Yes, along with my younger brother, we endured nothing but hunger, abuse and loneliness because my mother was a junkie. In fact, she was more into her drugs than into her children. And because of her addiction, my younger brother was sexually abused.

By the time I was 4, my 15-year-old brother Jerald, who had endured the same and had left home before I was born, returned one day. And, while my mother was in one of her drug binges, removed my younger brother and I from our "home" and into the world.

We began our journey on the tough streets of South Central LA, California, enduring six months of living in abandoned buildings while my older brother hustled, conned and did odds and ends to feed us in an attempt at survival... until he, in fact, also gave up the fight...

This is when California Child Protective Services arrived in my life...my younger brother and I would soon be mired in the web of the CPS...a name intended to mean, "we PROTECT" the little ones...

I would soon discover that this "PROTECTION" only meant further abuse and hardship. For soon I would be placed in a tough boys home where the abuse continued and I fought it tooth and nail, and my brother? Well, he was sent to a foster home where adoption was soon his destiny.

Yes, alone... scared... wanting what little love and comfort I had experienced from my brothers... I would battle with the storm's tide while my little brother was ripped from my life and placed in a foster home.

And so, at four and a half years old, I grieved for my loss and my three-year-old brother's loss. I grieved for the loss of a mother who did not care. I grieved for the loss of the only Father Figure I had --my older brother--who had also given up on us.

With no real love, no family, carrying the burden of so much, I would never find peace and solace. Yes, I would soon become angry and sad, yet feeling that I had to show strength.

From one boy's home to the next, seven years would flash by and yet, I would not see my friend, my playmate, my comfort and half of my very heart... my brother again...

And so, as my desperation continued, I ran away from a boy's home located in Riverside, California. I was eleven by then and seeking love, family and a father figure and soon discovered that there were others just like me...

Sanbernadino, California, they called themselves the i.e. 5x crip [i.e. =Inland Empire].

The I.E. 5xCrip was a tough group of sixty 16 to 19 year old gang members. They seemed to care about me. And all I had to do was to "Jump In" and I would have a lot of father figures and a family I could call my own...

Jumping Into this group was not what I envisioned at the start. Though I was told what "Jumping In" was and meant, the beating I took...took a while to get over. But I did "get over" it and was soon not only PROUD that I had endured, but eager was my entire being to prove that I was a part of it all... yes, a part of this family...

My first "Family Chore" was selling drugs...from marijuana to heroin I moved it all...while the "Family" or "Crew" gathered the profits..

And, so, I lived in vacant houses and learned to "Skim" the top... I would add stems to the ounces of pot I sold, and cut the heroin and cocaine. By the time I was fourteen my volume grew and I had mastered the business. I had not only grown my "Business" but was smoking the dope and snorting the cain...

After three years of selling dope and doing things that were crazy when we weren't selling dope, like setting a semi-truck carrying 800 bales of hay on fire while it was running down the road just for a few kicks, I discovered I had a GRANDFATHER IN NEW YORK! Yes, a grandfather!

WOW!! Really, I had discovered there was a MAN out there I could claim I was related to... Some one that was an elder.. a REAL father figure and I was tired of the streets, the games, the loneliness and the living on the edge. Yes, I thought, I could go there and my life would change! Yes, it was worth the thought! The trip, the fact that it would be a relative and that he must be looking for me! And so, with the thought that my life might change for the better...I teamed up with a homeboy [another, close gang member] who had a ride and convinced him that the BUCKS were greater in New York (even though I had never been there!) and left California for New York City. He was high on the thought that the cash was LARGER in NY.

Even though I had a bankroll of two thousand by then, we would siphon gas all during the trip!

We arrived in the Bronx, NY and found where my Grandfather lived and soon were knocking at his door.

Though he seemed surprised, his face lighting up when I introduced myself as his grandson, even asking "which one", my "grandfather" invited us in for an hour and then notified me that he "had to get back to what he was doing"...

And so, it was back to doing what I knew ...

I lay low for a while and then got busted for selling drugs.

I would spend the next six months in Warwick State Training School for Boys, a place that was pure insanity, until the California CPS was notified and I was released into their custody.

[note from Rock: a glorified name for a place of hell - I was there for 6 months in 1965],

When I arrived back in California, CPS delivered me to another another boys home located in Redlands. I was there for four days before the opportunity arrived for me to split the place.

I hitch hiked home. That is, to the place I remembered best as home:

South Central Los Angels....

...and joined another gang...

The Latino: South Side Baldwin Parka..

Now, though I have gray-blue eyes and dirty-blonde hair, I am Latino and speak enough Spanish to communicate with ease.

I jumped in once more and moved up some...

