When you are young life doesn’t seem so complicated and relationships are as simple as family, friends, and everyone else. This is an easy social trap to fall into as you grow up. What we all fail to see is the gray area between God and the Devil that we all fall into, and the fact people are not so simply grouped. We have all seen people lie, steal, and cheat and we all feel like first interpretation of them is totally off. The simple result of one action does not reflect who we are as a person. The unfortunate truth thing is that people are not inherently good or bad, we all do things that we are proud of and we all do things that our parents will shake their heads in disappointment. The pride we feel is directly in proportion to the values that our parents instill in us. The common ground in the great debate of nature versus nurture is that it all starts with your parents. Who we stand as a person is in direct correlation with how our parents raised us. We are what our parents designate us to be. This is where my gray are begins.
At the tender age of seven, on a snowy day in January, I came home from a day at school to find a full congregation of my family from as far Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to down the road in my home town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. I was told that early that morning after I had gone off to school my mother had passed away from a heart attack. I was told that it was an opportunity for the family to grow closer together. My father moved from his partnership at a successful law firm in Faneuil Hall to a closer firm in nearby Milton. My sister had decided to quit ballet, a passion of hers for close to ten years as it reminded her too deeply of our mother. My brother immersed himself in sports such as Baseball, Basketball, and Football. I however did not take such a productive route in my grieving. Dealing with minor abandonment issues I fell into a state of faineance with school work and distanced myself from social events. These problems were evident in my grades, however not detrimental to my education. I was receiving poor grades due poor work ethic, but was an active participant in class and did not struggle to grasp concepts and ideas that were being taught. This balancing act continued until late winter of seventh grade where I awoke to find my father had passed away early on a Saturday morning. With the same old story happening all over again I compounded my fear of success by falling deeper into an apathetic state. While my sister continued her sophomore year at Boston College, my brother and me moved across town to Aunt Maureen and Uncle Phil to continue our education Wellesley despite the fact that my legal guardian was in Pittsburgh. The pairing of my Uncle Phil and me did not synergize as had hoped and the semiannual calls to Pittsburgh only seemed to come as news pertinent enough to warrant the communication. These factors resulted in my stay with my uncle feel more like a jail sentence with the arbitrary calls feeling more like calls from a probation officer. Our relationship deteriorated so vastly that I was one night sent out on foot to find another place to spend the night. These lead to my feelings toward family to continually diminish.
To enter my freshman year of high school it was decided by heavy protest from Aunt Barb and Uncle Buzzy that I shall move across the state to East Longmeadow to start anew once again. This was a much more conducive environment for my success as a growing individual, but I couldn’t shake old habits in the classroom. I did however continue my escapade into the world of sports by joining the freshman football team and later the basketball team. This was my true introduction to an organized team and the idea of family. My preconceived notion of family pertaining to sports teams was simply a way for movie directors to attach the audience to a credible idea that everyone can relate too. However as I progressed through the days I was indoctrinated to what a family was, what a teammate will do to help a fellow brother, we are all trying to help each other with no other expectation or goal other than to become better. Sport became a therapeutic escape to my problems. I could never cheat my teammates on a play or at a practice. My reeducation of faith and trust had grown so much through that I had found love in the game much deeper than the normal superficial pride of wearing a team jersey or scoring the game winning score. My love for basketball has motivated me to pursue a career in coaching so I can spread the faith that I learned to people that need as much as I did.