I was born on April 16th, 1976.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGmvE85GZ5h
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.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Uc4c5XOzi
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My dad was a Marine.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfXO2yvkop0
And that meant he was gone a lot—months at a time. Long stretches where I wouldn’t see him at all.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk6PiWPHKzB
Duty first. Country first. Me... somewhere down the list.
Later that same year, he got arrested.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKyEOEygUY0
Selling cocaine while in the service.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsYgGK6ntp6
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.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcsXj4Ckg5M
As if he had been doing that in the first place.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcSnrwMc8GF
It didn’t work.
While all that was happening, I was stuck. Literally.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPosZDphrCC
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.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmWQ34nd7hg
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.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ7JlIRbiVb
And the truth is: from the very start, life was uphill.
But God...110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivt1kkBWGh
He was already climbing it with me.
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and then Add to home screen.