What if I was brave?

THE STORIES THAT GOT ME HERE

Weeks before I graduated university, I was offered a job. The position would put me in Manhattan full-time and pay in the range of $80,000/year. For someone fresh out of school, that’s really good money, and living in New York city made it even more alluring.

But I turned it down. Without even a second thought, I turned it down. I’d been away from my daughter for the better part of four years by then and the thought of permanently relocating to another country and not being with her wasn’t an option for me.

It was a risk. I didn’t have anything lined up back home in Toronto. Plus 80k could’ve really gone a long way to establishing some financial security early on in my career. But my priorities were different.

—

When my girlfriend was about five months pregnant with my daughter, she had no place to live. She got into a dispute with the landlord and he wanted her out that month. Her pride kept her angry at first, but that anger quickly turned to fear when there were only seven days before the month was over and she still had nowhere to go.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, but she was 17 at the time. No one wanted to rent to a teenager, even if they were pregnant, or maybe especially if they were pregnant.

Even though I was spending most of my time at her place, I still lived with my mother. But when I saw garbage bags filled with clothes at the side of her bed and her lying there with our child protruding just a nudge through her stomach, I had to do something.

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There was one place offering rent in a not-so-nice part of the city. When we went to see the place, which was a basement apartment, one of my aunt’s through marriage happened to be the owner. I explained our situation and pleaded with her to give us a chance. Although she already had a prospective tenant, she let us have it.

And I say us because even though I had a home, I decided to make one with my girlfriend. She wouldn’t stay there alone; not with our child. I wanted to be there with her for every part of the journey, including the difficult times.

So despite objections from my mother, despite calls from family members and friends begging me to reconsider and not “throw my life away,” I dropped out of my final year of high school and got a job to help pay for our apartment.

—

When I was in tenth grade, I was failing English. My teacher told me the only way I could pass the class was to get a perfect score on the final exam.

I was writing books since I was eight and reading since I was three. I wasn’t failing English because I couldn’t do the work, I was failing because I didn’t want people to know I was smart. I was known as a basketball player throughout high school and that was the image I wanted to project. Getting good grades wasn’t cool and so I consciously lagged behind.

On the day of the exam, I was calm. More than that, I would say I was confident. We had to write a short story and despite my mark, I knew I had it in me. A few days later, the teacher pulled me into her room before class started.

“You don’t have to do this, Kern. You don’t need to hide or pretend. You’re a special writer, you just need to be brave.”

She handed me my exam with a perfect score.

I never failed another class.

When I saw this teacher nearly a decade later while speaking at my old high school, I thanked her.

“You saw me,” I told her. “And gave me permission to not fit in. You made me brave.”

I don’t turn down that $80,000 job without this teacher seeing me.

I don’t stay in that apartment without this teacher seeing me.

I don’t eventually find a way to graduate high school and accept a full-scholarship to university where I begin writing my first novel without this teacher seeing me.

She saw me and made me see myself. It has been the gift that has continued to shape my life, because once I saw who I could be, nothing was going to stop me from becoming that person.