Its been 14 years now...........

I can still remember my neighbor and his friends.  They were the life of our apartment building but they moved so silently.  Three young men on a mission that I had no clue what would be.  I could still remember waking up every morning, getting dressed and going to off to school (Lehman College at the time).  I was young and carefree.  way before my children, way before marriage, it was just me.

At least once a week I would go down the hall and kick it with them, we would laugh and talk about our futures, the things that young adults do I guess.  Life was grand.............................

It was grand until one late night I heard the police in my hallway and I looked through the peep hole to see my neighbors, all of them, laying on the ground, head first.  I was confused and of course I cried.  See, I was a sheltered child, grew up to be a sheltered young woman so this was the type of thing that I never expected to see.  The tears streamed down my face in fear, confusion and dismay because there lied my brothers, the people that I looked forward to seeing each day.

Some time went by, I was told that one of them went to jail and since this is the world wide web I will call him Sam.  He was sentenced to 15 years, in a prison, locked away from the world but to me, he was locked away from us, our little family that we all created in our building and all of our talks, and dreams and aspirations were all now shattered and the course of our future would ultimately change.

Its been 14 years and Sam has finally came home! We all rejoiced in excitement because this is all that we wanted not realizing that our family had still been dispersed and we are all living different lives and our paths took a different course.  But Sam...............Sam is home, he looks the same, he acts the same and all I could think of was the course that all of our lives took.

We are given one life to LIVE and though it may take us in different directions at time we should never forget how privileged we are to have it.  See, society looked at Sam as an animal but he came home just the way he left: smart, witty and full of potential, with new goals, new dreams and new aspiration.  His life has reminded us that despite what we are faced with, its what we take from it to use to our advantage.  Sam is who we all want to be: The man faced with his biggest obstacle, who took the obstacle and turned what looked like a tragedy into triumph!!

Sam.......YOU my friend, YOU ARE THE REAL MVP!
Welcome home my neighbor.