years ago, but the weeks leading up to his passing in the hospital. I spent as much time as I could. Never leaving his side unless I had to. I remember his final words to me, "Living is for the free, slavery is for the dead." He believed in reincarnation as a pagan, same as myself. So his words clearly were mean' t as we don't truly live unless we are truly free.

I cried at his funeral and also got into a fight with his estranged family who somehow heard about his passing. Trying to collect something of his estate. I smiled a bit when I told those gold digging bastards there was nothing left. He left his small fortune to me for pursuing education in whatever direction I so desired and travel the world a little. He also had his property converted into a private animal sanctuary.

Presently a day doesn't go by where I don't miss him, but I am happy in the thought he ended living on his own terms. I try to walk as close to his path in becoming a mgtow as possible. I wanted to share this tale with you all as perhaps some gleam of light in this dark world and just share someone very dear to the philosophy we all follow in each of our ways. After all we will be the happiest ones in life with no constraints holding us back.