A Young Man’s Journey

Life ... It is different for all of us. We all are born and we all will pass, that much each of us have in common. What happens in between those two milestones is a journey that makes us who we are as a person. The journey is seldom easy, such is the case of Sidney’s own Justin Taylor.

Calling Taylor – who is now 25 years old – a troubled youth is an understatement. Constantly in and out of trouble at school and with the law, Taylor’s apex of crime was achieved when he was arrested for grand theft auto at the age of 13. Not long after, at age 14, Taylor learned he had fathered a son.

Drugs became a normal routine of life throughout his teen years. Taylor subjected himself to the influences of marijuana, which led him to try more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine. The drugs did little to improve his troublesome behavior. They actually amplified it.

Once Taylor was no longer a juvenile, his troublesome streak continued, albeit on lesser charges. He became quite familiar with the officers of the Sidney Police Department, who caught him on numerous traffic violations, including driving on a suspended license.

What was leading Taylor to continuously break the rules? If you ask him, it’s because there was something missing from his life.

Taylor, like many young children in today’s world, grew up without a father. It wasn’t that his father had passed on; he just wasn’t around. Taylor’s mother did nothing to change the situation, based on her own experience with the man who fathered her child. The man she had known was abusive, at times physically assaulting her. It was not a life she wanted for her child.

However, as her little boy grew, curiosity took hold of him. From age 13, he would lay awake at night imagining what his father looked like, what his father would say to him, what his father would think of him. The questions tormented him, and left unanswered, they continued to bore holes inside his mind. His damaging, troubled acts were attempts to fill the void.

As the thoughts of his father continued to bear down upon him into his 20s, he decided it was time to do something about it. Speaking with his mother, she said she wanted no part in her son’s attempts to find the man she tried to protect him from for so long. However, like any other mother who knows what her child needs, she told him he could try to find his father.

Having his father’s name, and beginning his investigation in 2005, Taylor finally turned to the Internet for help in November of 2008. It was online that Taylor would discover a little history on Donald Holzworth – his father.

Holzworth had been adopted, as were his brothers, according to the information Taylor found. He discovered his father had lived in Loveland, Colo., for a bit, but had moved south. Holzworth was living in Mora, N.M., where he ran his own mechanic shop. Taylor phoned him.

“I said, ‘Hey, this is Justin Taylor,’ and he said, ‘Hello, son.’,” Taylor said. “My heart just started going 100 mph. It was really amazing. It brought tears to my eyes to hear his voice.”

For the first time in his life, the 24-year-old listened to the voice on the other end of the phone – a voice that sounded happy to hear from him. He did more than just listen. He had tales of his own to tell, including telling his father that Holzworth had unknowingly become a grandfather. At the time of that first contact, Taylor’s son was 9 years old.

Subsequent discussions led to Taylor’s visit in New Mexico, where he met his father in person for the first time. The men embraced each other.

“We hung out,” Taylor said. “I showed him pictures of his grandchild. We decided it might be a possibility for me to move down there.”

During Taylor’s visit, the pair took a road trip. Together they drove through areas such as Las Vegas looking to have a spot of adventure in their lives, but enjoying their first – and only – father-son outing.

“I got some of that father-son time,” Taylor said. “He wasn’t real rich, he didn’t have a lot of money. We decided to take a trip. We worked on some scrap iron so we could pay for our trip wherever we wanted to go.”

The time spent was cherished, so much so the duo plotted Taylor’s move to New Mexico where he could help his father run his shop.

About a year would pass in which communication between them was spotty, sometimes due to a lack of phone accessibility. Toward the end of 2009, when Taylor was preparing to move, he was having trouble contacting Holzworth. After several failed attempts to reach his father, Taylor turned to authorities for help.

“I called the deputy down there, and the deputy gave me the news that my father had shot himself,” Taylor said.

He added that his father had lived the last year of his life with distance from his family. Many of his family members were unaware that he had died. Until the deputy informed Taylor of the situation, he had been unaware his father had been gone for about a month.

Having never stopped the search for family, Taylor became aware of a half-brother and a half-sister through his father. His half-brother was serving time in prison, his half-sister was living in California.

While Taylor did his best to assist in making funeral arrangements, his half-sister took charge of the need. It was at that time that Taylor also relinquished his father’s shop to her. A paternity test to show that Holzworth was Taylor’s biological father had never been done, and at $600, it was a cost Taylor couldn’t pay to prove the relationship and keep the shop.

Taylor was internally torn over his father’s death. He couldn’t connect the dots in his mind of why Holzworth would take his own life until Taylor came into contact with a cousin. It was the cousin who gave Taylor yet another piece of the puzzle that become Holzworth’s life. He had been diagnosed with melanoma cancer, and he was terminal.

So Taylor didn’t have a lot of time with his father, but he had gotten some time. During that time, he had some questions answered. He discovered his father’s love of photography. He discovered his father was changing himself for the better, attempting to leave his troubled past behind him.

Taylor also discovered what it felt like to have a father. That is a relationship he wishes to continue with his own son, who now lives in Lincoln.

“It makes me want to be so much of a better father,” Taylor said. “It makes me want to hold him that much closer. Since he’s moved to Lincoln, without a license it’s hard for me to make it down there to get him. I haven’t seen him for about a year. I talk to him on the phone. Before he moved away a year ago, I used to see him every day. This past year has been really hard.”

Taylor says his son is already displaying several of the same problems Taylor showed when he was a young boy. The now 10-year-old youth is getting in trouble with teachers and seems doomed to repeat the mistakes of his father.

Just as his father before him had done, Taylor was changing his life. Prior to meeting his father, Taylor was able to kick his drug addiction. No longer a substance abuser, Taylor refocused his efforts on staying out of trouble with the law, which garnered him a bit of recognition from an officer who hadn’t seen Taylor in trouble for some time.

“I had to make a change,” Taylor said.

It’s a change he hopes he can help administer in his son’s life before it’s too late.

“I’m really proud of myself,” Taylor said of his positive changes and of making the effort to find his father. “I hope my story inspires kids to find themselves within their parents. Find ways they’re alike.”

If there’s a family theme passed down from Holzworth to his son and to his son’s son, it’s one of positive change. You might just say it’s a father-son thing.