Seijo's Story: Open Mic

My Father did the best he could raising two boys without my mother and himself without a wife.  Dad worked long grueling hours at various jobs just to provide for us.  Unfortunately, I was not that close with my father.  Grounded in Japanese culture my father never really showed much affection but we always knew how deeply he loved us.  We were his world.  Only seven years after I lost my mother, in November of 1995, my father met his untimely death. Through the sadness, it brought me great comfort, knowing that he and my mother were in heaven together. 

Since 1995, I have been on my own, experiencing greatness and other things that were not so great.  Nevertheless, I've learned to appreciate all things, falling in both the good and bad categories of life.  I've always had faith that everything in life happens for a reason and you can learn from every situation that comes your way.  I learned what happiness is through years of sadness.  Reading this, it may not be clear what I've gone through to get to this point in this journey called life, but the 10 years following my father's death were chaotic and I felt like a lost soul searching for guidance.  The awesome discovery birthed out of this painful journey was that what I was searching for was inside of me the whole time. 

Rather than belaboring you with my entire life's story, I will only briefly touch on the one experience which motivated me to change, ultimately bettering my life.  In October 2005, just released from jail, I found myself with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.  I walked around Manhattan in the pouring rain for two days, refusing to sleep on a park bench.  I finally swallowed my pride, went to Bellevue Hospital and officially became homeless.  They transferred me to the Bedford/Atlantic Men's Shelter in Brooklyn, NY.  I looked around and all I saw was what I didn't want to become.  There were people who had lost faith and given up on life as well as themselves.  They would try to escape reality any way they could.  Some smoked crack in the bathrooms of the shelter, while others sniffed and shot heroin.  I realized that I could get help but I also knew that I had to help myself.  I decided to use the local government system to my advantage.  Any assistance I qualified for, that is what I applied to; medicaid, food stamps and public assistance.  I immediately started looking for a job, without knowing the difficulties one would face with a felony on record and no real address.  Eventually, someone in the shelter connected me with a job working in construction.  I saved enough money after only 6 months to get my own place in the Bronx! 

I could fill this entire publication with my experiences leading up to the homeless shelter but instead I feel compelled to write about the situation that gave me the courage to change my life for good.  If you were to meet me today, you would meet a man whose life has completely spun 180 degrees.  I am now living on the Upper East Side with my girlfriend and we are expecting our first child. It's a boy!  I study karate faithfully, which has become a great outlet for me physically, mentally and spiritually.  I would consider myself an artist of many crafts. From acting and poetry to music production, my appetite for the arts seems virtually insatiable.  Currently, I am working at a restaurant which provides a steady income. This income will prepare financial security for the birth of my son. I want to make sure he will never have to see or go through what I went through.  I will always appreciate my father's unspoken love, but life has taught me to express my love everyday. This is something I plan to share with everyone I care about in this world, especially my son.   

*Don't forget to check out Seijo's prose in both audio and video formats.