We're All Insane - My Parents Murdered My 5-Month-Old Brother

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

#foryou #podcast Tracey was adopted out of foster care after his biological parents murdered his 5-month-old brother.The ripple effects of that tragedy shaped everything that came after — the trauma, the confusion, and eventually, the long road toward healing. This is his story of growing up with a past he didn’t choose, learning the truth about where he came from, and finding peace in the life he has built since. Tracey's Links: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahgray157?_t=ZT-90kIwUeOM0s&_r=1 00:00:00 What happens when a baby is born into violence and neglect? 00:03:10 How does the foster system handle infants from abusive homes? 00:07:40 Why do early childhood memories of fear stay so vivid for life? 00:12:25 What emotional damage comes from forced visits with abusive parents? 00:17:50 How do children interpret love when it’s mixed with fear and control? 00:23:15 Why do courts so often overlook clear signs of child abuse? 00:28:40 How can one law permanently protect a child from returning to danger? 00:34:10 What makes some children feel unworthy of love after adoption? 00:39:25 How does religious guilt deepen existing trauma in childhood? 00:45:05 Why do survivors of abuse often develop chronic anxiety or nightmares? 00:50:20 What can honest parenting teach about rebuilding trust after trauma? 00:56:15 How does bullying reinforce the pain of childhood neglect? 01:01:40 Why do many trauma survivors get misdiagnosed with other disorders? 01:07:30 How can medication mask — rather than heal — deep emotional wounds? 01:12:55 Why do teens from abusive homes turn to drugs or alcohol for relief? 01:18:45 What are the warning signs of suicidal thoughts in trauma survivors? 01:24:30 How do unresolved family secrets trigger self-destruction? 01:29:55 What happens when reconnecting with biological family reopens wounds? 01:35:25 How does witnessing violence shape the way someone handles anger? 01:40:45 Why is forgiveness so complicated for people who were hurt by family? 01:46:00 How can therapy or mentorship finally help someone break the cycle? 01:51:30 What lessons do survivors learn about boundaries and self-respect? 01:57:00 Why do trauma survivors often become protectors in adulthood? 02:02:20 How does parenthood transform the healing process after abuse? 02:08:05 What helps survivors stop repeating old coping patterns? 02:13:15 How can faith or spirituality evolve after religious trauma? 02:19:25 What does it mean to finally feel safe in your own body? 02:25:10 How can sharing your story turn pain into purpose? 02:31:00 Why do survivors often minimize their trauma until they speak it aloud? 02:37:45 What does real healing and self-forgiveness look like decades later? Topics: Adoption, Foster Care, Survival, Abuse If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the podcast, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ZiHgdoK4PLRAddiB9 or send an email to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me DeVora. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. My name is Tracy. I was adopted out of foster care after my parents murdered my five-month-old older brother. My mom was 18 years old at the time and was pregnant with me. My dad was 34. They both initially were charged with first-degree murder and both received plea bargains down the road. Whenever I was born, I had to have unsupervised, supervised and unsupervised visits with my mom when she was still in prison and then when she got out of prison.

Did she have you when she was in prison? She did. She was in the county jail. I'm from central Arkansas. She was in the county jail. And they were able to transfer her to one of the local hospitals. And when I was born, my APGAR score was 2 and 3, which if you're not familiar with an APBAR score, they're taking one minute and five minutes after birth. And the maximum score that you can have is 10. And my initial score was a 2, so I was essentially lifeless. They kind of put me to the side. And then five minutes later, it was a three. And they realized that I was alive and began resuscitative efforts. I was immediately taken by DHS. And DHS makes books.

I found recently that it's called the Book of Life. And DHS made one for me. I call it my first family photo. It says there's a lady named Kim who's taking me to my first foster home. And you might have to forgive some of my dark humor. Okay. I'm a professional firefighter and a paramedic. And also with some of the things that I went through,

I've developed quite a sense of dark humor. And I think that's a coping mechanism. Yeah. But I found that first family photo. I call it hilarious. You know, like, what a memory. I don't know who Kim is. We're looking for, but maybe one day we'll figure it out.

I do have pretty vivid memories of going to visit with my mom when she was at Tucker prison. obviously she couldn't be real physically abusive in the prison. But one of the things that I remember the most is when DHS would come to get me, I was always scared to go. And I would try to fight them as a little kid. And the foster family that I had the most ended up adopting me. They are 60 years older than me.

When they adopted me, they were 65 and 64. They were foster parents for more than 30 years. They're just wonderful, wonderful people. My dad used to tell me stories about when they would come to get me, I would try to fight them. And, you know, they were told they couldn't hold on to me. They couldn't console me. They couldn't comfort me because they needed to just get out the door and go. Because I was going to see my mom no matter what.

And I remember, like, scratching the floor and holding on a door frames. I broke a piece of trim off of a door one day. And I never really understood why they felt. forced those visits. Yeah. And then one of the last visits that I can vividly remember, I had two new transporters. It was a man and a woman. Usually it was a woman named Paula, who was a very influential person in my life.

One of the only people in DHS that ever cared about me. I actually get to meet up with her at the end of this week. We got reconnected last week. But the last time that I remember going, it was a man and a woman. they didn't actually know where to go. And my dad and my mom both said that I helped them find Tucker Prison. Of course, that was before GPS. That was like MapQuest days.

