by Michael Mackey, San Quentin State Prison, CA
To me being brave means David and Goliath, standing up for something or someone you believe in. Who comes to mind when I hear this word, that could be a few people but the best person I can share with you all today is me.
I am the most brave person I know because I stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. I stand up for myself at times, but I put others first before me. Well, I used to do that all the time, blindly, and didn’t even know the whole story. I would stand up for my friends, and that got me into a lot of unnecessary trouble.
I believe that’s what life is all about. It’s what my life was all about. But I was so wrong and young minded because I was taken advantage of and used as the fall guy for someone else’s wrong doings. My family taught me to be this way toward my siblings. The oldest brother has to stand up for his younger brothers and sisters and if I did that I would have to answer to my uncles, dad, and aunties.
The rest of the family members were older than me and that’s what I didn’t want. I tested the water a few times and got beat up by my dad and uncles, which was something I didn’t want to keep happening. Being a brave protector is hard work but being brave comes with a certain maturity because you have to know when to be brave and who to be brave for, and know who you’re sacrificing for at certain times, even when the sacrifice is yourself for the greater good or another person.
You have to lead by example to others. What makes me brave is having the willpower to stand up for others and what’s right in the purest form possible while leading others to do the same. That’s bravery to me. On the other hand being brave has failed me a few times, too many times to count. It’s never a good feeling, standing up for someone who said they would be with you in confronting a bully and his friends but the person I’m standing up for, by myself, facing the bully and his friends alone.
That’s not the spirit but I stand up for the cause still and for myself and face them head on, win, lose, or draw, because that’s how I was raised so long ago. Being brave for someone failed me then, and that’s not the only time that has happened.
There was another time when bravery failed me. When I was little and my uncles and I were watching Friday the 13th Jason movies and my uncles had to leave to do something, they would leave me in the living room alone wrapped in a blanket at eleven at night. I was eight or nine years old at the time watching scary movies, trying to be brave.
I would just keep telling myself I can do it. I can do it. I can’t do it. I’m scared to death. So scared I couldn’t look away from the movie, and I was too scared to get up off the couch to go to bed or use the bathroom. So I just sat there scared to death, thinking the shadows were out to get me. Every little noise had me jumping, spooked, and I couldn’t move but as soon as someone came in the room I broke fast from the couch and used the bathroom and went to bed with the lights on bright, still spooked. All the adults in my house knew I was scared, they just laughed and left me alone.
One of the most courageous things I’ve ever done was stand up to my best friend Robert’s step-dad.. His stepdad was mad at something the mom did, so Rob stood up to the dad, on behalf of his mom, which was what he was supposed to do. His step-dad hit him, chased him out of the house, but sometime around there, Rob called me. I was in a foster home with Bobby a while and I spoke to Rob, he told me what went down and I spoke with his lovely mom.
I was on my way to his house which was a block or two away from where I was staying. I rode my bike. When I got there, Rob was outside waiting for me. As soon as he saw me he was excited. I saw that I didn’t care that he was going up against a grown man, his stepdad. None of that mattered to me. All I knew was I had to be brave to protect my friend and his mom.
So Rob and I jumped his dad in the front lawn, with plastic bats, y’all know the yellow whiffle ball bat that you get from Toys “R” Us with a white ball with holes in it, LOL. But we waited for his stepdad and beat him down.
He said that Robbie couldn’t come back home so that night Robbie stayed the night at my house even though the foster mom, Bobbie, wouldn’t allow it. I didn’t care. I did it anyway. ‘Till this day she never found out.
The next morning, he went to his grandmother’s house and that was when Robert and I became more than just best friends, we became brothers for life.
RIP to Robert as well, who passed away six or seven months ago, from a work accident. I love you Robert and I always will. Forever and always you’ll be my little brother from a different mother. Your brothers and three sisters as well.
Y’all my family no matter what and nothing or no one can ever change that. I know I haven’t met your kids yet Robert, but I promise you, someday I will. Mark my words.