My single mother died when I was 19. I am the eldest of 3 children. My sister, Tanecia, was 16. My brother, Travis, was 14, and my father was gone. It was the first week of my sophomore year of college; a fact that mother never hesitated to boast about. Though I had nowhere near graduated, the fact that I was there, was reason enough for her admiration. I planned the funeral; with the help of my grandparents, who had flown in from California. The funeral was very sad and the very existence of it was puzzling, considering the fact that she was 40 years old and was relatively healthy, all things considered. Still, we made it through and the subject seemed more approachable with each passing day. My sister, who appeared to take it the hardest, was...better and I, who always appeared strong and beyond my years in wisdom, appeared stronger and wiser than ever before, but how do you ask a fourteen year old boy to instantly become a man? How do you ask him to flourish without the nourishment of his mother's love? How do you expect someone to lose the one that broke their fall, to stand without her with a broken heart? (What does it mean...?)

He never cried aloud, but his life now screams despair. Wherever he went, trouble found him and now has a lease on his life. He used illegal drugs, abused prescription drugs, drunk himself unconscious and finally overdosed. He's hinted at suicide, no doubtingly, to get to her. So how do you ask a, now,  20 year old, to go "be a man", when he stopped growing at age 14? You can't. So, you just pray. (What does it mean...?)