But as a little kid, I remember helping them find the prison. And that day, whenever we left, I wouldn't give my mom a hug. And she couldn't hit me or smack me or anything. So she spit in my face. And I don't know why, but that, that, like, messed with me. Of course. Whenever she got out of prison, She lived with her mom.

I called her Granny. That was my grandmother, my maternal grandmother. Her name was Rebecca. And I just remember her being so sweet. I remember her having to wear a handkerchief on her, on her head or a scarf on her head because she had cancer. Of course, I found that out later. I just thought she was bald. Yeah.

I didn't know. But she was always very protective of me. I obviously still had to go visit. My mom. Which is crazy. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense to me. No.

So two questions really quick. Sure. I'm sure maybe you found this out later, but was there ever an explanation given as to their reasoning behind murdering your brother? No. No. And I have all of the fact sheets and all of the documentation. Some of them that I just recently found and read. You know, there was an admittance, I guess.

I guess I should back up a little bit. My dad took a plea bargain and he got second degree murder. My mom was officially charged with like allowing the abuse of a minor. So my brother was five months old when he was murdered. He had two broken arms. He had longstanding. The medical examiner's report said he had evidence of longstanding neglect and abuse, malnourishment. How can there be longstanding when he was five months old?

I mean, that tells me from the day he was born. But he died from suffocation and had head trauma. And on the form that we found on my dad, recently it actually said that my dad held his hand over his mouth and suffocated him. What we also found out is that my mom, Ashley, tried to sell Michael in June. He was born in May. She tried to sell him in June. And I don't know if she just couldn't handle. Now, I also need to note that Kenneth is not Michael's dad.

I don't know who Michael's dad was. A lot of people have asked, well, where does, you know, Kenny and Michael, where do they, well, they're not related. And I don't know if this is like a jealous thing. I don't know if Michael was a hard infant, but there's no infant that's that hard. You'd have to. And you have to be twisted. Oh, yeah.

I mean, how do you break the bones of a five-month-old? Right. You know, it's almost impossible. It's sickening to think that, you know, he never had a change. Pants. No one ever loved him. Maybe I bet my grandmother did because of how I remember her. But my dad was a habitual offender. He had spent multiple prison stents in Washington, California, and in Arkansas by the age of 34, he had been an inpatient in the state hospital. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don't know if it was drug induced or actually a medical diagnosis. Both of my

parents were drug addicts. I was actually born addicted to methamphetamine. or methamphetamines was in my system, THC, and something else, which is confusing to me because she was in jail. Yeah. You know, how does that happen? I know you can get stuff in jail, but we have handwritten letters from Ashley that she wrote to the judge using me as leverage and bragging that she still had, you know, I think it's bragging. And maybe I'm conflicted, you know, because I don't have the highest opinion of Ashley.

but when you read it, it really sounds like she was bragging to the judge. Like, I still have a son. I needed to get out. I need to go see him. So I mentioned the sentences because my mom got out in like 18 months for a murder. I mean, I'm not going to call it anything else. That's what it was. And, you know, I think that was one of the situations where the legal system failed.

Absolutely. Big time. Whenever she got out, the house that I used to visit them in is still up. It's still up in our town. And I mentioned that I work for a fire department. Our fire station on the north side of town is like two blocks away from it. And I can't tell you how many nights on duty that I wish that we got a call for that address. It's just obviously I still have a job to do.

I wouldn't mind watching it burn. When I had the unsupervised visits with Ashley, it didn't start off crazy, but it just progressively got worse. And like I mentioned, my granny always tried to. to step in between. And, you know, with my granny having cancer, she couldn't do anything to stop Ashley. So whenever my mom would lay into me, I got to the point where I just tried to stay quiet because it was whenever I would start crying or getting upset that my granny would try to come in. And I didn't want to see Ashley turn on her. Yeah. So you get to where you just kind of, you know, just take it. And I never understood why Ashley would, she'd, she'd, she'd,

slap me, she'd hit me. I have cigarette burns still around, you know, like at that time, like a diaper line. I still have scars on the top of my, like I'm on the top of my butt, on the top of my hips from the extension cord, or she hit me so hard. This was probably, I don't remember exactly when she met him, maybe when I was four or five. And, you know, that's when it kind of shifted from physical and verbal and then started including sexual abuse. and you know it started off as just like showing me and then it started getting physical and again it was one of those situations where you just learned to be quiet yeah so was it the both of them yeah okay um and what's crazy is there there remarks like cigarette burns bruises that i know caseworkers

saw and that my parents saw and i don't know why the it's like the court just never did anything about it. Did you ever tell your, so at this point, you were adopted by the foster parents or not yet? I was not adopted yet. Actually, somehow, still had, still had rights. Okay. So how often were you seeing her? I don't, I don't actually remember. I want to say weekly, but I don't, I don't remember how many times a week. Did you ever tell your foster parents what was happening at all, or did you kind of just state by, right? Yeah, I know that they saw them. Okay. But actually, you know, I remember when I was right at the very end, when I was, uh, I got adopted the month before I turned six where I could actually, you know,

I can, I can really remember a lot of those things. And I can remember actually telling me that she would kill me. She'd killed, you know, my family. My family at that time was my foster family. We, I think all of us knew that that's where I would end up. Right. And that's, I think that she could definitely probably see that's who you cared about. That's where you felt saved. Yeah. And so yeah, I was, I was terrified. Right. You know, because I saw what she could do. Evil.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, like my, I think my shimmer of hope came, and that's kind of a dark what I say it. But, you know, whenever I was born, I mentioned my score was really low. Well, they usually with little boys, they circumcised the children at birth or very soon after. Well, they didn't worry about that with me because I had other issues to worry about, I guess my mom thought that was disgusting. I don't know. And one of the last times that I ever saw my mom, it was actually the last time I ever saw my mom on a visit.

