The Power Of Healing In Football
iSpeech.org
Carl, 17, is of Haitian descent yet was born in Miami. He’s constantly living on-and-off between both Miami and Port-Au-Prince.
On January 12, Carl was with his friends driving back in a taxi after a solid practice of basketball. Moments later, an earthquake struck Haiti, and Carl was in the middle of it fortunately escaping any harm.
However, Carl had to walk back almost 20 miles facing the turmoil of scattered streets and roads with many dead bodies and blood-up bodies, from where he was to go and visit his mom’s house where he lives. His dad at the time was separated from his mom, and during the earthquake was working in a bank as head security and was way too far to make a stop by him.
Carl’s mother was alive and doing fine.
But still there was no word from his father. Not even a call after Carl tried contacting him before reaching his home with his mother.
Carl would just wait.
Almost 2 weeks passed and word on the street for Carl was that it was possible the Coast Guards patrolling the area might’ve taken his father to the Dominican Republic for hospitality or the U.S.
Carl still kept hope.
However, it would only last almost 2 months when Carl began accepting the fact that his father was no where to be found and that it was time to stop keeping hope and just move on and deal with the thought of his father’s passing.
It was then, when Carl switched his attention over to school and his future.
Carl’s Haitian school at the time wasn’t stable enough to maintain a new school year. So it was then Carl had an emotional discussion with his mother face-to-face as he basically told her he had to go back to Miami, because he didn’t want to lose another school year.
Carl would come to Miami with less than two months of school left. He would attend a Miami-Dade school in Kendall, even though he’s only settled in Little Haiti.
At Varela, Carl took the opportunity to play football, and since has given much pride and heart, even though he didn’t really know much about the game. However, Carl knew that it would give him a good chance to succeed and possibly be granted a chance to enroll in college for free, making him the first in his family.
Already Carl has paper work from Middle Tennessee (a Division I program) and has other schools telling him that they’re watching him -- only in his first season as a junior and first year ever playing organized football.
Though Carl admits it’s painful not having a father anymore, who was always his role model and hero he admired. Carl has made football a way to take his mind off the loss and grief of his dad (and also cousins and aunts).
To this day, Carl is a leader and a voice of Varela’s high school varsity football team. He plays offensive line, and he puts tremendous effort into every practice and scrimmage he’s taken part in for his squad.
Carl hopes to take his talents to the next level one step at a time, with also the thought of how his father would regularly push him to be at his best. And how he knows his father would be proud of him for what he’s currently doing, even though he’s still not around anymore.
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