In my life, there have been many ups and downs, but there always have been two consistent things that have been guiding me and supporting me-football and my mom.

I asked Mr. Young for help with deciding a topic to write about, we came to a conclusion on two topics. However, I couldn’t decide between the two of them because they have both impacted my life in important ways, so I decided to talk about both.

 I’m going to get a little personal, and I hope that’s okay. I was born in Massachusetts, and by the age of two, my biological father had abandoned me and my mother. He was a good man turned heroin addict. My mom became a single parent and didn’t make enough money to support us. She needed help, and that’s when my step-father came into our lives. He was a man with many issues. He was an alcoholic, and when he was drunk he would become mean and verbally abuse my mother and me. However, being a young boy, I didn’t really know the extent of his cruelty, and I always wanted to find a way to impress him and be on his good side.

His favorite sport was football, so I asked him to sign me up because I wanted to make him proud of me. What started out as an attempt to make someone proud of me, slowly turned into a love for an amazing game. Year after year I kept playing, and I kept getting better and better. Then one day my mom, step-father, and I moved to Maine. My mom wanted to get out of the city because she thought it was dangerous for me to go to high school there and my grandma was showing signs of dementia and needed someone to take care of her. So we moved, and my step-dad became crazier. He stopped working and started fighting with us more, until one day my mother and I got so scared that we finally had to kick him out.

So yeah, my freshman year of high school I’d just lost my second dad and the only thing I had to turn to was football. I was lucky enough to be on freshman varsity, and it gave me a distraction that I needed. I was able to just be a kid and hang out with my friends. This is when I learned an important lesson; the people who support you are the ones you should consider family, not the ones who tear you down. My mom always put me first, and went through years of torture just to give me a somewhat normal childhood. I have nothing but appreciation and admiration for her. She was also always willing to give me a shoulder to cry on and just listen to me. Also, my football coaches were always the father figures I needed, they helped me with homework and were always willing to talk to me and listen when I needed support.

So if you could take one thing away from this, please let it be to be grateful for the ones who love and support you.