Her and her boyfriend attempted to circumcise me with a razor blade. And that was not fun. It was pretty terrible. But thankfully, that led to the state police getting involved. And it was very evident, obviously. I didn't have to go see her again. And around the exact same time, there was a law that was amended in the state of Arkansas that stated there was a bunch of amendments. But one of the things that was stated that if there was ever a death in the family of a sibling,

if there were other siblings in the system, they could never return back to the biological family. So my dad was still in prison. He signed his rights away. But I couldn't go back to my mom, my grandmother, my uncles, my grandfather. And it literally slammed the door shut. And I couldn't be more thankful. And the judge at that time had worked with my parents for years. She was the juvenile judge over foster care and DHS.

She was skeptical about my father. parents adopting me just because of their age. Yeah. But at the same time, she knew that other families had visited my case. And I had gone to other families for small, you know, stints of time. And in my case, my family scared them away. I mean, I remember families telling me before I was adopted, you know, we really wanted to adopt you, but we're not, we're not going to adopt you.

And I can remember like desperately all I wanted was out. That's it. I wasn't even, I don't even know. I was thinking about I want a family. All I wanted was out. Yeah. That's it. Did your mom face any, your biological mom?

Did she face any consequences after that? No. Not that I'm aware of. If she did, it was, it was, I didn't know about it because when I was taken away, it was completely no contact. So I don't know, I don't know if she did or not. I didn't find anything on the court documentation. Yeah.

And I've wondered that too. Where did? Why? Right. You know? why wasn't she ever held liable for any of it? Right. And it's like it makes you think like does it really take worst case scenario to like have somebody, you know, get killed?

But then even with that, she still didn't face the necessary consequences. And even though I read the documentation recently that Kenneth admitted to it, I don't believe it for a second. Yeah. After living with Ashley, I don't believe it for a second. Right. I think that he took a plea because he was a habitual offender and he knew she was. was young and was going to try to give her a shot at life. Some weird act of, you know, like trying to be noble or something.

Had I stayed with Ashley, I would have been just like Michael. I do remember the day I got adopted. And I remember the judge getting down, like in my face. She was a sweet lady. She actually came into my life. I was a teenager in a weird way. But she asked me if I knew what was going on. And I said, yes, ma'am, I'm getting a family.

And the funny part, the attorney had lied on, you know, was like, do you want to change your name. And he asked my parents. And they were like, no, we don't think so. I'm not a fan of the name Tracy, but it is what it is. But I very vividly remember the attorney that lied to me. He was like, well, what about Brian? And, you know, why would you give a five-year-old or an almost six-year-old the opportunity to change their name? Like, I could have been Frankenstein, you know, like I'm big daddy or something. But the name Tracy, I'm actually named after my biological uncle on my dad's side, who's also serving a life sentence in prison for murder. Yeah, I didn't come from a great family for sure but I'm very very thankful that the judge was finally gracious enough to let my adopted

family adopt me right I know that there were odds against them but my adopted parents were my saving grace and it's crazy because even though they were such good people I tried so hard to push them away because I felt like undeserving I think too it's another coping mechanism in the sense of trying to keep people at a distance to prevent yourself from getting let down. Yeah. Or hurt. You've been so.

I was so scary. Hurt isn't even the word of what you went through. Yeah. It was hard. My mom got pregnant. Ashley, and I have to, I want to say, the only time I ever call my adopted parents, my adopted parents is what I'm trying to explain like this.

Yeah. So I may say bio and adopted, it may get redundant, but I just want it to be. clear. My biological mom ended up getting pregnant again and having another child. It's my younger brother. My parents took me to see Ashley one more time after I was adopted. And it was really for me to go see my brother.

And I had kindergarten graduation coming up. And I was super proud of it. And I wanted to tell my mom. And what's really crazy is even after all of the bad, I still wanted to make Ashley happy. I still wanted her to be excited. And I remember that that day that we went to see her, she was at her dad's house, my grandfather. And I even had like my little certificate

that I was supposed to keep and keeping my folder and bring for graduation. And I showed it to her and she didn't care at all, you know. And my grandmother, of course, she loved it. But I can remember seeing Austin and he was a baby. And I remember trying to give him a hug. And like Ashley, my adopted parents were with me this time. so that there wasn't anything that could be done.

