I was born on April 16th, 1976.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ryTzcLWem
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxiuH6ETxT6
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My dad was a Marine.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ZSoF2f2Lv
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4TqjS383u5
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpe4xDl9e4Z
Selling cocaine while in the service.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmdAqM4F3mW
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkFeZB6VM9Q
As if he had been doing that in the first place.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7OrvZllNYc
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6VUobhBKhh
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZSQpeciyiL
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ45UxZDqhfc
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNeaIr6TuYW
He was already climbing it with me.
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