Life changing stories

Story #1

It was the summer of 1993, I was eight years old and me and my brother were on summer break. Growing up in New York City was very different from any other place I have ever been to in my life, it was always an adventure when you started to explore the streets of the Bronx. I remember that year me and my brother loved to play arcades like Street Fighter and Pac-man, we did grow up in a household where there was never too much money coming in. Let’s just say that arcade money was definitely not on the top of the list of things to pay for, so my brother and I had to come up with a plan on how to get our video game fix.

My brother and I had made a plan to try and get money without having to ask for it, so we found ourselves a shopping cart at the local super market and decided to “borrow” it for a little while. We used this shopping cart to go around to every trash can and picked up empty bottles and soda cans so that we could recycle them and get 5 cents per item. We had thought we struck it rich and went all over our neighborhood that day.

 We kept this up for a while until our mother found out what we were up to, she was pretty upset that we were out collecting cans but at the same time she knew that we were finding out the value of a dollar. That summer I realized that hard work and dedication to get what you want in life can go a long way, this mentality is still what is driving me to this day to continue working hard.  

 

Story #2   

                It was the winter of 2007, I was twenty four years old and my Wife and I were so excited that we were going to have our first child together. My wife was about two months pregnant, we had everything already picked out for the baby’s room and I had even purchased the complete set of the “My Baby Can Read” book and video set. I was looking forward to being a father and teaching my future child everything I know. Things were looking good until one night when my Wife started bleeding very heavily, we were worried that something might be wrong with our future child.

 We immediately rushed to the hospital to have her seen by the doctor, it was a very tense feeling just having to sit and wait in the waiting room not knowing what could be wrong. Eventually the doctor did many test and sat us down to let us know that my Wife had just had a miscarriage. We were both so depressed, it was the most quiet car ride home that we had ever had. The doctor had given my Wife some medication to assist with the miscarriage, she did not feel like taking the medication at that moment and we just sat on the couch feeling very depressed.

As I was about to tell my wife that everything would be ok and that we could always try again her phone rang. Even though she did not feel like talking, for some reason she decided to answer the phone call. The doctor’s office called us with some amazing news, the doctor had said that they misread the test results and that our baby was still alive and healthy. We were so happy, we could not believe that our baby was still doing well.

Five years later I find myself just staring at my son running around and being a strong, intelligent and funny kid, his pre-school teacher calls him the class clown. I think my son is amazing and if my wife would have taken that medication, who knows what would have happened. We are so lucky, since that day I have learned to never give up and keep fighting and looking to exhaust every option possible. I know I will tell my son this story one day and he will also know to never give up in life, I hope that he will know to keep pushing and try every option before giving up.