“Life is so uncertain, it’s like playing cards in a sense…”
Part 1 of 3
“The biggest challenge I’ve had to face is trying to live life after losing a child. I had a realization that life is short and it’s precious.
As a minister of the gospel, you try your best to teach people what God requires, to implement that, demonstrate that and you tell them about the blessings and promises that come along with that. But, life is reality.
In 2014 my wife and I lost Bridgett. She was my stepdaughter but it doesn’t matter, I love my stepchildren like they’re my own.
Situations like that affect everyone differently. But someone has to be sacrificial and I have to admit that I chose to be sacrificial. At that point in time my wife was weakened to me. I had to be able to see that. I knew she loved me. We’ve got a good relationship, but she gave birth to Bridgett, she reared her every step of the way. Now all of a sudden there’s a void in her life.
And life is so uncertain, I mean we know God is head of all things to us but what hand he’s going to deal us… we don’t know. It’s like playing cards in a sense. You choose to play but you don’t get to just handpick your cards. And whatever is dealt to you, you’ve got to come up with a strategy to make it work for you. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But you’re going to always get another hand.
We’ve had several ‘hands’ that we had to deal with after that. Bridgett had one child, a son. After he lost his mom, his dad was killed 23 months later. We wound up raising him from 7th grade all the way through. That was a challenge, going from being husband and wife in a household, to rearing kids again which is something we hadn’t done for many years. I think we adapted well. He enjoyed being with us because I’m fun anyways.
I’m happy that my wife, after 4 and a half years, could get back to some form of normalcy. That was a challenge because she had to have someone to vent to. Did I have my own struggles? Yes but I had to deal with them differently. I couldn’t let them see it.
I had my moments of solitude where it was tough for me. My daughter and I had become very close. As she went to her chemo treatments I would drive her back and forth from Little Rock. I’ll never forget one time we were outside of Forrest City, she said something to me that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. She said to me as I was driving, ‘You know what, I always wanted a daddy and I finally got one.’
That was worth everything that I ever had to invest to give her that fulfillment. So, when I have moments where it just seems unbearable sometimes I think back on that. She didn’t leave with that missing element.”
Part 2 of 3
“I had a very good childhood, school was exciting, and I happened to be very athletic. I was able to achieve titles like Arkansas State All-Star and pretty much anything when it came to basketball in the state of Arkansas.
There are some things in life that you just get one opportunity to fulfill. I’ve always shared this particular experience with people. I had the opportunity to play D1 basketball, but I passed it up. Sometimes I can be caring to a fault, and I let a girl that I really liked get into my head.
A year later I realized my mistake and took my pursuit at it and went the junior college route. Those D1 schools only pursue you for so long before they move on to the next person. Then, after you’ve realized your mistake and you try to go back to resurrect that, they don’t take you serious.
It tormented me for a long time because here I am now, I have to look at people that I competed against. I played against Doc Rivers. The only difference between me and Doc is Doc stayed focused, he didn’t let anything distract him from what he wanted to do.
Set your goals high, don’t let anything cause you to sell yourself short with what you can’t live with if you don’t stay focused. When you look at people who have succeeded in areas that you know you are capable of doing, you have to live with that “what if.” And it’s not only you having to subconsciously live with it, you also have to live with people who knew your skill set and knew what you could do.
Now what helped me overcome that is once I started studying the word of God, and I read what the scripture says in Jeremiah 29:11, I found that as much as I wanted that for myself, maybe that’s not what God wanted for me. I was able to accept that.
I told my son ‘whatever your goals and visions are, whatever you envision for yourself five years down the road, you’ve got to shut everything else out. That’s all that matters and you’ve got to set your sight to that. If you say you want an opportunity to go to the highest level, you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot to do it.’”
-Adron P.