I remember her pushing me back, and my mom, my adopted mom, at that time was 65. Let me tell you something. She's about 5'5 and every bit of a fireball for her babies. And I remember when Ashley pushed me back, she was like, absolutely not. Let him see his brother. And I got to see him for just a second, but I didn't see him again until 2015. I didn't know anything about him. I didn't know where he went.

but I'm sure we'll get to that. After I was adopted, my parents, them being their age, they had a landline, and they had the same number from like the 60s. They'd still have it today if they'd let them. They don't, but Ashley had that phone number, and she would call all the time. And my parents were always very honest with me. My adopted parents were always honest with me, which I remembered a lot of it, but even as I got older, they would be sure and tell me when I had questions, hard questions.

they tell me the truth. And, you know, back then that was hard to hear sometimes. But as an adult looking back, I'm thankful for it because I never questioned. And even when it was hard, they would, if they weren't able to answer it, they would just say, we'll talk about it soon, or they would try to gently answer it. When I was old enough to understand and they'd answer the hard questions, they would just tell me and let me kind of sit in it. And they would just be there with me.

Yeah. And sometimes it's all that I needed. But Ashley would call frequently. And the times that I did get to talk to her, it was always negative. This was your fault. You're the reason that you got taken away. Austin ended up getting taken away. And then the phone calls transitioned from, this is all your fault.

You deserved everything that happened to now it's my fault that she's lost Austin and that she's in legal trouble. She got in trouble in Texas. She moved to Texas. I don't know why, but that's where she lost my brother. And it was like, she'd call every year on my birthday. and she'd call every year at Christmas, but then in between, we never knew. And every single time I talked to her, it was the same thing.

And so my parents caught on to it after, who knows how long, and they would try to filter them out. But again, I wanted to talk to her. It's the innocence of a child. When I would tell mom and dad, you know, they would say, hey, your mom called. I get mad at them. Why don't you let me talk to her? And I know now that it had to been confusing for them.

They didn't want to watch me continue to go through that. And, you know, if someone talk to my children like that, oh, man. Right. You know, I'm not a confrontational person, but for my children, yeah, you know, we'll ride at dawn. I think, too, probably the little version of you just wanted that approval. Yeah. Which is heartbreaking. Yeah.

It doesn't make sense. But are, like, at that age, and even, like you said, even 21, your brain isn't developed fully to even grasp and understand. and understand things. You know what I mean? But I think that it is so incredible that your adopted parents were so honest with you because it's like even if you couldn't fully understand

the things that they were telling you, like you said you never questioned anything. Right. And I think that that makes a big difference even though it's hard and scary and confusing. I think it's very important because you're not, you know, being sheltered from anything. Right.

Oh, they were old school. And, you know, my dad, was a on top of them the age gap he was also a Baptist preacher so that was tough and he was like an old school Baptist preacher like the hellfire brimstone you know we went to church Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night once every month on a Monday for youth rallies you know three weeks out of the summer for revival you know if you don't repent you're going to hell kind of deal and that's terrifying if you you know if you're anxious if you're fearful that doesn't that means you don't trust Jesus and that's all right that's all right you're going to hell kind of deal and that's

all that I lived in. Yeah. You know, I slept, I had to sleep in a bed with, I don't even think my wife knows this, and it's silly, but I had to sleep in a bed with my adopted mom until I was a teenager because Ashley would call and she would say that she was going to come get me. And I believed her. You know, and I was so scared that she was going to do that. And so I slept with my mom until I was in, you know, junior high.

When I started having friends over, you can't do that and be cool. You know, you can't sleep with your mom. mom and be cool. But I was so, so, so scared that she was, she's just going to show up. And I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was like seven or eight. One of the stipulations of my adoption was that I had to have to be in therapeutic counseling with, I don't know if it's a national chain, but it was called Community Counseling Center. They'd come to school and I'd be pulled out of class and have sessions like weekly, and then I also had to have individual counseling sessions outside of school.

And I was diagnosed with PTSD really early, which I believed because I had the same nightmare almost every night. It was the night that the last day I saw Ashley. And it didn't matter that it was a dream or whatever you want to call it, a night terror. It was always just as real. And of course, I felt like I couldn't escape it because the scar was. were still there and you know when you're in when you're in school and you get into like middle school junior high football like obviously I wasn't naked and they weren't staring at you know me there but

like I said I have cigarette burns yeah and I have scars from other incidents and kids are ruthless you know kids are absolutely ruthless I was bullied for stupid stuff I was bullied because I was adopted I was bullied because I had hammy downs. You know, as an adult, I buy jeans that are two inches longer on the end scene because I was bullied for flooding. It's crazy, but it's something that I picked up on through a couple of retreats that I've been to. You know, when you try to look back and look at in fine habits. And I laugh now, but I never realize that subconsciously that's, you know, why I was doing the things that I was doing. I went to a

For me, it's a big school. In my area, it's a pretty big school. I graduated with like 370 people maybe in my class. And I went there from kindergarten to graduation. So I knew everybody. You know, I wasn't Mr. Popular. We were dirt poor. Both of my parents were retired.

Both of them on fixed incomes. So we were dirt poor. But we were. happy. And I also didn't mention my adopted parents had children of their own. They had three biological. My oldest sister right now is 72. So if that puts it into perspective, my dad's 91. My oldest sister is 72, 72, 70, and then I think Ronald is 68. So obviously, they weren't in the house. My parents fostered for a couple more years after they adopted me, but then they closed their home. They also adopted two others. It was a two brothers who are very cognitively impaired.

