I was born on April 16th, 1976.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkgTxzYfwdi
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.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeu0eUg4A3f
72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsyUWyFQWa
My dad was a Marine.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7XaRenc9Ap
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZyxz1Ci6sp
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSD5FGFePB
Selling cocaine while in the service.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0PwCc2dkz1
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.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZlSrO9n87
As if he had been doing that in the first place.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0GnSUxltbx
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2EvuktXSxX
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.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1kyer8mq1f
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.72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGlhNbK7OEP
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...72Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7NeCkilVu3
He was already climbing it with me.
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