This is going to be an
uncharacteristic departure for me. This story is deeply personal, for our
family, and for our oldest son in particular. But it is a story he’s
letting me tell, because it is a story he wants people to hear.
My son Max was born in
Detroit in 1997, he spent the next summer in Hong Kong when I was interning at
Fidelity Investments, and moved to London before he was two when I accepted an
offer to work for Fido there full-time.
He was an amazing
child, and became an amazing young man. But he had his demons. And
just before he turned 16 years old, those demons arrived with a
vengeance. I will spare you the details, but for the next three
years, he went through a personal hell. Imagine all the things you don’t
want to have happen to your teenager. They happened to him. For
three years my wife and I would wait on our front stoop until 5:00 am, in the
shadow of the Albert Bridge, hoping that he would come home. On those nights
that he didn’t, we would call the hospitals, and call the police. And sometimes
the police would call us.
We tried everything
that parents try, and we were very lucky that we could afford to try just about
everything. And we did. But none of it helped. The change in
schools didn’t help. The psychologists didn’t help. The wilderness
therapy didn’t help. Our closest friends and extended family all waded in
too, but nothing helped.
Max didn’t want to be
here. He didn’t feel a sense of belonging anywhere. His self-esteem
was non-existent. The anxiety was paralyzing. He often contemplated
ending it all, and only the thoughts of the impact on his three younger
siblings prevented him from doing so.
It was a living hell
for Max. And honestly it was a living hell for us too. There was nothing
we could do about it. The most difficult thing for my wife and I to
accept was that only Max could make the choices. It wasn’t up to
us. We couldn’t save him. It was up to him if he was going to live,
or going to die. As one of my best friends told me at the time, only Max
could choose to live.
Just over two years
ago, he realized that the scene in London was poisonous for him, and he asked
if he could head out. He’d asked before, and we’d let him go to far-flung
destinations, but the grass wasn’t greener in any of them. And we didn’t
honestly expect anything to come of it this time, but told him that we’d pay
for the flight, because he really did need to get out of London, and there was
almost no way things could get worse.
He chose a destination
a lot of rudderless kids like to visit. It might as well have been Goa,
Tulum, Koh Tao or Maui, but he chose Costa Rica. A friend of his, a good
guy, was backpacking there, and invited him to come to the hostel. I told
Max we would pay for the flight, and the first week, but if he wanted to stay
longer, he had to get a job and support himself. We honestly didn’t know
what to expect, but it felt like a last shot for him.
He loved the first
week there, and indeed got a job working at one of the hostels (in exchange for
room and board). But after the honeymoon was over (and eventually, the
honeymoon is always over), reality set in. His anxiety set in, and his
depression set in. At the darkest point, he almost called it. And
there was nothing we could do about it. Even if we weren’t 5,000 miles
away there was nothing we could do about it. But, for some reason, he
decided not to. Max decided to stay in the game.
We later learned the
reason. He’d found an eight-week old puppy roaming the streets of Santa
Teresa. The dog had been abused, was eating scraps from trash heaps, and
was terrified of people. But Max and the dog, which he named “Chica”,
connected with each other. Max and Chica became inseparable.
Max, who by then was
19 years old, started to realize he had something to offer. Chica needed
help, and Max was there to provide it. Max started doing adult things,
like earning and saving money so that he could take Chica to the vet for
check-ups and vaccinations. And Chica started getting healthy. And
Max started getting healthy. I could hear it in his voice when he would
call. There was an excitement about life and the future that I hadn’t
heard since he was 14 years old. He was starting to get his groove back.
On one of those phone
calls he said to me “Dad, I think I’m ready to leave Costa Rica.” Then he
continued “and while I miss you guys, I don’t think I should come back to
London”. “I want to go somewhere where I won’t be tempted by my old
habits, but where I can feel at home, and restart everything,” he said.
“Somewhere like Georgia or Indiana.”
