I was born on April 16th, 1976.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5UJenCChpj
That much I know for sure.
The rest? The early years? That’s mostly secondhand. Stories passed down from family who lived it while I was still too young to understand. What I do know is this: when I was three years old, everything changed.
That was the year my parents found out I was visually impaired.
My mother—bless her—struggled with that. She didn’t think she had what it took to raise a blind child. Maybe it scared her. Maybe it overwhelmed her. I don’t hold it against her.
She and my father split up not long after. And from then on, I lived with my dad.
It’s strange to think about it now—how the course of a person’s life can bend before they even know how to spell their name. But even then, even in that moment I don’t remember... God was already writing my story.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLsE65UnpK
174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKPc9lDbaQk
My dad was a Marine.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTXgP0j3hHI
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEayDYLkUVj
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9D2Hi39aUg
Selling cocaine while in the service.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtpQaMEbGWc
Yeah. That happened.
He tried to use me as his get-out-of-jail-free card—told the courts he couldn’t go to prison because he had a blind son to take care of.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYdpDjBRnU2
As if he had been doing that in the first place.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Gzev3wwJA
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0FpdDE4Il5
Stuck in a playpen, day after day. The people he left me with weren’t real caregivers. Not nannies. Not relatives. Just folks meant to watch me while he was gone.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4t1TSnyuS0
But they didn’t raise me. They parked me.
I didn’t even walk until I was four.
That’s not the kind of thing most people admit out loud. But I’m not writing this to impress anyone. I’m writing this because it’s true.174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZbA07Uo8v0
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxlaAsUYTmR
He was already climbing it with me.
174Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR1VIWg3lB6
