While I was at home, I was peaceful, quiet, obedient; a perfect angel. But as soon as I walked out home, I turned in to a menace, that caused my mom to have to visit the school more than often, and by the middle of my 4th grade I got expelled from school again. My mother found another school for me, and I was able to finish the 4th grade on that school. One of my mother’s friends recommended her to search professional help, so my mother consulted the priest at our church, and he recommended a religious school, so she applied for a scholarship for me and she got it, because I had a great academic score. The fights at home, were increased and even when my mother hided my behavior to dad, he always found, something, and that increased the fights and the hitting. I was always sad and afraid to be hit so, when dad came to the house I always used a book on my back under my pants to soften the impact and… It worked (Except when he hit me on the upper back). The discussions were always about money, how everything was expensive, that he worked all day like a donkey… “The problem is the money” I thought, so I started thinking what to do to get money. I believe he was frustrated because he always wanted to give us more… When we where with some one else, he was a gentleman, funny, smiling, but at home the history was different… He never drank, but he was workaholic and he avoided any kind of party or celebration, except for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve where he wanted my mom to cook the most delicious Bacalao, Turkey and Ham, with Crowberry gel, sweet apple paste, and Romeritos with shrimp. Christmas time it was odd, between fun and fear. With some visits to the church, but never about Jesus… With the question about why Santa always got better presents for others and never brought me what I asked on my letters… Until I found the true… then I understood a little more… it was about money…
One of the things that is surprising to me today, is the low value that many people assign to their own promises. Teenagers don't believe their parents, because they never fulfill their promises; Couples say "I'll stand by you forever" and few months later they walk on the opposite direction; politicians make promises to earn votes, and once the election is done, they forgot about it. I remember one of the first things I learned from my grandmother it was the value of my word. "A gentleman always fulfill his promises, a man with no word has no honor" and I learned to live by that principle. Few weeks ago, I was having a discussion with one of the leaders on the youth ministry at Flamingo Road Church about some technical difficulties we were experiencing during the broadcasting of our Student Service online, and I challenged him to fix the failures, so if he would complete the task with no errors, I will do my hair like him... (He had a Mohawk haircut with
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