Pure luck has gotten me this far in life. It took years for me to realize that. The fact that my father got to be in my life for 23 years was luck. The youth program (SPES) I got involved in from the fifth grade through high school was a lucky discovery on my part too. Oddly enough, I was even lucky to lose the friends I made during elementary school who are now either in prison, deported, or leading a shady life. Unfortunately, my older brother didn’t get the lucky breaks that I’ve had thus far.
My parents started seeing each other after they met in a laundromat one afternoon by chance. It just so happened that my father was good friends with my mother’s older brother, which means there’s a strong likelihood that they would’ve met each other at another point in time. They were just meant to be, I guess. Although happy for the most part, they had their share of issues throughout my childhood. One of the main reasons they never divorced was because my mother chose to weather the storms since she had already left my older brother’s father years earlier. She didn’t want to be the single mother of two boys with different fathers.
My older brother grew up without his biological father. Actually, he has never even met his dad. My father never got too involved with my brother even though they lived under the same roof. Many times my father required me to do something academic before I could go outside, like writing a response essay to an editorial or doing some math problems. My brother didn’t have to do that. I never thought anything of this dynamic until my brother vented to me one day while I was visiting him behind bars...
I attended St. Matthew’s School in Dorchester for three years (3rd through 5th grade). At St. Matthew's, I learned about SPES, which was an after-school enrichment program for inner-city boys. The Program Director (Riccobono) and Founder (Haferd) have been equally instrumental in my development as a man since I met them twenty years ago. In addition to the positive influence of my father, I was lucky to have those two additional male role models in my life. Through SPES, I alsoo learned how to play the trombone and traveled throughout the country to play in concerts.
Shortly after I joined the program, my parents took me out of St. Matthew’s because of the long commute from Brighton. If I had left prior to the fifth grade, which was a strong possibility because of my parents' concern about having me ride the train alone for forty five minutes everyday, I would have never met Riccobono or Haferd. It's very likely that I wouldn't have ever played the trombone either...
Twenty years later, Riccobono and I are still friends. I still consider him to be a mentor. I met many other adults in that program, like Haferd, who helped shape me into the person that I’ve become. My older brother attended St. Matthew’s before I did, but he left the school before SPES was launched. By the time I joined at 10 years old, he was already 14 and doing his own thing. While I was at band camp in Vermont with SPES, my brother was spending summers in Providence with his cousins on my mother’s side of the family. The cousins he was closest with have all been to jail at least once...
Shortly after I joined the program, my parents took me out of St. Matthew’s because of the long commute from Brighton. If I had left prior to the fifth grade, which was a strong possibility because of my parents' concern about having me ride the train alone for forty five minutes everyday, I would have never met Riccobono or Haferd. It's very likely that I wouldn't have ever played the trombone either...
Twenty years later, Riccobono and I are still friends. I still consider him to be a mentor. I met many other adults in that program, like Haferd, who helped shape me into the person that I’ve become. My older brother attended St. Matthew’s before I did, but he left the school before SPES was launched. By the time I joined at 10 years old, he was already 14 and doing his own thing. While I was at band camp in Vermont with SPES, my brother was spending summers in Providence with his cousins on my mother’s side of the family. The cousins he was closest with have all been to jail at least once...
Jude was my best friend in the second grade. He was four years older than me when we met on the school bus. I noticed he didn’t have any friends so I gravitated to him. Eventually, he became my “brother from another mother.” If we weren’t hoopin' in my backyard, I was at his place playing Sega. We became so tight that even our fathers became close friends. Jude and I were best friends until I moved from the neighborhood.
Years later when Jude moved closer to me, I was in my pre-teen phase and he had gotten mixed up in a different crowd. In some ways, we had grown apart. I had a new group of friends. He and my brother started hanging out. Before Jude got deported back to Haiti following a conviction, he was literally pimping a woman and doing other petty crimes.
Luck has defined my life so far. I’ve been spared a very different life because of the shear timing of when my family moved from one neighborhood to the next. My brother, who grew up in the same household as I did, has been incredibly unlucky. His life has followed an entirely different course as a result. Today, I’m a coach, admissions counselor, teacher, and mentor. My brother is an ex-convict.
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