I once went 10 days without food and 3 days without water because I couldn’t afford the treatment for an infected abscess in my throat. The pus would have poisoned me if it had burst and I’d swallowed it. I lost 20 pounds in that time and looked like a scarecrow.
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We lived in low-income housing where people waited for us to go to work so they could try to kick in our door. Other men would see me leave and stand at the door telling my wife to open it for them. I had to go tell their families I’d kill them if they didn’t stop. They stopped.
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We lived with gunshots outside so loud we couldn’t hear our own conversation. People defecating on our yard fence outside our windows. Blood on the sidewalks. Shootouts and 30+ person fights in the neighborhood street visible outside our kitchen window.
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What would I do to keep my kids from growing up and facing all of that? I’d work until my bones broke.
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No one who hasn’t been so poor can really imagine what it’s like. You don’t know the feeling of fleas crawling on you and biting you all night, or lying in bed for a week wondering if you’ll die without a treatment that others can easily afford.
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My job now is to make sure my children can’t imagine those things, either. I’ll go to whatever ends are needed to make that happen. I’ll face any pain or horror to protect them and build them a better life. This is parenthood. No excuses.
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I spent a year sleeping on the beach homeless, digging receipts out of trash cans and conning fast food joints into giving me food with them. I ate one meal every few days. Sand fleas, tree roaches, and fire ants made me miserable. being homeless and destitute is a motivator
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Thank you.
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