Our Boys

My granny is loving, caring, and friendly. She is supportive to everyone because she understands God and wants to be His angel one day. I feel she is mine right now.

“God is with you where ever you are and where ever you go”, she tells me. My granny would always remind me that I make the choices in my life. No one else makes them for me. She would say to me, “The number one key is to think of God and talk with Him because talking with God can change your life if you let it. You determine your future.’’ That is why my granny inspires me so much.
There is something special about the way she cares about me and tells me how to speak to people. She wants to know what I am going to do in my life. My granny always said to me, “I will always be there even when you are in trouble.” She brings me love, care, and all the support I need to stay with God and to be a young man with God’s strength.

That’s when I said to myself I need to change. So what’s stopping me? My granny was right… and I changed here at Generations. I stopped being disrespectful, intrusive, and always wanting to be in every one’s business. That is the number one reason why my granny inspires me so much, in a positive, respectful, caring, loving and reliable way.

Who is my inspiration and role model as I step forward each and every day in my life? My Grandpa, and he has played a big part in my life. He is a smart, kind, and loving man.

My Grandpa helped change the world. He lived through the Great Depression; he was 10 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929. One thing that he said to me was, “Life is hard, but it will get easier.” That is one thing that stood out to me. He and his family must have had it hard. He told me that things were so bad that food and gas were rationed.  When my Grandpa was older he went to work as a brick mason at the Civilian Conservation Camp which Franklin D. Roosevelt came out with as part of his New Deal. My Grandpa was stationed at Table Rock and Walhalla, which he helped build.

My Grandpa has taught me to be a hard worker. Also, he taught me a good sense of strong values. With strong values you can do anything you put your mind to. When I moved to Generations it took hard work and I had to be focused. Also, I had to put my mind in my work and as a result I was able to move to Moderate from High. With the values my Grandpa has taught me I am using that work ethic to make and leave Generations Group Home a better place than when I came to its care. And leave the better person my Grandpa will be proud of.

Everyone has been inspired at least once in their lifetime.  My mom is an inspiration to me. She has shown me that you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it. She has helped me become a person who challenges himself. I am now a person who knows that if I set out to do something I will finish it to be the best I can be.

Another of my mom’s sayings is “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” I interpret this to mean that it doesn’t matter if you’re good at something or if you’re horrible at it. The person who has the most heart will win. By following my mom’s example I have become a better person.  I’m, for the most part, trustworthy and respectful. I use the things my mom has taught me in my everyday life. It doesn’t matter what it is I do my best. By doing this I’m learning to be a leader in almost everything I do.

My grades stay high B’s and up, I do well in sports, and I challenge myself to do better the next time. All these things are helping to make me a better person. Thank you, Mom!

My mom is the most important person in my life. She has inspired me to show the world that I can still learn from the mistakes I make no matter how bad they were.

My mom has inspired me to be strong and to be there for my family. She was a single parent of four, working but also trying to be there for me. Even when I was doing drugs and getting into trouble with the law, she was there. When I was at my grandma’s she would tell me that I was my father all over again. My mom would say “you are not like him you are like me”.  Her words of encouragement didn’t work immediately. Now that I am older and more mature I know she was right, I am nothing like my father no matter how much I look like him.

My mom is a big motivation in my life to this day. She is standing behind me on my positive decisions in life and confronting me on the negative ones. I will be leaving Generations soon, and will always remember all of the encouragement that she gave me. One day I will be able to give the same support and encouragement to my kids as they grow up.

When I was a very little boy, I lived with my grandmother who encouraged me to follow my dreams. I would draw stick figures and show her what I had done. She would tell me “It is beautiful honey, keep on practicing and you will get even better!” I listened to what she said, and practiced and I did get better and started drawing more and more over the years.

Then one day my grandmother got really sick. My mom came to school and picked me up, and said “Nanny’s sick babe, the doctor said she might not make it.”

At the hospital I sat by her side that day holding her hand, wondering when or if, she was going to wake up. She did, and looked at me and said “I love you Pino… Don’t ever let anyone or anything take away your talents or… keep you away from your dreams.”  At that instant… she took her last breath and I began to cry.  I kissed her on the forehead and said “I love you too, Nanny.”

My grandmother’s words inspired me… so, I got some paper and pencil and began to draw. I looked at a picture of my grandmother and drew it. My parents were amazed at how good it was. I placed that picture in a box of her things, and today still that is very special to me.

Now I am continuing my dream by draw people and the wilderness, focusing on drawing complex arts, growing my talents. I have chosen not to waste my skills and will go to college to achieve my dream of becoming the famous artist my grandmother saw in me. If it wasn’t for her inspiring me to draw, I would not have discovered my true talents. “Thank you, Nanny, for everything.”

Sometimes people inspire us to act a certain way. A person who has inspired me is my mother. The reason I say my mother is because she has been through a tough time in her life. She has had to deal with her incarceration which forced her to leave her children. Dealing with drugs kept her away from us a lot more. When she finally told me the story of why she did all of those things, I cried. She told me she had to leave me when I was a baby because my father didn’t want her to be around me. She had to make a choice to leave the drugs or leave me. Obviously, my mother made a choice to leave because she was so serious with the drugs that she couldn’t leave it alone. I have heard people say a lot of negative things about her, and I sit sometimes and wonder what else could go wrong?

In spite of all this, my mom is inspiring me to make positive behavior choices. She has shown me what she expects from me and does not want me to go down the road that she went down. She has shown me that is not where I want to be. I was the type to get in all sorts of trouble even when I knew that I was doing the wrong thing. But I am now learning to make positive choices like finally accomplish the good goals that my mother wants for me.

Even though my father didn’t want her to be around me, she still made a way she could help me make good decisions. That’s why I chose my mother as my true inspiration.