I don't, I don't know right. But they, they do function pretty well. Like in society, they both are incarcerated now. One of them, I believe, 100%. He was charged with possession of child pornography. But the psychiatrists all said that he had the mind of like a 12-year-old. So I'm I'm not justifying anything, but I do believe, I do believe that. My other brother, the charge that he got, I won't ever believe it. But they're both in prison for life. They, I don't even know. I think they're in their mid-50s now.

So they weren't in the home either. But it's such a weird situation because my siblings are so much older, their children. So my nieces and nephews, some of them are 15 years older than I am. Right. So they have children. So now my great nieces and great nephews, I have a great niece that's like three years younger than me. So when I grew up, there were times where we'd have my great niece and great nephew in our home. You know, their parents went through kind of a hard divorce, so they were with us a lot.

I grew up kind of as an only child, but there were seasons of my life where I had other kiddos in the home where I felt like, you know, the older sibling. When I was eight, my parents moved us out to a farm in the middle of nowhere. And it was because they wanted to raise me like they raised their children. And I'll tell you, when I was a kid, I hated it. I liked some aspects of it, but I didn't like getting up every morning and hand-milking cows and shoveling the barn and shoveling out the chicken coop. Right. You know, but now, looking back, I wish I could go back to that.

We had a huge garden that my dad made us hand-like till. He had this old farm-all tractor. It was like a 1938 farmland tractor. His pride and joy is broken down. And still having that tractor, he made us hand till it. Us is in me. And, you know, there was a lot of discipline, which I'm thankful for now. But I didn't understand it then sometimes, which I don't think any of us ever do.

No, definitely not. We like to buck and push back against our parents. But the one thing that I can say about my parents is they stood beside me 100% of the time. They didn't always agree with what I did, you know, because I was a little can't. tankress when I got a little older, but they never once ever left my side. So I was diagnosed with PTSD. I've probably been hit with, aside from schizophrenia, I've been hit with every depression, massive depressive disorder, bipolar disorder. And I really think that counselors were looking for a diagnosis. Yeah. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've sat down with a new

counselor and all right let's let's hear the story and i remember being a kid thinking i don't i don't want to do this because we're going to get hung up we're going to get hung up on you know six months of my life where it was really really bad and that's where we're going to stay and um you dump that on a counselor that says they're ready and they mine never were it seems like so they would try to medicate me and it was like nobody ever really wanted to work through the problem. And now, a lot of that too was me. You know, I was really aggressive when it would get brought up and when things would start to hurt, either I would completely shut down like I was used to and just be quiet, or I would use anger to make people leave me along. And I put on this big show and

get loud and it worked. You know, I never was a big kid. I was a little skinny. I didn't get tall until, you You know, I was a teenager, but I was able to get loud enough to get people to leave me alone. And I think that's where the medications and stuff came in, the diagnosis. Of course, when I became a teenager, I found out that there were drugs in the world. And holy cow. I was like, wait a minute. So I can go get high or drink. And when I sleep, I sleep so hard, I don't have that dream.

Yeah. So I was in. I was in for it. I got into the wrong crowd. And really, as an adult, I don't know that I like calling them the wrong crowd because they were just misunderstood like I was. All of my close friends had been through the ringer. Right. Something that made them turn to drugs to numb what they went through.

And, you know, I want to mention, too, with the therapy, while, yes, I think that children can make it difficult sometimes to really break through and work through it. it, that's what they're there for. They're there to be patient and to break down those walls, even if it takes years. Yeah. You know, their job isn't just to be like, this one's too hard, here's a medication and a diagnosis. You know, that's why nothing gets solved. Oh, absolutely.

You know, and it's, I feel like that is another way in which some things are broken. And I think that's another reason why so many people are against therapy and don't like it and say it didn't work for them. And I get it, you know, like a lot of people get it because I think that they have that experience. Yeah. And even just feeling they're like they're just another patient. Yep.

So yeah, I think that that's something that it's just patience. It takes earning that trust, you know, it's the human connection. Yeah. And it's more oftentimes than not, it seems like that's not there. Like it doesn't happen. Hey, I'm Jeremy Schwartz from American Criminal. On this season, robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder. Either way, Boston will never be the same.

Listen to American Criminal The Murder of Carol Stewart wherever you get your podcasts or to get early ad free access subscribe in Apple Podcasts Spotify or at Americancriminal.com There was one counselor which oddly enough I also ran into recently

and I didn't like him I didn't like him in all his name was Mr. Terry and I didn't like him because he was patient because it didn't matter what I would do he was like all right cool I'm going to stay right here what are you going to do you know And one of the lessons he taught me, I did this to my wife like last year, but he took a pen. And it was one of the days that I was not having a good day.

And he just started tapping it on a table. And he was like, I'm about to teach you a lesson. I was like, okay, teach me. And so he starts smacking it on this table and he wouldn't stop. And he said, what can you do about this? And I tried to stop him. And he's like, nope. We kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going.

And finally, I'm ready to, like, I'm ready to fist fight. You know, I'm like, dude, I'm. You drive me nuts. Yeah, we're going to. let's just go ahead and get it over with. And he had to yell to get over me, you know, and he was like, you have to learn that you can't do anything about this, but you can control yourself.

