Growing up, I was always the only boy in my family, so my dad was the person I could
always go to. We did practically everything together. Not only was he my
father, he was my best friend. He was also in the Air Force and he specialized in
EOD. For those of you who are unfamiliar, EOD stands for explosive ordinance
disposal, meaning that it was his job to disarm bombs and anything that could be
a potential threat. And with having a job in the Air Force also means that you
get deployed a lot. And while it was sad to see him go, I always knew that we'd
see each other again. In the summer of 2011, my dad went on his last trip. And
one day, he and my mother had been talking, which was a daily routine for
them, and then their call was interrupted. There was a knock at my dad's door and
he told my mom that he'd call her back - but he never did. Instead, he was called
out on that third mission. His team successfully detonated the first device,
but the robot that was sent in to get it failed, so my dad, being the technical
sergeant, volunteered to retrieve the robot. And that's when a second device
exploded. The following night, my family was greeted by a military truck that
pulled into our driveway. But me, being nine years old at the time, I didn't
understand what was going on, but my mom instantly knew that whatever news these
guys had for us, it wasn't gonna be good. And she was right,
because a few minutes later, she sat me and my sisters down on the couch and
told us that, unfortunately, my dad wasn't going to be coming home. We were all
shocked and devastated at the news, especially because we had all talked him
the day before and the last thing that we ever heard him say to us was, "I love you,"
and nobody had any idea that that was the last time we were ever gonna hear his voice.
About four years passed by, my mother had started her own business. My mom's an
event planner, often holding baby showers, weddings, birthday parties and the like and
one day, she created her own event called, "Women of Warriors." The purpose of the
event was to shed light in the community on the families whose lives would be
forever affected due to military service, and dealing with things such as PTSD,
amputation, and in some cases, even death. And it also served an additional purpose
to help women in the community and build relationships and develop support
systems for them. The Women of Warriors event was talked about widely, and it got
so widely recognized that one day, while me and my sisters were helping my mom
set up for an upcoming event, the phone rang. It was an unknown number from
Chicago. She answered the phone and then a few minutes later excitedly told us
that the Women of Warriors event became so widely recognized that we were going
to fly up to Chicago and be on The Steve Harvey Talk Show for their Mother's Day
special because my mom had been nominated for Mother of the Year. The
trip to Chicago was amazing. We got to see a bunch of cool sights, got to go to
the studio where they record The Steve Harvey Talk Show, and we also had the
honor of meeting the man himself - Steve Harvey - and he was a really amazing
person. While we didn't end up winning the Mother of the Year award, honestly,
that's okay, because that's not what matters. What really matters is how my
mother managed to turn a tragic situation into a triumph,
and if that isn't growth, I don't know what is.