Missouri Guardianship Forms: Fill & Download for Free

There is an old saying, so I’ll give it to you now. “There is no better time than the present.”I had lived around my family for 38 years, married for 18. Up until that time, well my relatives (including my parents) had made my life and family life and living hell. On June 30, 1991, we packed up our things, none of the relatives knowing anything about it, sold our mobile home, told them to KOWA (if you don’t know that is “Kiss Old William’s Ass) and moved from Missouri to Utah. My mother told me we would be calling in 6 months for the money to move back.Best move I ever made. I was no longer under their control and we could live our life as we wanted, not how they wanted. That call never came. Of course, in 1993 my mother died. She was still so pissed off at me, I was told to stay away from her funeral. So I did. I had been told for years I was too stupid to ever attend college. I did go to college, at 52 and in 8 years I earned an Associate, Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees.There is also a caveat to all this too. That move away was also a catalyst in the steps I would personally be making to become my real self. You see, I was a closeted gay man. Contrary to what you may believe, many gay men in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s, married women to hide who they were because of persecution of the LGBTQ community.I was beaten, damn near to death, when I was 16 in 1970, by my mother. I was outed to family and treated like shit. I did marry, and I deeply fell in love with my wife, who was the only woman I would ever marry. Trust me, our sex life really was bad, but we had 2 children and now have 5 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. I have always been gay, I have always known it, I did what I had to do to survive in this world. I was married for 40 years to my wife, until her untimely death in 2015, when she was only 59 years old. She died from complications of diabetes.After all the shit I went through, breaking away from family, to live the life I wanted as a married man, when I came out, it was another break away after the death of my wife. I am a single, openly gay man, in his 60’s. Oh, and I’m legally blind from birth defects in my eyes (can’t be fixed.) I have full guardianship of my oldest grandson (my late wife and I have had him since birth). He is now 16, yet he is deaf and autistic. He will be a junior in high school this next year. He lives at the school during the week and comes home on the weekends.I now live alone, most of the time. Do I like it? It takes getting used to. I never got the chance to live on my own before now. I’m finding what I like and don’t like. Each person has to do what they have to do to become themselves. Since my wife’s death, I have dated some, but it’s different. I’m taking the time now, for awhile, to fully get to know me. There is nothing wrong with that.Don’t rush your life and forget to live. If you fuck up? “Better to ask forgiveness, than permission.” And as you forge forward, you will run into instances when you find yourself, “One part brave, three parts fool.” (Both quotes from Eragon.)All in all. Before you love someone else, love yourself. You are the only one you have to live with for the rest of your life. If you don’t like you, then your existence will be painful.

In my opinion, typically it would be around 20–21 (or shortly there after). This typically comes because some young adults are still living at home and going to a local college and working at the same time. Living at home is a lot more convenient when there is a close proximity of school, work and home.On a personal level, I did not move out of my parents home, I escaped the prison of my parents home and did so by getting married (much against their wishes or demands.) I say this, because in my instance, it is like an episode of, “The Twilight Zone.” I turned 18 in 1972. I had to beg my parents to let me join the U.S. Air Force when I was 17 and a senior in high school. I turned 18 during basic training, not realizing my body was going to retaliate against me, receiving an honorable/medical discharge. I moved back home and went to a trade school to become a hairdresser. (Yeah, I was hiding I was gay, because it was illegal to be so back then in Missouri.)In order to hide who I was, oh I need to mention my mother had discovered I was gay when I was 16 and she damn near beat me to death. Perfectly legal back then. Back to Missouri in the 1970’s. At 18, I was legal to vote, which was made law in 1971. Now some reports want to contradict that to 1974, but I was allowed to vote for McGovern in 1972. Prior to November of 1974, the legal age for women to do anything was 18 year of age, BUT the legal age for men was 21. Yes, you read that right. Age 21. This meant where women had the rights and priveldge to move out, get married, buy a car, start a business, do anything, they could do when they turned 18.Men, on the other hand, could do nothing until age 21. If a man wanted to go to college, he had to have his parents permission. If he wanted to buy a car, his parents had to co-sign. Own a business, parents were co-owners. Go into the military, parents permission and signature. Get married, parents permission. If the parents refused? He was denied everything until he turned 21. I was married when I was 20. I had to get my parents permission. Father agreed if I could serve in the military at 18, then I should have the right to get married. Mother threw a fit. Interesting. I got married on July 13, 1974. The law was not changed until November of 1974 dropping the age for men to 18.I grew up in a prison of torture. I escaped when I was 20. Being gay? It was buried for over 45 years, married for 40 of them until my wife’s death. With that said, I have two children. My son, the oldest, moved out on his own at 18. He did come back and stay for short periods of time, a couple of months here and there while he was training in his field, then he moved out and never moved back.My daughter, totally different story. She got pregnant at 17 and had a little boy at 18. She had no interest in being mother, especially when her son was deaf and autistic. She contemplated giving him up for adoption. Her mother and I stepped in and she gave us full guardianship of him. She never fully moved out of the house. She married and her husband filed for divorce because she was cheating on him. While still married she got pregnant with another man’s child, whom she married after the divorce. She has another child by him as well. They are still together. When I came out as openly gay, after the death of my wife, she had promised her mother to be there for me. Except she took it to be there and for her family to live off me. I kicked them out almost a year ago and they a living with someone else in a city 5 hours away from me. We rarely speak.The son I am raising? I am the only dad he has ever known. He is deaf and autistic. He is now 16 years old. I will officially adopt him when he turns 18 in 2020 and after he graduates from high school. Will he ever move away from me? I seriously doubt it. He does learn independence while away at school during the week, and he comes home on the weekends. It is a state boarding school for the deaf here in California. He is a different circumstance, yet he gets to live his life and I get to live mine (such as it is). It’s hard being a parent while on fixed income and I’m disabled as well. Sorry, if this went off subject.

I have had 3 in my life. The first was the boy I fell in love with and never saw again, only to discover he had died in 2013. After having to hide I was gay for most of my life, the second was the only woman I would ever marry. I was with her for 40 years, until her death in 2015.Who is the one person I care about the most? My late wife and I were given full guardianship of our oldest grandson when he was a baby. Our daughter did not know how to raise or deal with a deaf/autistic child, so she gave him to us. We have raised him, his whole life. We are his parents. In 2015, when my wife died, I became a single dad. I did come out as openly gay, but it doesn’t matter. He is more than my grandson, he is my son. When he turns 18 in 2020, I will officially make him my son by adopting him as an adult. (A lot less red-tape.)Someone else may come into my life, but he is who I care about the most. We moved for him to attend the best deaf school in the west in Riverside, CA. Yes, it is a struggle and expensive to live here, and being on fixed income doesn’t help any. He graduates in 2020 and we are moving back to my home state of Missouri, where we can afford to live cheaper. I am legally blind and I am also learning ASL. Whomever comes into my life, they either have to know ASL or be willing to learn it because of my son. My children have grown up and moved on and have their own lives. They have made the choice for me to not be in their lives. My life is my grandson/son.When my late wife was sick, we moved for better healthcare for her. I sometimes put others more ahead of myself, and I many times pay for it with health issues. But it is who I am.