You can leave. You can get up and go. And I hated that. It made me so mad. I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Why would you even go to college just to come tell kids of this? You know, that was looking back, I'm so thankful because, you know, the situations that I got myself into as a older,

teenager, younger adult, had I not walked away and let anger get the best of me, there's no telling where I would have ended up. And it's okay to walk away sometimes. I had an ego problem, too. Whenever I became a teenager, I thought I had to prove something to everybody, which is crazy. But I think everyone struggles with that at some point. Yeah. And I think you kind of going back to what I mentioned before with that approval and the validation. You know, we don't always realize because things come out in different ways, but I think it stems back to you not having that as a child. So it's like you're seeking it other places.

Yeah. Oh, I was a people pleaser. Yeah. Which it might not make sense, but it also does. You know, it really does. And also that ties into how so many different people can experience the same thing and have a different result, you know, which is also so crazy. Yeah.

I agree. It's so complex. Yeah. I wish I would have known a lot of the things that I know now. You can't, though. You know, there's no teaching it. Yeah. It's time. Yeah. And it's just letting the brain develop and experience and it sucks. But it's part of the process. You know, it's life. But then we can appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. It's something I'm thankful for now. And I think a lot of people were, if I have an opportunity to share with them and I tell them now that I'm thankful for the way that I grew up, they're like, oh my gosh, what is wrong with you? And I'm like a lot. But it's fine. We're working through it. But it's a weird, it gives me that much more of a drive to love my boys that way. And try to share my story.

Because again, like I said earlier, I never thought anyone would care. I never thought. Because the other side of it is sometimes you hear, like I've told people my story in it, they're like, yeah, okay. They write me off because they're like, there's no way that happened. My wife, she didn't not believe me. But when it's set in, when it's, when we first met and it finally set in that everything that I was saying was true,

and she started learning more from my adopted parents that I didn't want to tell her. She was shell-shocked for like two weeks. And it started with her seeing the scars on my butt. I told her there were stretch marks. I lied to her. But, you know, why cross that bridge if we don't have to? Because she grew up in a very different household than I did. It's polar opposites.

Lots of love, lots of family. But whenever she found out about that, it just, it wreck her. But I started using drugs when I was 14, started with just smoking weed, drinking, you know, with some of my friends. My first suicide attempt was July 31st of 2009. I can, I remember what the fight was over. It was with my dad. An incident happened with my adopted dad that just eliminated my trust with him. I found photos on a phone that I still don't have an answer to but it was enough for me to walls up you know your chopped liver I want anything to do with you and it was like of his you know his stuff at his age on a it was a razor a pink razor

flip bone yeah is what it was on and um I still don't know I'm not I don't want to know don't care but that like messed with me it brought everything back up it seemed like and that was when I was like 11 or 12, but that led to the next few years of just, I hated him. And I don't know why. I just, I resented everything about him. I remember the day that it happened, we were arguing. I had one of my best friends over. His name's Josh. And the straw that broke the camel's back, I walked into the den where my dad was at. And my dad was, he's got a really bad bag. He's handicapped. So he couldn't get out a lot. And so he basically stayed in this den while I went in the den and tried to pick a fight with him not a physical fight but i wanted to argue again we've been screaming

at each other all day and i asked him what my birthday was because i knew he'd get it wrong he always got my birthday and my oldest brother's birthdays mixed up and i knew that and it's in it's weird but i wasn't in the right frame of mine because i was i was high and i went and asked him that question knowing he would say and he of course he got it wrong and um i told him then that uh he wasn't my dad and that he should have never adopted me. And that, you know, I regretted them adopted me. And that's, that's really, really low that I was that selfish to go tell him that. Well, I left a house and I went through two of our cow pastures because I knew Josh would

follow me. And I went through a couple of fields and circled back around to the barn. And my mom and Josh found me hanging in the barn. And I was unresponsive when they found me. I didn't, I thought about standing. we had a milk like milk crates. I thought about standing on them and kicking them off, but the rope that I used was thin.

And if I'm being really honest, I was too scared. I was too afraid of the snap. So I thought maybe I could just lean into it. And it worked. I actually remember panicking and trying to get it off and I couldn't. And where I was at, I was like tiptoeing. I remember waking up in the hospital. But my mom and Josh family,

me and I remember waking up in the hospital with like family that hadn't seen in a while and I got to go to Rubendale for the first time. Rubendale is a mental health hospital in central Arkansas and I stayed there for like two weeks and of course it's like a band-aid you know of course it spread like wildfire I went to school went back to school and was the crazy kid all of a sudden and like I said that was July of 2009 so how I'd have been 15 from 15 to 18, it was just a downhill spiral. I ended up going to 14 different treatment facilities. I attended suicide four times total.

I overdosed multiple times. When I was 16, I need to back up, actually. I mentioned my dad was a pastor. And I also mentioned that on Monday nights, like once a month, I had to go to like youth rallies. Well, my dad, being as old as he was, was trying to build the youth group in our church. There was no youth group.

There was 13 people that went to our church, and I was related to all of them. And they were all above 55. I was literally the only kid. And the few friends that I could get to come with me from school, well, my dad, trying to build the youth group, would reach out to the surrounding churches and try to find young men who had surrendered to preach to come in and preach for us and it'd be a youth night.

