All the shock and confusion that I’ve felt my whole life could not possibly compare to the confusion I felt when I pulled out a small piece of paper from under my pillow with the word “Dad” written upon it. The confusion grew more when I noticed the youngest of my four brothers come into my bedroom and announce that he had left me a note under my pillow. The implication of the note was staggering. Ever since the accident with my step-father that left him more like a child than a father, I’ve felt that I’ve become more like a father to my brothers than an older brother, but never to this extent. Could my brother have placed the note under my pillow to indicate that this was where daddy slept? Had they been playing a game and I was simply named daddy? Am I their father to them? Am I the one they call dad? My whole life I’ve felt like I grew up without a father, without someone to show me how life worked and how to make it work for you. Being alone like that made me withdraw into my own mind and be more quiet towards new people and make it harder for me to trust even the ones I knew. Growing up without a father figure left me introverted and isolated in my room even to this day. I watch my best friend talk with his father and I wonder what that’s like, to have someone like that in your life. Watching them and knowing I don’t have that makes me wonder if I’m going to grow up and be a good father. But being around my brothers proves that I will, I’ve watched them grow and I’ve changed their diapers and been there when they’ve lost their first tooth. I try to be more than a big brother to them, I try to teach them how life works. I want to teach them everything they need to know.

I want to take what I do for my brothers and I want to turn that into what I do for everyone. I believe that the hardest time for a person is high school. Between the opposite sex, drugs, money, gangs, and “who’s got the better car?” it’s the most stressful time of your life. But I also believe it’s the most critical point to make a difference, to take their life and help them turn it around. And not just in the classroom, but also on the football field. To be a football coach is one of my dreams, one of my passions. I want to show kids, that life is just like football. That you should always go into it with your shoulder down and your head up, to put your strong foot forward and look for the hole, and when you go through, you pull your teammate right in with you and you both run for that end zone. I believe I have the talent to stand in front of a class room and teach kids the history of our country and then help them learn how to make their own history. I think outside to box; to take what people have taught me and go a different way than the norm, to go different paths than everyone else but still reach the same destination but with more ease and possibly quicker. That is a skill that you teach your self, but I believe that I can help teenagers understand that they have the potential to think outside the norm and become more than what everyone perceives them to be.

That is what I try to do for my brothers, to help them succeed where they believe they have failed. To show them that just because you don’t do things they way everyone else does, doesn’t mean your wrong, but maybe everyone else is wrong and you’re the one that’s right. I want to teach them that in life you go into the world with your shoulder down and your head up. And you look for that hole that’s going to bring you to the end zone. I know how to get through life with only your thoughts to keep you company. To get around problems by not pushing through the wall, but instead to look to the side and see the path around. My brothers show me I can do good in life and that’s what I want to do for others. As the American philosopher, Tyron Edwards, once said, “If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.”