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So we went on a cruise. My mom and I that is. We have been bustin our butts for the last 11 years and decided a vacation was in order. You see. My mom and I are the family. Us two and of course our two best friends molly and DOG. We have been through the tough times and have had a rough go of it I guess you could say. It all started with football. Ever since I started football in the third grade life for me has changed. Working our schedules around practices and games… making sure were home for off season training and sign-ups for pop warner. You could say we are pretty busy people. My mom and I came here to Arizona with my dad. We came to this awful dreaded place because of a job opportunity that turned out to be a disaster. My mom was a dealer and my dad was a floor manager. They both worked long hours at casino Arizona. The newest casino in Arizona at the time. It seemed like things were going well at first. Then it all went down hill. My mom got sick of the crooks and my dad got screwed out of his job. After that he never worked again to this day. My mom on the other hand went out and got her realtors license and began selling homes. She was very successful during the prime time of our market. My mom raked in all the dough while my dad sat at a bar and bet all his money away on horses while he got drunk and hit on raunchy women. And to be honest with you. It seemed as though everything was fine. I started football. Jr. peewee team called the bruisers. We weren’t very good. But I didn’t know any better. I just played because I enjoyed it. I wasn’t very good at first either. Life seemed well though. Years went by. I started to grow stronger and stronger as I trained harder and harder to become the best athlete I could be. And before you knew it. Your whole life was sports and school. No vacations because of off season training. And no social life because of early mornings watching film of the football game you played the night before. I found that most of my time was spent on the field or in the gym. Junior high is now over. Time for a vacation! My family and I decide to ask my best friend tanners family on a trip to our California house in corona. I am so excited because my first real crush was gonna be there. Her name was Kelsey… funny how that works out. Kelsey tatum…. She seemed to be the best thing that ever happened to me… neways enough of that…. We were all on our way out to cali when we stopped at a rest area… my mom and dad were in a different car. It was my grandmas car… she had past away a few months prior to this time. She actually passed away 4 days after my uncle died who was on his way to Arizona to visit us for Christmas. He had stopped at a rest stop in between Arizona and California and had a heart attack at the age of 45…. My grandma died while visiting his grave. My mom and dad got out of the car…. I knew something was wrong…. My dad went to the table under the ramada at the rest stop. It must have been 120 degrees outside. I was sweatin bullets and could see the sweat drop off my dads forhead from all the way back in tanner’s navigator. I saw my dad answer a phone call at the table…. My mom walked up to him… my dad looked at her and said something and my mom dropped…. She was histarical…. I could hear her crying through the car window…. I thought my aunt had died…. Well I wasn’t wrong about someone dying… it wasn’t my aunt though…. I had come to learn after my mom stumbled her way over to my car door that my brother had been murdered…. It was ironic to me because that morning at 6am I had called him while my dad and I were at the good egg eating breakfast. I had a denver omelet and my dad had a meatlovers omelet. We got to talking and I had told him how I missed my brother. He had been away for a while in Washington because he decided to steal and torch a car…. He had just got out of bootcamp a while before. Must have been only 3 months. I picked up my cell phone and called him. I missed him terribly. He beat me and hurt me a lot but I still loved him the same. We were close… and even though he shot me… he never really hurt me to bad… I was always ok… were on our way back from the rest stop now… my mom dad and I hopped in my grandmas car and told tanner and his family how to get to our house in California while we went back to Arizona to get to my sister before neone else did. I was searching frantically for news reports and all kinds of stories in spanaway Washington trying to find out what happened to my brother… I came across many stories. Then I saw it. They said they had found a man about 18 years old naked and beaten to death with 3 gunshot wounds to his back near a forest in spanaway. I knew it had to be my brother. He was with 3 of his friends when they were trying to find a way to a party in the woods. One of the people he was with said he knew where it was. They ended up getting lost and wandered into crip territory. A 14 year old boy was trying to get into the gang and needed to murder someone to do it. They told my brother and his friends to take their clothes off. They started beating them with pistols and nething they could find. My brothers friends took a run for it and left my brother behind…. My brother was beaten the worst of them all though because he was the biggest threat of the group… he tried to get up and ran but when he did they shot him in the back with a 45 three times… the guys at the morg said he would have died even if he wasn’t shot…. I learned that even though when you lose someone it hurts terribly and you cant concentrate on nething… life sucks and you cant function…. I got to watch my family fall apart…. My mom stopped doing anything and my dad got drunker and drunker as he wasted more money on his compulsive gambling addiction…. I had school…. The difficult decision to play freshmen ball or popwarner for another year was at my doorstep…. My head wasn’t screwed on straight…. I had been doin drugs and lost my religious beliefs…. The trauma from the site of my brother and my grandma haunted me everywhere I went…. I could picture there face…. And I could view the scenario of my brother running for his life during every math lecture, every English