And they'd order pizza and, you know, we were there for the pizza, honestly. Well, I didn't know that I had siblings on my dad's side. And I also didn't know my dad's name, my real dad's name, up until one of these nights. And this guy comes in, a young guy, he's bald, looks good, good shape, spoke really well, carried himself really well. He had a real nasty scar under one of his eyes.

I do remember that. But he's a nice guy. He's married, had a wife. After service, we're eating pizza, now we're outside. All the kids are outside playing football. And my dad, or I'm sorry, my mom comes against me, and she's like, you need to come in here.

And she had this look on her face. And I was like, oh, gosh, here we go. bring me to the front of the church right by the altar and my adopted dad and this preacher are sitting on the front uh the front bench and and he the preacher is boo-hoo sobbing can't breathe he's crying so hard and so i'm like what is going on what is happening and my dad said tracy i need you to sit down so i sit down and he said do you know your dad's name And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, your name is Merwin. He's like, no, no, not me, you're a real dad.

And so now I'm confused. I'm like, no, I never, why would you ask me that? You know, and my mom said, you know, Tracy, your dad's name is Kenneth. They said his last name. And I was like, okay, you know, now I'm mad. I'm like, why aren't you telling me this? Like right now, why in front of this guy? Yeah.

And they were like, his name is Kenneth. He was a junior. I didn't know that. And so as soon as they tell me that, they didn't tell me he was junior. They just said his name was, and I look at him and I was like, are you my dad?

And he's like, no, no, no, no, I'm your brother. And so, you know, number one, I didn't think I had siblings. And number two, how is, is the world that small that you ended up at our church? Totally innocent, unplanned. So I found it quickly that I had four siblings

on my dad's side, all adults, two brothers and two sisters. And in a short... Now, he wasn't from your mom. Correct. He was from my dad, Kenneth, my real dad. We were half siblings. They knew about me from the Ashley situation.

They all hated Ashley because they, you know, of course they said that Kenneth took the plea for Ashley, which again, I do believe that. But they hated, they hated her, which I felt. like internment they hated me. I don't think they actually did, but I felt that way. But I got to meet all my siblings in a pretty short amount of time. And this is actually what part of what led to me starting to use drugs. I was not doing drugs.

I was still like a good kid at this time. Still getting straight at you, doing the right things. Well, I developed a relationship with my brother, my oldest brother, Kenny, to where my dad, he's a preacher. my dad would let me go spend days with him and then spend nights with him. And it was great. It was like, you know, it's like what I had been looking for my whole life. I finally had, you know, like real family and they were proud of me. And he was a good guy.

You know, he treated me right. He loved me. He was like a good brother. He was harsh if I did something wrong like he should have been. I picked up a couple times that he was like real sideways to his wife a couple times. And when he'd see that I was. around he'd straighten up and it was it was weird though his demeanor was weird and i picked up on it but i didn't think anything of it and then one night i got to stay with him and my parents on rental properties

they were just mobile homes and they're terrible but it is what it is they had them and i stayed with kennie and his wife one night and i remember that next morning when i woke up there was it sounded like someone was being murdered like a woman screaming and so i get up from the living room and run in the back bedroom and Kenny is beating the brakes off of his wife look bad. I didn't know what was going on. And so I just tried to get Kenny to stop. I didn't try to get in between him. I didn't try to fight him.

I don't even remember if I just came behind him and like, like, hey, stop. But he turned around and he, I mean, everything that he was given his wife, he turned around and I thought he was going to kill me. That's the worst I've ever been beat up in my entire life. So, Shattered Dreams, you know. I also learned that he was on parole in California, which he had gotten permission to come to Arkansas, I guess from the California Parole Board.

I don't know how all of that, but he violated his parole. She pressed charges. And then all of a sudden all my siblings are gone again. They actually were living. My two sisters and my, I'm sorry, my brother and my oldest sister were living in San Bernardino, California, and then the youngest sister was living here.

She didn't get along with the other three. Of course, they're all still older than me, but it's like just everything was great in like rainbows and unicorns and roses and then... Within a day. Yeah, a morning. Yeah, and like, I don't know. Can you beat the brakes off of me? It was not good.

And how old were you? 13. and I like I don't know I I had a hard time with that but you know when you're a kid you feel like you're invincible and now know like knowing what I know as an adult there's nothing unless it was like a five-star prospect 13-year-old I'm not a I'm not a big guy I'm not an aggressive guy I'm not like the strongest guy but I don't know many 13-year-olds that are going to throttle

an adult is what I'm getting at and that that like changed something in me. That's what led to, like, the real, like, okay, you know, this is not, nothing's ever going to change. I started questioning my parents, you know, like, why would you let me around him? Stupid stuff, you know, to me, to me now, I think it's stupid, but then it was, how did you not pick up on the signs? Why would, you know, but I got into the drug use and that was part of that.

I didn't realize it, but they were, Kenny had relapsed on meth. His drug of choice was meth. All of my siblings' drug of choice was meth. I ended up finding out. But there were signs that I didn't see, which put me around other kids, around their age, or my age from other siblings' kids

and their friend group from the area that I got to be acquainted with, which opened doors, the drug use, the first suicide. At 16, I was pulled over, and I received a DUI. I had just drank a lot of whiskey and was leaving to go see a friend. I drank and then left like immediately.

