ERIC

PHOTO BY RANDY BACON

ERIC’S STORY

I went through abusive family, hurtful relationships. I watched my mother, throughout the years, be abused. Went through abuse myself. Family with alcohol problems. Family with lock up. I’ve experienced lock up, myself, and prison time. I grew up, got an education while I was in the Department of Corrections. Got out, made a mistake, went back. Lost a lot of family through my struggles and tribulations. Lost a child of my own. Watched my mother lose children. Had a little baby brother pass away last year. He was drugged and overdosed, and killed at twenty-eight. He had a little girl and from my heart, I just want to tell everybody that’s out there - you got to have faith, you got to have hope, and got to have love and you got to believe in yourself and have confidence. If someone can’t accept you for who you are, you accept yourself and you keep faith within yourself and you can learn from your mistakes.

It’s something that I was always taught by my mother, that loving people can’t change everybody, you got to start with yourself. And if you can’t change yourself, you can’t help no one else. I did a little too much for so many and I wasn’t taking a look at myself and when I didn’t do that, I made mistakes and falls, and I let a lot of people down in my life. I had a drug problem at one time in my life and I realize it wasn’t gonna get me nowhere.

My mother raised me and my little brother for most of my life. I had two sisters that were taken away from my mother when they were little girls and never got the actual opportunity to really get to know them and I’m just now getting to know them. I had two brothers that passed away, I didn’t get to know. I lost my grandma. I have my mother right now that has an aneurysm on her heart, and I’m getting ready to lose. My childhood has been rough.

I love my mother, I love our family, and I actually love who I am today. Through all the loss in my life, the thing that’s kept me strong, I got to say, it’s my mother. My mother will be seventy this January and everything she’s experienced and went through she’s stood strong, been a proud loving mother that’s helped us. I’m proud of her. I thank her for that and that’s what made me who I am today.

As far as living on the streets, I say at one time, I went through hurtfulness, after I got released from Department of Corrections, after doing nine and a half years flat. Half my childhood gone, family that I lost. I got out and tried to make a living and I went through a hurtful relationship and lost that. I fell in love with a lady at that time. Got her off the drugs, got her off the streets for a minute, myself, then we both fell short cause of the family situation. It was rough. Actually sometimes, had to sleep in tents, sleep where we didn’t feel comfortable, or we didn’t feel warm, or we didn’t feel safe. We didn’t trust people, or being out in the cold, or having to go to churches and other things and have to ask for this and that. I felt at times I let her and myself down.

What I’d like to share from my heart is, that I believe that anybody in this world can actually be something, make it, you just got to have confidence. Have faith within yourself, learn from your mistakes, and if you feel like giving up, tell yourself don’t, because you’re better than that. I wish everybody the best out there. Everybody equal. And I hope that my message and what I’ve shared from my heart, my family situation, and myself, that each and everyone out there to look within yourselves and realize that they’re just human like me. We’re all equal and we all deserve somethin’ good in life.

Where I am right now, is I’m more happy with myself, I have more confidence in myself. I’ve learned to overlook things, to forgive and to forget, and I’ve learned to look within myself and know that I am someone. I’m not worried about a person that judges me because everyone’s equal and I’m happy where I’m at. My mother’s still alive. I have family that’s still alive, that still strong in my corner. I have a loving lady sitting next to me that I care for that’s been friends with me for twelve years, that accepted me for who I am, my mistakes. She has a loving daughter that loves me, and I’m proud with our engagement. And I got to say from my heart that I come closer to God then what I was back in my childhood and that I learned from a lot of my mistakes. I still have my downfalls, but I have more confidence in myself. I believe in myself a lot more than what I did.

My dream is to make sure that my family is set right and that my relationship can be strong and that me and my lady be blessed to where we actually have a loving relationship, and one that’s strong to be our age. I believe in everyone out there. Keep your heads up, pray, have faith. I love each one, everyone, for who they are. And that’s the truth, and God bless everyone.