lesson, and every weight I lifted in weights class…. It seemed as though life wasn’t going to get any better…. I had lost the ability to care about anything…. My dad lived with me but I never saw him… and my mom was so sad and depressed that I couldn’t see the slightest bit of happiness in her at any moment in time ever…. I decided to play pop warner… I had coaches begging me to play and the freshmen team wasn’t that great neways…. Practices started and a couple weeks went by when I found myself ill. Terribly ill. I couldn’t stop coughing and had been to the doctor countless times. Months went by and I had seen many specialists. Finally they threw me in the hospital. I had a temperature of 104 degrees over and over again. I thought this was it. I was the next one to go. And wat did I have to show for it. I had been doin drugs and not caring about a single thing for the last year of my life and I had watched my family die off like cattle during the mad cow influenza… Im in the hospital thinking… first both my grandpa… then my uncle…. Than my grandma… my brother… now me…. I spent a week in that hospital… I guess you know how the story goes…. I lived to tell the tale…. And im glad I did….. I decided to turn my life around…. Its funny the things you realize and learn that you knew before but didn’t quite understand when your fighting for your life…. Its kinda like the movies SAW…. All he wants is for you to appreciate the gift of life that god has given you…. Sophomore year came around and I decided to play football…. I was the star…. Best defensive player on the junior varsity team playing weak side linebacker…. I got a girlfriend and became very popular that year…. Her name was bekkah…. She had been in a relationship with her boyfriend for two years when she finally broke up with him to go out with me… funny thing was that I had still had a crush on Kelsey….  I decided to go with bekkah neways though… because Kelsey happened to live in georgia at the time… I still saw her a lot and things didn’t change at all between us… but bekkah had been in my life at the time…. I didn’t like her that much… she was a beautiful girl…. Was being the key word…. We had gotten into trouble when we decided to have sex in the bathroom at school…. Damn… what a stupid decision… and it wasn’t even my idea…. I wish it was… lol…. Her parents wouldn’t let us be together nemore… but we tried neways…. 10 school days had gone by as our punishment was a 10 school day suspension before I had been able to see her again at school…. I saw her out by the portables and she started balling… I hadn’t been able to talk to her or anything…. We decided to try and work it out…. Her parents wouldn’t budge though…. Very stubborn people…. A few months went by and I broke up with her because I found out that she was cutting herself…. We hadn’t been able to see eachother outside of school…. But by this time I had fallin in love…. It was hard…. She begged me back and of course I did it…. Stupid of me because a week later she broke up with me and called me for days tellin me how much her new boyfriend was way better than me…. I was upset…. Jr year comes around and I had stabbed myself in the leg opening up a box to my new grinder that I was gonna use at my new job at the shop…. My sisters husband hooked me up with the job…. So now I have to stay at home for a couple weeks while my deep knife wounds healed…. This is especially bad because this year we had new coaches and I would have to prove myself again… but I couldn’t make it to football camp… I decided to work through the whole summer while my leg healed and tried out for football come tryouts…. They tried to throw me at DB but I told him no… I said I was a linebacker… I had been a linebacker for 9 years… coach was a dick… his name was doug Vincent…. We called him coach Vinnie for short…. He told me I would never play as a linebacker on his team…. Me being the weight and height that I am he thought I wouldn’t be able to do it…. So he threw me on JV and made me play down there as the starting middle linebacker….. I made plays and had an impact again.. proving myself as always…. The season was over for JV and he pulled me up to play varsity for the last three games…. We made it to the playoffs that year…. I was player of the week twice as a scout team middle linebacker against our offenses 2 ton offensive starting lineup…. I only weighed 130…. The next year rolled around and I made it to all the offseason events…. Things had changed though…. It seemed as though that my team had gained a new hate for me while I played JV… they must have thought I let them down or something…. I was receiving verbal and physical abuse in the offseason and felt alone…. That’s a weird feeling to feel while your playing on a football team… especially guys who I had been playing with for 9 years…. Coach followed…. I was ripped into pieces by not only my coach but my players as well…. I had fought for my spot and earned it… but then one day a couple weeks before our first game I made a small mistake…. And lost it…. Coach ripped me so hard I will never forget it…. He pulled me out and told me not to come back…. It was the worst feeling i ever felt on a football field… even worse than the time we lost the state championships…. First game comes around and I was standin on the sidelines…. The first string middle was slackin and coach threw me in… I ripped it up again…. I caused fumbles…. Sacked quarterbacks…. Stuffed holes… and took guys down twice my size…. It was about time I got to prove myself on Friday night in front of the croud…. Who had ever seen a 145 pound middle linebacker playing in a 5a division one football team in the hardest region in arizona…. I thought for sure things were gonna get better…. 2 days went by…. I was sick again…. I slept for 18 hours a day for 2 weeks…. I had missed two games and had lost weight and strength…. I came back and trained hard and busted my ass as best I could to earn my spot back…. It ended up being a split time lineup between me and my backup…. But for some reason the abuse didn’t stop…. It was hard for me to become close to anyone after that…. The season went by and we had lost many players…. Our other middle linebacker tore his ACL and I started for the rest of the season…. We lost most of our games…. Mostly due to lack in ability to put points on the board but no one will argue for the defense…. Football season was over…. Just like that…. It just ended…. I realized that I would never play a down in football ever again…. 