He said “Georgia or
Indiana” because he was vaguely familiar with both. I grew up in Indiana,
and then moved to Atlanta, where I lived for several years, and ultimately met
my wife, Max’s mom. I told him that either Georgia or Indiana would be a
wonderful idea, and that there were great people in both places. I
mentioned that I would be comfortable knowing that my old buddies in the ATL
would be around just in case he needed a backstop; and that back in Indiana,
he’d of course have his grandparents and uncle there for support as well.
So he chose
Indianapolis. My wife and the other kids flew over to help get him
settled into a new apartment downtown, and they got to meet Chica. And
before we knew it, Max was working a full-time job, and not doing any of the
bad stuff he used to do. He still had his demons (these kids always have them -
heck we all have ‘em – they just learn to manage them), and things were by no
means perfect yet. But he could work through the anxiety, and work
through the depression, because he had responsibilities now. He had
Chica.
On his own in Costa
Rica, Max had figured out how to get Chica into the US, and convinced someone
at American Airlines to let her fly on his lap, because they wouldn’t let dogs
fly in the hold due to the heat. Thereafter, he and Chica settled into
their little apartment downtown near the White River canal, and each of them
began their new life, together. Max had saved Chica. And Chica had
saved Max.
One afternoon three
months later, when Max was walking Chica, she saw something she hadn’t seen in
Costa Rica. It was a squirrel, and before Max could stop her, Chica
chased that squirrel straight out onto Indiana Avenue. Right in front of
a speeding car.
The car ran over
Chica. My son screamed. In that brief moment everything that Max
had worked for, everything he had overcome, everything that he was living for,
was gone.
But the blow didn’t
kill the dog. The driver that hit her sped off and left Chica half-dead
and crying in the road. But the next car did stop. It was a
young black kid. A young black kid who saw a young white kid on his knees
in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. His name was Kenny. He
opened his door, got out of his car, walked up to my son, and said “hey, I got
you”. He then walked Max out to the middle of Indiana Avenue and they
picked up a bloody Chica and loaded her into Kenny’s car.
Turns out that Kenny
had just moved to Indiana, and had grown up down in Georgia. He had been
traveling around a bit, and had recently lost his job up north. He
subsequently found an offer for a temporary position down in Indianapolis, and
had just started work there. He was apprenticing at his new shop, and was
hoping to be made a permanent employee. Kenny was just 21.
But none of that
mattered to Kenny at that moment. What mattered to Kenny was Chica and my
son Max. So Kenny looked up a vet clinic on his phone, and took Max and
Chica there. The vet said that without surgery, Chica would die, but the
vet wasn’t a surgeon, and they needed to go somewhere else.
Luckily Kenny had
stayed. Kenny was there by Max’s side, like a big brother, and this wonderful
young man then took Max and Chica to another vet, one that could do the
surgery.
The vet did the
surgery. It worked. Chica lived. Her pelvis was broken, but
over the next six months Max nursed her back to health.
Without Kenny, none of
this would have happened.
Kenny even stayed in
touch with Max afterward. He would text and see how Chica was doing, and
how Max was doing. This last Thanksgiving, about one year since the
incident, Kenny even got some tickets to go see the Colts play, and asked Max
if he would like to come, and then took him out to dinner afterward.
Max is doing great
now. He’s been working full-time, got super healthy, started running
marathons, and is now on the good path. These were his choices, they had
to be, and he did it. But it almost didn’t turn out this way. Kenny
made sure he stayed on that path.
This guy Kenny, I want
to reach out and give him the biggest hug he ever got. I want to tell him
that he is special. I want to thank him for saving Chica’s life. I
want to thank him for saving my son’s.
Oh, and as a
follow-up. We got some news about Kenny this past week. It’s some
really good news.
Kenny not only got
that job offer, he just got a nice long contract along with it. Kenny
Moore, from Valdosta, Georgia, just signed a four-year contract with the
Indianapolis Colts to be the highest paid slot cornerback in the NFL, in a deal
that is going to pay him at least $30 million over the next four years.
Good things happen to
good people.
Kenny stayed in the
game too.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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