Bitter Journey of Life

The journey to finding oneself and their passion is one many are fortunate to have embarked

on and completed early on in life. However, I have not been permitted this luck. From a young

age, I have been splurged by many worldly cultures and experiences.

Growing up in a divorced family, my sister and I faced court battle after court battle and were

“tossed” from continent to continent between our two parents. With our time in Bamako, Mali,

where my abusive father resided, we faced hardships from the war-torn country and abuse from

our “believed-to-be” loving father. As a young boy living under my father’s roof, I longed for his

love, attention, and, most of all, role model characteristics as I wanted to be like him. But to my

dismay, my father fell short of my dreams. Thankfully after a year of torment, my mother

rescued us, and we moved to France, where we had lived with my mother before my father

dragged us to Mali. After another year, we escaped once more from my father’s claws as he was

attempting to bring us back under his abusive powers in Mali. We fled to the United States.

Upon arrival, I was faced with learning a new language, adapting to a brand-new environment,

and hiding from my father and the rest of my family and friends. However, as I was experiencing

what I perceived to be some of the most challenging times, my courageous mother was genuinely

experiencing the worst of all. From a doctor in France to a cleaning lady in the US, she sacrificed

her monetary values, language, friends, family, and life to save ours.

As I grew more accustomed to this new land, my mother fell in love and married my

stepfather, Cal Burleson. Cal was, in a word, my hero: with sacrifices such as selling his house to

pay immigration lawyer fees for us; with caring gestures like taking us out to ball games anytime
it was a home game; with loving words like reminding me of how proud he was of the man I was

becoming; Cal never ceased to be Cal.

As it may have been noticed, I have been using the past tense to describe how wonderful my

stepfather was because he sadly passed away on November 7th, 2021, from small cell bladder

cancer. Through this experience, like so many others, Cal displayed what I had been longing for

from my father back in Africa. Moreover, with him living in Indiana and my mother and I living

in Pennsylvania, I had to live by myself for a vast majority of the start of my senior year for my

mother to take care of her husband in Indiana. Through this, Cal thanked me for being the young

man he hoped I would one day become, and for that, I wish I had made him proud.

All in all, as I finish my last thoughts, I realize how blind I have been to have looked at life

through the views of males who I thought to be my role models and who I thought I should

aspire to be and long for. However, for the last 17 years, I have been blinded to the truth that my

accurate role model is my mother, as she has been with me constantly.

I may not know my calling and all my life’s passions yet, but one thing is sure, my life

experiences and mother have shaped me to be my role model through the characteristics and life

experiences that have been gifted to me. I may not know what I want to pursue at this point, but

one thing is for sure my life’s calling will embrace and showcase the characteristics and values I

have accumulated from the rich background and people that have raised me.