My mother has always been my strength, my teacher, and at times, my weakness. She had me when she was only seventeen. Just a few months after I was born, the man who was my father was murdered in a robbery. My mother was a very strong woman and put up with a lot of hardships that come to single parent mothers who have dropped out of school. Finding a man who would take care of her, her child and the other children that came later was not an easy thing to do. In all, there were three other men she fell in love with, and with each of them she had a child. Me and my brother and sisters went through a lot in those years. My mother got into drugs, we never had any money, and each of my “stepdads” was worse than the one before.

And it just kept getting worse. My mother’s last boyfriend, the one who is my brother Eduardo’s father, was incredibly abusive. The last time I saw Eduardo’s father was the last time he beat my mom. He’d gotten really doped up the night before and when he came knocking at our door he was hysterical. He broke into our little apartment through one of the windows and chased us all out of the house. When we were outside, he took the very same baseball bat that my mother had intended to use to defend herself and her children, and he used it to beat her to a bloody pulp. He was sent to jail, and I haven’t heard from him or seen him since. But as I watched my mom lying on the ground bleeding, not able to do anything at the time (I was 12), I prayed that I would see him some day when I could stick up for myself, my mother, and my brothers and sister.

I had a choice to make at that point. I could either use what I had learned from all the bad choices my mother and stepfathers had made – and use drugs and violence to escape from the world – or I could try to become what my mother always dreamed I’d become: a high school graduate.

It wasn’t an easy choice, and I didn’t have much help from my mother in making it. After years of abuse and drug use she was unstable, and ended up going in and out of hospitals since I was a freshman in high school. My brother and sisters have been taken away by the state, and we’ve had no income to speak of. But I decided I didn’t want to follow the path my stepfathers had made all too clear to me. Instead, I moved into a group home for boys, and concentrated on school, and I became involved in the football team. Since my first football game ever during my freshman year, I became an essential part of the varsity football team. This year I was one of the captains on my team and had a successful career in the sport thanks to my persistence and determination that I credit to my mother, my coaches and my own efforts. I have also landed a major role in the school play and I’m a power-lifter and hope to break two state records in my weight class this year.

I have come a long way, but now it is time for me to make the necessary transition to becoming a man. My grades have not been as good as they could have been – but I know that graduating from high school and getting into college would be the best route for me to take. I know I can do it, and I’m working to get those grades up. The horrible effects that drugs and alcohol had on my family have led me to make the choice not to drink, smoke, or use any drugs whatsoever. I have come to realize that I don’t stand a chance if I don’t try, and I have come too far to let it all slip away.