While a member of South Side Baldwin Parka, I was shot in the face, had a fellow gang member try and slice my arm off for defending homeless people that stayed in the vacant building the gang occupied and "Jacked" stores during the Rodney King LA Riots.

I was sixteen years old and the Devil was my partner. Every drug I sold, every store or business I robbed, any dollar I made, was made in anger and getting even with anyone who even reminded me of my hopes... and getting even with anybody and everybody remained the motivating force for my life...

Well, one day we were hanging and doing what Gang Members do when not "conducting" business, downing "Forty's" [40 ounces of Old English 8 Ball beer] and smoking "BLUNTS" [cigars which are cut, hollowed out, and filled with Marijuana], when some of the crew decided to "Ride The Boulevard" and "Chill" [cruising where gang members show off their cars and hydraulics and, generally, show off] when we were informed that their were some other gang members "Disrespecting" our "Hood" or "Click".

We decided to ride to the Hood of the Gang that disrespected our hood and "Cap" them [ a term meaning murder or kill by gun fire].

Well, during the ride to Compton, I passed out from being "Blazed Up" [well, this is obvious:stoned, drunk] and when I awoke we were in the middle of a firefight on the streets of Compton LA.

It took a few days for the Law to catch up with us. There were witnesses whom identified us. I wound up charged with 4 felonies, including Murder in The First Degree...

Though charged with these offenses, and the fact that the State had a witness to who was in the car, no other evidence existed. With only circumstantial evidence, the State offered a plea bargain and I received 5-10 years in the Los Padrinos State Penitentiary.

When I arrived at Los Padrinos-- called "Hell's Hole" by most inmates --I was tormented because of my looks. I had long hair and did not look like a convict. After three days of hell, a guy who went by the name of Bino befriended me. A member of the Italian Mob, Bino was a BIG GUY who informed me that if I let these guys, and one in particular, get away with what they was doing, it would only get worse. He recommended a way to teach the leader of those harassing me a lesson.

And so, I hid behind the door in the chow hall and when the tormenter came around the door to pull my hair, I laid him out with the door and started kicking him until he did not get up..

I had gained RESPECT and from there on I hung with Bino.

Though I was respected, the three and a half years that I would eventually complete were pure terror. Unimaginable acts perpetuated on the weaker species, nothing to do but be locked down and look out four blurry windows wondering what was going on in the "real world".

When I was released I was nineteen and a half. I was placed on House Arrest in a half way house and wore a monitor on my ankle.

I was in the half-way house for a week when I heard my older brother was living with a man said to be MY FATHER in Texas, I ripped the ankle monitor off and split for Texas!!!

By now the road I had traveled was coming full circle. I was on my way once again in search of my Father Figure. The journey had been one of pure survival. And, in fact, one I may have participated in, but one that I was tired of living. The very thought that I would possibly meet the man who was my father was the greatest feeling I had in my entire life...

It was great when I got to Texas. Yes, there was a father and he treated me like his own. He took care of me. Allowed me to become a part of his life right then and there...

My dad's name was Oscar Reyna. In addition to working for the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, he dabbled in real estate and owned a business. My life for the very first time seemed on the mend. Though all the time I had spent on the streets, in homes and detention centers, in gangs and in prison had toughed up my mind and actions, I always has a soft spot, a bit of love, a care for those who were or had suffered or were homeless.

In fact, the time I was shot in the face, and the time I nearly had my arm cut off, were only the greater of the violence that was began by my standing up for others. So, I guess, I really wanted just a normal, as normal as my mind could comprehend, life.. and with my father, I found it...

My dad bought me clothing, treated me as HIS OWN and showed it. Soon I had a job with Miller Distributing, in fact, I held the job for an entire year and a half and met a wonderful girl named Toni. Soon I had a little boy named Dakota and was living a life that I could only dream of during all those cold nights when the gang members went home and I lived in some rotting building...

In 1997, two weeks before thanks giving, I was at home when he passed away at 54 years of age.

We had just finished eating pizza when he told me his chest hurt and i thought it was heartburn. I asked him if he wanted me to call 911, he said no. I asked him several times after that but he still said no, but continued to steadily worsen. Finally I had to physically lift him and place him on the living room floor.

I simply could not take it any more so i called an ambulance. When they finally showed up they started asking me all kinds of questions i could not answer. I was frozen like a statue...I was in the most terrible pain and horror of my life. I had gotten to love this man. He had loved me, cared for me, elicited all that was good in me...and now, men stood in uniforms identifying all that was sickness and hospitals...asking questions, attending to my father with haste...and I was worried like I had never ever been so before...

They then told me they were taking him to the hospital and not to follow to close. I ran out side and jumped in his truck...running every red light until I arrived at the hospital.