11 years of my life…. And it had to end like that…. I went through school not caring nemore… my grades were slipping and my respect for women rapidly took a turn for the worst…. Girls were just pieces of flesh… grades were easy to come by and life as a working man seemed easy…. But I still couldn’t care about nething…. I graduated from school…. Football was over…. Girls were in and out of my house…. And I felt no emotion…. I had lost many friends…. And lost many of the people who were close to me…. It seemed as though my ability to get close to anyone had faded away along with my football career and my brothers existence…. My mom had no job and I didn’t care about mine…. We started to plan a trip…. At first I didn’t want to go…. In fact… all the way up until we got on the cruise I didn’t want to go… I figured I mite as well have a good time while im on it…. Like my dad sais you can have two attitudes and one of em sucks!... haha… so I started searchin for a group of kids my age….. it seemed as though there were none at first….than i met up with a guy named troy who was at some thing my mom was doin… we walked around for a bit and then the mushing drill began…. He went to it while my mom and I hid in our cabin…. I started walkin around lookin for him and other people my age…. I was about to give up when I saw a girl just like me searchin around…. I didn’t know her name…. nor did I recognize her… I saw her walk into the elevator room…. I didn’t follow…. i had told myself I wouldn’t get involved with a girl on this cruise…. So I kept searchin and came across a guy named Conrad…. He seemed like a way chill guy… he was just sittin on a couch by himself so I sat down and talked to him… he was a tall guy about 6 foot… long black hair…. We got to talkin… I asked him if he came with neone on the cruise and he said he came with his sister…. Turned out it was the girl I saw walking around…. She came up to the couch and sat down with us…. Her name was Kelsey…. I remember being very attracted to her from the first time I saw her…. Later on that night we headed to the red carpet… which was a club for adults on the cruise…. We didn’t actually go into until after like a round of BS and a few minutes of dancing outside the club while we sat on the couches…. We all got in… except Conrad… he was underage by a few months…. Now it was me troy and Kelsey… we were dancing on the dance floor when we saw this kid go crazy… he seemed like he was just dickin around at first… his name was matt…. He was about 5’9 and had long brown hair…. He had the thickest glasses I had seen and snake bites in his lips…. It wasn’t until later on in the cruise that I got to know him… the night rolled around and it got late…. the next person we met was at a hot tub…. It was me troy and Kelsey sittin in one of the hot tubs in doors when a latin girl got in. her name was michelle…. She seemed like a very outgoing girl and wasn’t afraid to make a conversation…. Later on that night we hit the club again… where we met Mitchell and Ashley…. They weren’t together but we met at pretty much the same time…. Mitchell wanted to dance with michelle and that’s how we met… he had a different accent…. It was pretty weird to hear and I had never heard it before.. he explained he was from new Orleans…. So this is the group… a guy from new Orleans…. A girl from Utah…. A guy from Arizona and new York… and then a black girl from Arkansas…. Lol… she was a wild one that’s for sure…. Loud and very yappy…. Always wanted to talk… and very horny for some reason…. Lol… that’s the crew for you…. Me, Mitchell, Michelle, and Kelsey…. troy was kinda split between us and matt and Conrad…. He hung out with them more…. Which is why I got to know matt a lil better…. We danced every night for hours and hours and while we were at the dance floor matt and troy was there….. I got to dancing with matt and got to know him a lil better one night when conrad snuck in with him…. We all sat in the back of the club for a lil while and talked…. He was a way rad guy…. Funnier than hell…. So it was about 3 am before we left the dance floor and headed to a set of couches on the third deck to talk… we got to talkin and conversatin about all kinds of things…. It got to be a bonding period for us…. We talked about all the problems we had waitin for us at home… and the ones that haunted us in the past…. And well of course the non stop sex talk from michelle and Ashley…. Lol…. It was fun though…. Kelsey and I grew closer and closer as the cruise went on…. We got to talkin and cuddling…. Id walk her back to her room and hang out for a bit…. Than go back to my room to do it all over again…. I really enjoyed spending time with everyone… but during the day I couldn’t wait till I would be able to walk her back to her room and talk with just her and no one else around… except of course her brother sleeping in the bed next to us…. Days went by and we started realizing that our time was shrinking together…. I hate that feeling…. But I knew it was going to happen when I first got on the cruise…. The last day came by and I stayed with Kelsey till 5am…. I didn’t want to leave…. I knew that may be the last time I ever saw her again…. The next morning came by and I felt terrible… the feeling in my stomach felt terrible…. I received a call on my cell phone… It was Kelsey… she wanted to meet me for breakfast… I went to the lido deck on deck 9 for some breakfast…. it was just Kelsey and i…. we didn’t say to much…. We just knew wat was going to happen that day…. After we got done eating and saying our goodbyes we walked to the elevator room…. That was the last place I saw her…. She was walkin toward her parents outside lounging on lounge chairs…. I took the stairs…. Met up with my mom in the room… grabbed both our bags and left…. I got off the boat…. I learned that my ability to care…. My ability to have emotional feelings wasn’t lost after all… and now I miss her to death… thank you….