Where is dad..?

Where is dad…?

(Less than 7 minutes reading time...)

One morning while I was away from home – my daughter broke down, crying, and in between those tears, she asked “Where’s dad?”

This has been going on for 10 weeks now.

Her dad is gone. She doesn’t understand what happened to him.

Ultimately this leads to where something wonderful is going to happen for her, her brother, and her mom…

”Where is dad?” – She asks.

She looks around in the dark, all confused, as she was woken by the sound of the rain smashing against the bedroom window over and over.

She just turned 3 but you would take her for 5.

This girl is a very social person that smiles and talks all the time.
She is also a bit afraid of sleeping alone in her room because of “the monsters under her bed”, so she usually sleeps in her parent´s bed just as she did this night.

While fumbling around in the bed this dark rainy October Saturday at 6Am,
trying to figure out what was happening, all she sees is her little brother at the age of 3 months sleeping in his white crib, next to their parent’s dark grey bed.

He just lies there with his hands above his head. He usually sleeps this way when
he feels secure.

The little girl takes another look around.

This time she could see a bit better since her eyes has now adopted to the dark.

She sees her mom on the other side of the bed, sleeping and breathing heavily
since she has been awake with the little boy all night.

“Where IS dad!?” – The little girl asks again.

This time while putting her warm and small little fingers on her mom’s shoulder,
trying to carefully get a response.

Her mom wakes up, wondering to herself if it was the dream that woke her up or
if it was her daughter saying something.

She looks at her daughter, whom looks right back at her, and says:

“Oh honey, are you awake? Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

“I can’t” - the little girl replies with sadness in her tone.
“I want to know where dad is…?”

Mom realizes her little girl is anxious and answers:
“He is on his way to work. He just left but if you hurry you might be able to see him through the kitchen window.”

The little girl jumps up from the bed, running towards the kitchen to grab the black stool as she always uses since she is too short to reach to see out.

She climbs up on the stool looking out, and all of this to see dad’s car just pass by the window.

She starts to cry.

What she doesn’t understand is that her dad saw her in the window and he decided to take a turnaround so he could wave to her to say good-bye.

When dad drives by the window one more time all his excitement suddenly turns in to devastation.

All he can see in the window is his baby girl crying and screaming and big tears pouring down her cheek.

Her daddy, who is driving towards 8 hours of work and 1 more hour of traveling time to and from work, feels like someone ripped his heart out and crushed it with a 2000-pound heavy rock.

The last memory he has from his little girl, before going away from home for the next 9 hours, is her crying and yelling for him to come back home.

After a couple of minutes the little girl, who now has accepted that dad will be gone this weekend as well, sadly walks back to the bedroom where her mom and little brother are still sleeping.

She gently pushes her mom and asks
“Why does daddy have to go to work?”

Mom gathers strength, sits up in bed and says:
“You see, as your dad goes to school Monday to Friday he has expenses to pay.

He needs being able to pay for his commute costs among other things such as our electrical bills and to put food on the table.”

Mom notices sadness in her daughter’s eyes.

This little girl has just one simple wish – that her dad would be home in the weekends, playing around, building puzzle and read kid´s books with her.

She thinks it is enough that he is gone every Monday-Friday.

She is tired of hearing dad say “sweetie, I know I know, but remember this is only temporary”.

Every time dad is trying to ‘convince’ her she just ignores him and runs in to her room slamming the door behind her.

Dad feels sadness; He blames himself for his daughter’s feelings while he at the same time tries to convince himself that:

“This is only temporary. You got a great opportunity to change your career for the better, and more importantly you are doing thisfor your kids so you would have more energy after work and could spend more time with them later”

This is the real scenario that is taking place for my children Edith and August each week and will continue to take place for the next 13 months.

Unless someone like you steps forward to help end this process.
I had never in my wildest dreams imagined myself writing a letter like this.
But –in seeing what my family is going through, I felt I had no choice.

One of the reasons for me going back to school again at the age of 31, while having 2 amazing kids, is that I will be able to say God Bye FOREVER to working unsocial hours and to all the heavy lifting, which by the way caused me a severe back injury.

My main reason for doing this is that all of this allows me to save both my body and my energy so I can enjoy time with Edith and August as they grow up.

Ever since I got accepted to this education “Ecommerce Business Development”, which has me traveling 124 miles back and forth each Mon-Fri leaving home at 6.30AM and home again at 6PM (most of the times) , I have to work in the weekends to finance my commute costs and household bills.

My job is located a 35-minute drive from home and I work ‘on the floor’ at a big and known company, which I do not want to mention the name of. My job is to put together transmissions for bigger vehicles.

It is stressful and I would say my job is: ‘to work in a line’ (there are stations connected to each other where one have around 2 minutes to finish the job otherwise you stop production.)

Most of the work involves working unsocial hours and lots of heavy lifting.

This leads me to why you are here

My studies are going great and we make fast progress.
I have finished my first course "web development" and soon finished my next 2 courses: “Marketing” and “Digital Businesses”.

I am on a mission to raise a total of $15,000 were $6,000 will go directly
to pay for my train travel costs and where the rest ($9,000) will go to pay for food, electrical bills and other costs for the next 13 months until I have graduated and got a job.

Your donation will go directly to supporting Edith and August to have me home in the weekends rather than me being a stranger to them.

I have no doubt I am going to get through this, however your help will allow me being able to put my 100% focus on school in the weekdays and 100% off my time and energy towards my kids in the weekends.

I know that $15,000 could sound much to you but remember:
For less than the cost of 1 cup of coffee You will change the life forever for Edith and August, who will be able to grow up in a “complete” family.

Every $ you donate will be 1 step closer to the goal and every $ will make a huge difference in my family’s and more importantly Edith’s and August life’s.

Will you skip that 1 cup of coffee today and bring Edith's and August's dad home?

Thank you so much for investing your time reading this!

All the best!

//Michael Bjorklund

PS. To help us reach our goal don’t forget to share this page with your friends!