Once in the hospital I sat in agony and worry for hours. I did not pray to any God, I did not ask for anyone's help, I was petrified. Yes, I had never asked anyone for anything in my life. In fact this was why my brother was adopted and I sent to homes that were little more than detention centers full of society's lost. After all, even though my older had "rescued" us, it was I at four years of age that defended that three-year-old I knew as my brother. Yes, at four years of age it was I who saw and knew and tried and cried and wished. It was I who comforted my brother--who was but one year in age less then I. And here I was finally with love and laughter and the man responsible for this was lying in a bed somewhere down some hallway fighting for HIS very life...

When the doctors finally came out of the emergency area they informed me that he had a coagulated vein to his heart and they were trying to stabilize him. My dad had had a massive heart attack and things were touch and go. I asked the doctors if he was going to die they told me they did not know.

Two hours later they sent a priest out to tell me he was not going to make it I got up and informed the doctors I wanted to see my father immediately.

When I entered the room, my father lay in a bed with tubes and such running everywhere. Though awake he was delirious. I approached the bed and began telling him not to die...

All he could say was "where is my sheba" [note: Oscar owned a tan Labrador retriever].

I began to get hysterical, shaking him, telling him he could not die, asking him "What About ME!!! Yelling "WHAT ABOUT ME!!!"

By this time I had lost it all... the doctors yanked me out of the room and i burst into tears...

Forty five minutes later he was dead...

I saw his body one last time and then left.

I tried to commit suicide.. .To KILL MYSELF...but just could not..

My father would leave me everything he owned. Forty Thousand dollars in life insurance, several properties, three burial plots and three vehicles.

But I would never receive much of anything.

A brother of my dad prepared the funeral in Brownsville, a 10 hours ride from Ft Worth, where my father lived and died. He ordered thousands of dollars in flowers and such, an expensive casket, and more. Even though my dad had specifically stated that if he passed away that he wanted a plain and simple funeral [note: David's father was sick with heart disease long before David appeared and after David reunited with him, Oscar prepared to take care of his son]. By the time the insurance settlement arrived, I had to use every cent but a few thousand to pay both the hospital and the funeral home.

All the other items, property and such was soon in the hands of other relatives who swooped up from Brownsville and laid claim regardless to the desire my father or myself...

After the funeral was held Brownsville, Texas, I sold a 1995 ford f150 pick up in mint condition for eight hundred dollar so i could pay additional bills and then "my" family came and took every thing else from me including several antiques, my jeep and a camero that was left to me.

Soon, with me in depression and grief, Toni left me and moved away. And I have yet to see my son.

Since my father passed away, I have been either locked up in county jails or on the streets working odd and end jobs for pennies on the dollar. I even came to Atlanta, Georgia with a man that said he would help me with a job ..only to arrive and discover no job for me nor a place to live.

Though I went and got a job at a nursery our third day in Georgia, this guy who brought me here for some great job that evaporated the minute we arrived ended up in jail in a town named Doraville.

He then began calling the nursery so much [note: thirteen times in two days] that the call fees where taken from my check., reducing my pay by 70%!

Out of my first check of one hundred and twenty dollars, I received fifty dollars and had never spoken with him one time on any phone!

With not enough cash to pay for the cheap motel I was staying in, I was reduced to pan handling for two days.

From Cummings to Duluth, Georgia, I panhandled until I had a total of eighty dollars. I used seventy-three of this to purchase a bus ticket in Norcross, Georgia.

At the bus station I met a man by the name of Rocky Scarfone and he gave me a business card and told me about his organization. He was there purchasing a ticket for another guy he was bringing up to Atlanta for a program he ran. He told me if I was serious about bringing change and opportunity into my life to call him in about two weeks when he could afford to take on another student for his program.

I took his card and he was gone and I was on the bus to Texas. Rock then came back to Norcross because he said he knew God wanted him to make the room for me. In fact, the woman who operates the Norcross Greyhound Terminal even tried to call Atlanta and notify me that he had decided to get me and let me stay in Atlanta and learn.

I arrived Fort Worth Texas...back to where I had begun 19 years ago, living in vacant buildings and doing yard work and restaurant work for very little money.

I then called Rocky and he asked me if i was ready to rock and roll and get serious about a trade and i said yes and he bought me a bus ticket the next day.

I am now in Georgia with an organization where youth help youth called the Lighthouse Sanctuary Youth Foundation. Learning a trade in computers and self-confidence and learning why my life may have been so hard, for there is a God, and I am learning Who He Is!

A lot of kids out there have a hard life and I'm not saying that my life was harder than any of theirs or that theirs was harder than mine, but you have to take life one day at a time and not think out loud and think before you act. Dont take advantage of life but take life for its advantages. Be your self, don't try and be like every one else.....

David Reyna