{"id":127,"date":"2022-04-28T21:26:09","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T01:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/?p=127"},"modified":"2023-08-31T21:17:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T01:17:17","slug":"the-story-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"The Story of My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1972 was a pretty pivotal year. Mom had just provided me with a brand new stepdad, and later that same year I\u2019d end up with a baby sister.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guy was dirt poor, mind you. Didn\u2019t have two nickels to rub together, working multiple jobs, while navigating his way through medical school (and now raising a ready-made family, and a baby on the way).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he persevered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When <\/a>I turned six, my bio-dad, in one of his rare instances of remembering he\u2019d brought a child into this world, bought me a bike for my birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve, my stepdad, who wasn\u2019t always the best at managing his jealousy, and couldn\u2019t afford to buy me such a luxury, still patiently taught me to ride it. I\u2019m pretty sure that parking lot is underneath the Mylan Pharmaceuticals building now, across the street from where he was attending med school at WVU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fun he\u2019d find the biggest, most confusing words in his medical texts and teach me to break them down and work out the pronunciation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He graduated medical school, and did such a kick-ass job my Uncle Bill still swears dad\u2019s reputation is what got him early-acceptance to the medical program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We moved to Huntington, where he was an ER doctor at Cabell Huntington Hospital. Once he had a job, and an income, his first order of business was me, and removing the title \u201cstep\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his mother\u2019s lack of approval, a \u201cstep\u201d herself who couldn\u2019t understand why he would treat me like his own, he adopted me when I was 8 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He chose me, and now I was officially a Lester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came another move, as he pursued his orthopedic specialty at Bowman Gray in Winston-Salem. A two year process for a full-time student, a four year process for him as he continued to raise his family (and add a third to its ranks). (In case you\u2019re thinking he was a lollygagger, he finished his pre-med undergraduate at Marshall in three years.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moved to Elkins, WV and started his first practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I feel I need to qualify here\u2026 it wasn\u2019t all sunshine and rainbows. He had a temper, and didn\u2019t always control it as well as he might should have. He was stern, had expectations (not always reasonable ones), and sometimes we didn\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t wander down the rabbit hole of his childhood, but I\u2019ll tell you mine was much better than his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not like I was an easy kid to raise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom finally cracked the code to get to me\u2026 technology\u2026 and Dad (perhaps unknowingly) financed that interest. He was instrumental in introducing me to Eugene Wright, who helped me build my first computer\u2026 setting the course of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom and Dad split up soon after I\u2019d left for the Air Force, but I never stopped being his son, and he never stopped being my Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon afterwards he became a grandfather, followed by another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His life pivoted when he met Gayle<\/a>, \u201cMamma Gayle\u201d to her grandkids, and one heck of a cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 2000 the insurance companies did an overnight tripling of malpractice insurance for all WV licensed doctors, so he pulled down his shingle and moved about two hours east of me, and successfully started his practice over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More grandkids, adventures, retirement, and then great grandkids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He finally went full retiree, when he and Gayle moved to Ft. Myers, Florida last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, cancer (and pneumonia) had other plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Ira Lester<\/a> passed away this afternoon, April 28th, 2022. \u201cMamma Gayle\u201d was at his side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorial details will be forthcoming, taking place in Williamston, NC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1972 was a pretty pivotal year. Mom had just provided<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tellin-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lestersworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}