I was born on April 16th, 1976.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZGiNXyAjIb
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.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfn1517qI0Z
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My dad was a Marine.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNyoPx8U4kK
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwiiasHrHcj
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxRR06RRvr2
Selling cocaine while in the service.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH5Mkc39zaa
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.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOBAgwTdYo7
As if he had been doing that in the first place.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsKoI6IZm0h
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2lNR8oNpoN
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.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQfsDYOBQ0t
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.167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBuvknYVpUr
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...167Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVFGoQ2Kg8t
He was already climbing it with me.
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