I did not know it to be a lesson at the time, but my first one was selflessness. I was around three when my mother and father divorced. My brothers, mother and I had nowhere to go, so we had to move in with my grandparents. My mother always seemed very sad. One night I woke up it was very cold, and dark. She was crying and I got out of bed to see what the matter was. When I walked into her room she was looking into the mirror brushing her dark brown hair, with tears running down her face. I asked her what was wrong. She said nothing and I went over and crawled onto her lap, gave her a hug, and told her everything would be alright. I was only worried about her and how I could help. It was a very long time before I could care for anyone like that again.
When my father left, I stopped believing in people. I blamed myself for a long time, and it really took its toll on me. I took the hatred I had for my father with me everywhere I went and took it out on everyone I could. I believed if I hurt, you should too. Fredrick Douglass recalls how at one time he felt about his life: “I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it.” At certain times I could not think of anything better than not being me, but I could not get away from myself.
At a young age I started to be defiant, and never did what I was told. I always did what I wanted to do no matter the consequences I smoked my first cigarette at six, and I drank alcohol and smoked weed at seven. I started to steal at a young age also. One hot summer day in Jackson, Mississippi, I decided to steal two cartons of cigarettes from Piggly Wiggly. I walked in like I owned the joint. I walked over to the cigarettes and put them up my pants legs. Back then the smokes were out in the open and we always smoked for free. Before I could get out of the store, I was arrested and taken to jail. My mom had to come get me. I went to court later that summer and I was sentenced to a state boys’ home at the age of thirteen.
The boys’ home was intimidating, the other boys were much older and all we did was fight. The food was bad; the staff treated us like we were animals. It was a prison for children, a very scary place for a little thirteen year old boy. My heart grew even colder, and my hatred for everyone and everything grew stronger. When I finally got out, six months later, I was sent to live with my aunt. She tried to do her best to help me. I went on doing what I did best drinking, smoking, drugs, and doing whatever I wanted.
I made it through seventh, eighth, and half of ninth grade. One night in Waco, Texas, I went to a party about midway through my ninth grade year we were all drinking and getting high and my friends pulled out a gun and started to play around with it. I left and the next morning my aunt woke me up with the newspaper my best friend was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Things really got bad after this. I helped carry his coffin to his final resting place. What a sad day, one of the hardest days of my life. I never wanted to care for anyone ever again. I started to use drugs and alcohol to kill the pain, but it did not work. Things got worse, never better. I had been in trouble a lot because of drugs and alcohol but none of that mattered, only drinking and drugging were on my agenda.
Years later I was driving intoxicated and wrecked my car. I hit a van doing about seventy miles an hour. I was in a black out, all I remember is waking up in the hospital with a tube in my lungs and machine breathing for me. I had been in a coma for three days. Things like this happened on and off all of my life but I never thought I had a problem. I knew deep down that if I did not find a better way to live I would be dead before my time. I was a slave to drugs and alcohol. Fredrick Douglass reflects on how he saw his life if he were not to be a free man. “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but the hope of being free, I have no doubt that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I would have been killed.” My life had gotten so bad that at times I felt the same way. My life had no purpose and death would have been a blessing.
I met a man in 2003. I was in a treatment center outside smoking. It was a cold November day in Saint Louis. I wanted to stop drinking and using drugs and did not know how. He was there to pick up a friend and take him to a meeting. His friend was not there. He asked me how I was doing and I said fine; what a lie. I needed a drink so bad I could taste it. He said that he was going to a meeting, did I want to come along. I thought to myself, what he wanted. We talked for a little while and I said sure. We went to a place where everyone seemed to be happy, shaking hands, talking, laughing and just looking like they were having the time of their life. The meeting started and everything I heard had something to do with my life. It was a smoke filled room and the aroma of coffee filled the room. These people seemed to have found a way to live without drugs and alcohol. I did not want to listen to these men and women share, but it sounded like it was just what I needed. Fredrick Douglass recalls a situation where he was fearful of what the white man told him. “I pretended not to be interested in what they said, and treated them as if I did not understand them; for I feared they are treacherous.” When I was approached by people who were trying to show me a better way to live, I was also reluctant to listen.
I know today it is not all about me and what I can get out of life; it’s what I can give and put into life. I am no longer selfish. I help others, the same way I was helped. People took time out of their lives to show me how to live and today I do the same for the next person. My life is amazing today. I have everything I need and more. Most of all I have me back. Today I can be that three year old boy again, caring, loving, accepting, and selfless. I am a much better person because of this. I only get out of life what I put in it today. Looking back I put nothing into life all I did was take. I had to go through everything I went through to be the man I am today. My experience can help others not do the same. This is a great way of life. To give is better to receive. Fredrick Douglass was a great man; I’m just a man trying to stay grateful. Learning about yourself is very painful and is the only way most of us will grow. Helping others is the only way to go and it will definitely help you grow.
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