Often in life we find that our actions or decisions are based on the guidance or opinions of certain people in our lives. This can either be a detriment to us or it can turn out to be the reason why we succeed. Just like in The Power of One it can take just one person to make a difference in the life of many. One rain drop raises the ocean. In my life I have had many people along the way who have helped in one way or another. There is one who has had a profound mark on my life.
I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. When I first started high school I had the same goals and dreams that everyone else has: graduate, go to college, have the perfect job, perfect family. I accomplished the first one no problem but somewhere along the way I lost myself in the world and in things that I knew nothing about. I always believed myself to be different from anyone else, if I came up against drugs or anything of that nature I could say no. I would be able to stand up against something that so many others have not been able to. I was wrong. And so began my downward spiral into a world that now looking back I believe should not exist. I was 18 when I got addicted to oxy cotton. There were many people in my life that at the time I thought to be great friends and to be good people for me to have in my life. I was wrong, again. In the summer of 2007 I was handed the single rope that has proven to have pulled me out of where I was. I became pregnant with my son. The knowledge that I was responsible for another person, one who could not fend for its self, could not make its own decisions snapped me out of my false sense of reality. It made me open my eyes and see the world differently; I saw people differently.
Nicholas Alan Cleaver was born on April 21, 2008. At eight weeks early he was healthy and he was born to a clean and sober mother. I have never looked back. I am not a religious person and I don’t credit a lot of things so much to a higher power as I do to the reality of the world and how we are all interconnected. However be it god or be it the natural order of things I was given the single greatest gift that I could have been given. I was given a choice. My son gave me an escape that I might have not found on my own.
The last two years have been hard and have been a journey that most people don’t and will never understand. Every decision that I make every direction that I turn is all based on my son. This is the single reason that I am sitting here in this class today. This is the single reason that this last year I was able to find the person who I hope to spend the rest of my life with. In the last year I have decided to pay it forward. I have turned around and done for others what my son did for me. I want people to be able to really live. I want them to live without addiction and I want them to not be ashamed of what they have been through. In the end I want them to be proud that they came out on top. The best part about my son being the single most influential person in my life is that I am guaranteed that he’s going to stick around, at least for another 16 years.
I think that for people who have been blessed to have a person in their life that has pulled them through the hard times and brought them out on top, it’s time to do the same. In The Power of One the people who influenced PK’s life would have meant nothing had he not gone and made that difference to someone else. We all need someone, and there will always be someone who may need us.
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