I was born on April 16th, 1976.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEecxNVjf70
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.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT735CdcYXI
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My dad was a Marine.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnGKBLo43a9
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf4btPJFoVz
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIFKI3DVzjd
Selling cocaine while in the service.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiV33nsTmZu
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.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1PUpxKnVoB
As if he had been doing that in the first place.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQCNw8hRlSd
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLNP4l0oe9u
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.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyHoTIs376S
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.109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzkhUL8P8bp
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...109Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWJKmIQEMqr
He was already climbing it with me.
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