Family Feud

Me and my mother haven’t had a good relationship my entire life. I found out she was incarcerated when I was five. I got mad that she lied to me and didn’t tell me she was in jail. During my birth, my mother had drugs in her system so when she had me she couldn’t take me out the hospital. Instead, my great grandmother came to the hospital and took me in. My mother always says her plan was never to leave me with my grandmother, but it doesn’t matter what you say, it matters what you do. My mother never came back for me, neither did my father. My great grandmother and my grandfather raised me. When I was younger I didn’t pay much attention to my mother not being around because my great grandmother raised me so well that it didn’t bother me if she was here. She raised me in unconditional love and help make me a good person. My grandfather showed me how to be a man and how to persevere through adversity. When my grandparents died, I started to feel the effects of being abandoned by my mother and father. Now let me make this clear, if I could go back in time and pick my parents, I wouldn’t change them. The time I spent with my grandparents was priceless, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. You can’t receive without giving. For me to have had the life I had with my grandparents, I had to go through the pain of not being raised by my parents. When I was younger, I was so hard on my mother. I would remind her that she didn’t raise me, left me and didn’t raise any of her children either. My mother would always say I was mean and I didn’t do for her when she asked. Her perspective was that because she didn’t have an abortion I should respect and appreciate her. I don’t think my mother understands what it requires to raise a child. I don’t think she understands the amount of unconditional love and support a child needs. I don’t think she understands how it hurts when you go your entire life without your mother nor your father being in your life. I have tried on numerous occasions to build and maintain a relationship with my mother and it doesn’t work. We can never get on the same page. When I was younger I wanted my mother to buy me gifts and just show me that she loved me. I wanted her to motivate me and let me know she believed in me. I wanted to know that she would be in my corner no matter what. But my mother never made me feel that way. As an adult I let go of all the should and would. I started to understand the effects of alcohol and drug abuse. I started to understand how easy it was for a person of color to get in trouble and ruin their life in the era that my mother grew up in. If my mother would have raised me, she would have ruined my life. She wasn’t equipped with the tools needed to raise a child. She wanted to live her life and she didn’t have time to be a parent.

As an adult, my grandparents have passed away and they left me with all the tools needed for me to succeed at anything my heart desires. I finally met my biological father this summer. He is 83 years old and he has 7 kids. My father was an orphan and he carries a lot of pain with him. I asked him why he never came back for me and he told me that my grandparents wouldn’t let him take me so he just stop coming around. Where I come from, it is predicted that the average young man of color will either die or go to jail before he is 21. In my community, a healthy family structure have been destroyed. Poverty is passed on as an inheritance. In my community, young people kill themselves over drug wars and blocks that don’t belong to them in the first place. It is normal for a child to grow up in a broken family structure. Although I have dealt with adversity my whole life, I never let it get the best of me and stop me from being my best self. I have accomplished all the goals I created in my life. I didn’t become a statistic. I didn’t become a parent at an early age. I graduated from college with honors and I have given back to my community for over 15 years by working at after school programs and being an assistant HS basketball coach. I used all the pain that I’ve been through as inspiration to always inspire and uplift people with unconditional love. I never let the things I’ve been through make me a victim. I’ve always used adversity as a stepping tool to evolve.

The best thing about my youth was having my grandparents in my life. They loved me unconditionally and always pushed me outside of my comfort zone, in hopes that I would evolve into my best self. They did a hell of a job and I will always appreciate what they did for me. At 32, both my great grandmother and my grandfather are in heaven. Both my biological parents are alive but we can never seem to get on the same page. I’ve been blessed to grow into a well-rounded man that believes in himself and knows his purpose on this planet. Although I have overcame all the adversity life has thrown my way, it still affects me in a way. The fact that my mother and father abandoned me, and never came back for me, still bothers me to this day. I have forgiven both my parents for not raising me. What still bothers me is their lack of effort. It bothers me that my mother told me that she didn’t believe in my company, KoolforLife. She doesn’t show any interest in my life and she doesn’t support me at all. She says things like I should have kids, so she could be the best grandmother in the world. It’s very hard for me to believe that based on her track record with her own four kids. All of my siblings were raised by our grandparents. I have made my fair share of mistakes in my life and we all have. The goal is to learn from those mistakes and not repeat those mistakes in another time in your life. When a person makes the same mistake repeatedly it shows two things. Either your insane or you’re not learning from your mistakes which means you’re not growing. That’s what I can’t accept from my parents. I can’t accept that lack of growth. My mother and father have showed me, on many occasions, that I’m not a priority in their lives. Both my parents have failed to consistently support me throughout my 32 years of living. I have opened myself up on numerous occasions to build a relationship with my mother and I have failed. In a perfect world, I would have a mother and father that loved and respected each other. In my perfect world, they would be married and would be my example of a strong relationship. My parents would both have amazing careers, they would own property and both would have 800 credit scores. In my perfect world, my parents would love me unconditionally. They would support and help me cultivate my dreams. In this alternate reality, I would know that, as long as, my parents were alive, I would always have them in a corner. It wouldn’t matter if I was successful or not, they would love me regardless. The funny thing about this alternate reality is one day when I have children, I will be the parent that I wish I always had. I will raise my child through unconditional love and make sure I provide them with the tools and resources to bring all their dreams to life. I will be one of the best parents this world has ever seen. The reason why is because of my grandparents, I knew what unconditional love looked and felt like. My parents taught me what not to be. My parents served their purpose in my life, they got me here and for that. I appreciate them and love them as well. The pain that they provided made me stronger. At 32, I have overcome every obstacle thrown my way. Through all the pain and joy, every time I fall, the universe allows me to rise up as a better individual every time. Maybe I wouldn’t want to be such a good parent if I would have never gone through what I’ve been through. I am what I am because of both sides of my quarter. The good, the bad and everything in between has made me the person that I am today.

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