Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  Being a parent involves one of life’s greatest joys; it also involves sacrifice. Being a single parent means you do what you have to do by yourself, no partner to share either the joy or the sacrifice.

Will Nicholson, a Nederland resident, has spent the last few years gaining custody of his three children and raising them by himself. He says probably the hardest part of being a single dad is sacrificing his pride. Fathers like to know they can take on the challenge of caring for their children, but they also have to learn how to accept help when needed and offered. They learn how to accept support for the sake of their kids.

Will and his children Skyler, 9, Michael, 8, and Ziylah, 6, are often seen walking around town; the kids carrying their skateboards, Will strumming his guitar and all of them sending out exuberant vibes. The kids skip rather than walk and they carry on energetic conversations with their dad. Every now and then they take turns hugging each other and he tells them he loves them so much.

They present themselves as a family.

On Sunday, Father’s Day, Ziylah will give Will a card she made for him, a card that she already gave him when she left Wild Bear on Monday afternoon. She presented the red heart to him as if she was handing over a red Mustang convertible and he thanked her with a hard-squeeze hug. Will and the kids then picnicked at Chipeta Park. They were allowed a rare soda and then played with friends as Will talked about his life, and fatherdom.

His childhood was a life determined by the military, moving from Germany, Korea, Hawaii and everywhere in between. His dad was a soldier, part of an elite Army force, and his mother spent 23 years in the Air Force. The family moved every few years, and most of the time they were a minority in the places they lived. “My father was a racist and I have never had that attitude, never.”

Will attended three high schools. One of the places he lived was in Tomah, Wisconsin where he spent his teen years, being a nerd, playing in the chess club. He was also a member of the 1988 state champion hockey team, but he said it was more an attempt to fit in somewhere because he wasn’t very good at the sport. He spent the most time abroad in Germany.

“I was always fresh meat in a new place. Other countries treated us the worst and I became angry and depressed and grew up real quick.”

After earning a GED while living in Hawaii, Will returned to Wisconsin where he joined the army during Operation Desert Shield. He says it was his turn, every generation of his family had fought in a war.

“But basically, I was a young punk skater. Then I was given a guitar and found I had a passion, so I taught myself how to play. I had to play for the whole company before they allowed me to keep my guitar in the army.”

After three years, Will left the service, becoming a father at age 19. He says he was scared and ended up running. Years later his daughter looked him up, saying he was a grandfather.

“I wish I had fought harder for her. Raising these three children has made me realize how precious one’s kids are.”

After leaving the service in 1994, Will worked in a jewelry store in Panama City, earning a good salary. In 2000, he found an article in Time/Life Magazine, advertising Boulder as being the Number one place in the green and clean category to live. The landscape pictures ‘blew my mind,’ and he quit his job and hopped on a Greyhound bus, thinking it would be like in the movies. You get off the bus and walk into beautiful woods. He was now 27 years old and discovered that Boulder was not what he expected. He put his 120 pounds of gear in a wagon and took a cab to the end of town, asking the driver to take him to where the beauty was. He was told to go to Nederland, so he started walking up the canyon.

It took two days of going up, searching for the woods. Away from the cars.

“I was Joe Dirt searching for the postcard town.” He found what he was looking for. He could play his guitar, and no one threw anything at him. The cops didn’t bother him. He hiked toward Eldora and camped out on top of a ridge for two weeks. And then it started raining. He moved on to Ruby Gulch.

One night, he found a group of kids throwing beer cans around their campsite and when he told them to pick up the cans, that the ground was sacred, they jumped him and “tried to cut his throat with a shovel.”

“I should have been humble, but being trained as a martial arts fighter, I became a vigilante and tried to fight off eight people.”

A friend drove him to the Nederland Community Center parking lot where a Flight for Life picked him up after the Nederland Fire Protection District had brought him back to life three times. He says that Ken Robinson, the NPD chief at the time, had told the NFPD to keep working on him. Will woke up in the ICU not remembering much of anything.

When he was healed enough, he came back to Nederland and met the woman who became the mother of his children. At the time, he was running a crew for a local construction company. When Ziylah was two years old, her mom chose another style of life and took the kids out of state.

“That crushed me. I didn’t know where they went. I had to try to understand that. After 56 days, I did understand that I was terrible at being a drunk. At one point a friend told me ‘You are a warrior, now fight for your kids.’”

It was a long battle, involving lawyers, paperwork, judges, haircuts, jumping through hoops and wearing suits, but Will did it. He did everything right. On Father’s Day of 2015, he and his children returned to Colorado on the Amtrak, beginning his new life as a single father trying to make it in Nederland.

“We lived in a tipi. I wasn’t sure how to get through this and then a friend and the Presbyterian Church helped when no one else cared. My friend showed me how to do stuff, how to find help. I learned a lot.”

Will took his military training as a tool to help him keep his kids safe. “Fall in line behind me, stay as a unit. No projectile throwing without earning the right.”

Skyler was born with a club foot and underwent three operations that left him with serious scar tissue, his treatments had been neglected while he was away, which left him having to walk on his ankle. After applying for and receiving the medical support that Skyler needed, Will says the ankle will be fixed with a series of casts and Achille’s Heel stretching, but it will be a long process.

A single dad caring for his temporarily disabled son presents multiple challenges, not the least of which is that the house the family is living in has been sold and they will have to return to residing in a tipi.

“They may be growing up poor and without material possessions, but I have given them what they need: They are well-fed, clean, smart, they show up at school and they are eager to learn. I got this.”

Skyler has an amazing ability to reason, to figure out and understand what is going on his life: Mikey is the athlete, the strong boy and Ziylah has an amazing spirit, a drive to help others that is amazing.

Over the summer the kids are in summer enrichment programs and Wild Bear camp while Will has a construction job. He says Boulder County is helping him with what needs to be done, as well as local churches and social services. His efforts right now are focused on housing. He needs an affordable place in or near Nederland.

“In the beginning pride wouldn’t let me accept this help, now social services is helping me. I had to learn a lot and had to shove my pride aside and we are going to survive.”