My Story

I was born in Atlanta on February 20th, 1990. I have been born in raised in this great city ever since. A month before my fourth birthday, my mom passed away from brain cancer. The doctors found the tumor three days prior to her death. From then on, it was me and my pops. For as long as I can recall, my dad always had a drink in his hand from about five o'clock on until he went to bed. I never really thought much of it as a smaller child. When it actually started clicking with me that the alcohol was what caused him to do some of the things he did, it still didn't really bother me. As an 8 or 9 year old kid, I really only saw the funny part of him drinking. My dad was usually HILARIOUS when he would drink.
However, when I was about 10 years old, I got my first taste of what the alcohol could really make someone do. I don't remember exactly what I did to provoke him...I doubt I did anything, but in any event, one night my dad came into the den and started yelling at me. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not at first but he kept yelling. I started crying and yelling back at him. I was mostly just yelling "Why are you yelling at me?" He tore into me. He called me every name he could think of. I eventually ran upstairs and locked my door.
From that night on, I never trusted my dad again. As time went on, his rants became more and more frequent. When I was 13, hit me for the first time. Popped me right in the face. That same night He told me he hated me and he wished I was dead. When he told me that he wished I was dead, I walked over to the butcher block in our kitchen to put his words to the test. And there I was at 13 years old, holding the biggest cleaver I could find up to my neck while looking my father right in the eyes. "do you really want me dead? Cause we can take care of that right now," I yelled through tears. My dad just looked at me. He didn't say a word. He just looked at me with a look of indifference on his face. I got what I was looking for, but not what I wanted or expected. I was looking for a reaction out of him. I wasn't expecting the reaction to be complete indifference to whether I lived or died. I was completely alone. I was empty. I can honestly say from that point on I hated my father.
Actually, I can honestly say there wasn't to much that I didn't hate. I hated my abusive drunk father. I hated my family for not knowing what I was going through (even though I never told them...I know, that makes no sense. welcome to the life of a 13 year old) I hated God for putting me in this life. I remember looking for the most hurtful things I could possibly say to my dad when we were arguing just so I could show him how I felt all the time. One comment come to mind: "I wish I was adopted". (keep reading if you wunna know why that one sticks out) I found God that summer. I thought that now that I was a Christian that God would straiten out my problems. BOY WAS I WRONG!
Things were as bad as ever when I was 14 and the crazy violent drunk came out of my dad more times than not at night. I was a handful at school and I finally managed to get into enough fights and pop off to enough teachers that I was thrown out. My (private) school made a deal with me that if I went to military school for 2 semesters, I could come back. I agreed not because i wanted to go back to my school but because i wanted to get the hell out of my dad's house. I went to a school about an hour and a half away from home and came home for the weekend twice from January-April. On April 28th 2005, My uncle showed up at the school one night during dinner with a look on his face that I will never be able to describe as long as I live. I understood why when he told me that my dad had a stroke...and a heart attack...and pneumonia...o yea, and he has lung cancer. The doctors found it all at the same time when he showed up and in the ambulance.
I fell to my knees. literally. I ran as hard as I could and I honestly couldn't tell you where I was going. But somehow I ended up at my uncles car and we began to head home. I arrived at the hospital to find my father a skeleton of his usual self. His speech was all but impossible to understand but I managed to make out most of what he was saying. That night was the first time I heard my father tell me that he loved me. I begged for him to forgive me for everything I said to him and he simply replied, "you did the best you could. I couldn't asked for a better son."
My Dad died 2 days later. I realized that I wasn't as alone as I thought I had been through his death. Why is that, you ask.
Well, other than the 450 kids that showed up to my dad's funeral, one of my teachers had gone to the hospital the night before my dad died and read the Bible to him for 2 hours. My dad was saved 12 hours before he died. Before you continue reading I want you to stop and really think about that...
I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle soon after and got the news that I had been accepted back into my old school a semester early. But there was still one piece of unfinished business that my Aunt and Uncle had to take care of before I began my life with them. On my fathers birthday, 3 weeks after his death, my aunt and uncle informed me that I WAS adopted. No, not by them. I was adopted by my not deceased parents when I was only 20 days old. I didn't know what to say. So I just got up and walked away. After a good amount of tears and even more questions that had no answers, I realized that I was where I was supposed to be and the fact that I was adopted didn't change who my family was. I thank God everyday to be where I am today. That is my story from birth to 15 years old. Ill post the rest later.