I was born on April 16th, 1976.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Rwth366XP
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLy5NkCyIlY
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My dad was a Marine.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ0YF1iY6cS
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYopJ47DMxA
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDxUU6cIjzr
Selling cocaine while in the service.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtVWheKTswx
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWLrlbX2Arp
As if he had been doing that in the first place.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyiFHiZnNLA
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6PpMdY3F0R
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdPzom3R9c4
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.157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNEkWB3G3cK
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...157Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkbc9qYzLzD
He was already climbing it with me.
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