.....Thinking?

This morning I wandered a little out of my school drop off routine, stopping by 7-11 on my way home for a cup of Coffee. I ran into a person I knew as a child. Our roads in life have taken very opposite directions, as we stand in line to pay for our coffee he says hi I return the gesture. I pay for my coffee and tell him and the cashier to have a great day and I addressed him by name (that always makes me feel good when someone does this for me so I try to do the same). As I walk to my truck I think of my childhood, thinking if things in his life had happened a little different, if he would not be on the path he is on now??? I remember hearing the yelling, as I run up the stairs in my house to look out the sliding glass doors, I see it happening again his father punching him and yelling, as this young high school kid stays quit and defends himself as much as he can. Did this make him take the road he is on now? Seeing this along with my own things in my life…did this help me take my own road??? This young man was always talked down to by his father. He tried for as long as he could to impress him or tried to do the best he could to do as his father said…. Is this why he has turned to a life of drugs, was he physically and emotionally beat down to the point he felt this was the only way? I live in a small town and I have fought for my place in this world! To not take the paths my own Dad took, the man who had the world in the palm of his hand, the man who threw his life, along with his place as half owner of a prosperous Drilling Co., and his own family away for DRUGS!!!! I am one of the many that have used my past to help me in the present…to try my hardest to not resent the bad things that have happened to me in my childhood, but to help me grow in a positive way. I try to help my own family, love people and to help them be better people. Use the knowledge of…. we don’t know how there day started, and maybe something horrible happened to them today, this is why they were not nice to us. But our kind words may have helped them make it through the day! My Mom did a very good job raising her family as a single parent! She did her best to be the Father and the Mother, but in the end we are the ones that make the choice of what path we take in life. She did her very best to teach us right from wrong! I think my choice was a GREAT one!! I love my life and I love my family!!! All of them!!!