Well, I got pulled over for speeding and the trooper could smell it. And I blew like a .06 on scene. And in my mind, in the state of Arkansas, it's a .08 is a legal limit. In my mind, I was like, oh, yeah, Scott Free. You know, well, not if you're under 21. If you're under 21, it's .02. And so I got arrested. and taking a jail

and I had to call my parents they came and bailed me out they didn't even ask questions they just came and bailed me out and it was a very quiet car ride home the next morning was not fun you know

because my mom had picked up on everything she saw the signs she saw the changes my dad and again our relationship was damaged from what had happened but he always wanted to see the good in me, I think. And I remember my adopted parents started arguing like every day about me. And I knew what I was doing, but it also made me feel guilty because my dad wouldn't believe my mom.

And I didn't want him to. You know, so there was a lot of manipulation going on too on my part that I had to take accountability for. But all of it happening just made me kind of feel like the black sheep. And I was. I was making myself the black sheep. I was turning my parents against each other. And I was I was just running from like myself is what it was. I don't always believe that people have drug problems. I believe that people have people problems. We have skeletons in our closet that we don't want to look at. Whether we put them there or other people did, they're still there.

We still have to look at them. And I didn't want to. So I got the DUI. I got put on probation with district court. I had a probation officer. I got clean. You know, I passed a couple of urine tests. and then he moves to California.

Well, what does a 16-year-old think? Like, oh, Scott Free, I'm good. Like, call the boys, we're getting high again kind of deal. And that's not how that works. They assigned me a new probation officer, and I wasn't in contact with them until they called me like the week before my junior year. Yeah.

And I failed the drug test, and I ended getting put on juvenile drug court. I want to make sure that my time frames are right. Actually, I was put on juvenile drug court the year in between junior and senior year. My junior year, what I'm trying to get at is my junior year was my worst. When I got put on probation, I couldn't get high anymore, like conventionally, like on marijuana or X or I couldn't drink. So around the same time, K2 made its debut.

And I don't know if you're familiar with K2, but. It's not great stuff. I thought it was the bees' knees, you know. There was not a drug test for it at the time. And we had multiple businesses in the town that I lived in that were selling it. And one of the guys that own one of the smoke shops in town, I used to sell him weed. So he was like my end. I didn't have to be 18.

I could go to a shop and buy whatever I wanted, which is not good. It kind of was unregulated. And when I got on K2, it was, things started changing quickly. I got arrested my senior year at school for possession. I was on drug court. I had to wear an ankle monitor. I finally got my ankle monitor off. And the thing that I want to point out,

I try to be transparent. I try to take accountability because it's really hard for me to take accountability for it. And in no way do I want you to think or anyone to think that I'm glorifying any of this stuff. But I was really, really good at lying. And I think that was like a defense mechanism. but I had two judges over a district court case and a juvenile drug court case. My juvenile drug court judge was the lady who did my adoption. It was the same judge.

So what she remembered is a sweet little boy that was hurt. Well, now, obviously I have a drug issue because so she wasn't that surprised. The other judge didn't know me. And he's a heck of a guy. I mean, he's someone who's very special to me now. I didn't like him then. but I jumped through all their hoops. I was passing their drug tests.

I was going to their counseling sessions. I was going to my meetings. I was doing community service at my church, which means my dad was just signing the paper. Yeah. You know, he was helping enable some of that, I think unintentionally. But I, like, painted myself as, like, this poster child for our drug court

and had everyone fooled. My teachers, my probation officers, my mom, no. She knew. And she kept, I actually found out too recently that it was my mom who kept snitching on me. My adopted mom was going to my probation officer and snitching on me all the time. Tracy's acting weird. We think he's getting high. And I was getting drug tested like three times a week.

I'm like, I don't understand this. Why is this happening? It was my mom. And God bless her, you know, she was doing what was right. But when I got arrested for possession, the drug court team knew that K2 was around us. They had found a drug test. They had purchased the drug test. And we had court one Thursday every month.

And I think it was the second Thursday of every month. We'd have formal court. All the kids would come in. And in November, they told us next month, all of you would be drug tested for K2. If you have been using K2 and you're honest, yes, you're going to be in trouble, but the punishment will be less severe. Well, I had every intention, because all of us would have popped dirty. I had every intention on being honest.

I got arrested on Tuesday. It was December 13 to 2011. And I didn't get a chance to be honest. Well, when I got arrested with possession at school, you talk about, you know, I went from like poster child having everybody fooled to now I just, now it's become obvious that I stabbed everyone in the back. So, yeah, I spent like 35 days in jail and then I went to my first drug rehab. It was a juvenile drug rehab and I was there for 52 days.

I got back, I don't know, I might have been early April, or no, it was probably mid-March, I guess. I don't know. But I ended up graduating, which was crazy. Of course, when I got back to school, I was, like now I was labeled. Everyone knew I was a drug addict because I had become, like I said, I had an ego. And when I got into junior high school, I started, you know,

going to parties, started fighting. I wanted to be the tough guy because I didn't want people to pick on me any, more and they quit you get a couple of fist fights and you get the better hand and I think for me it's not that I was good at like fighting but I remember telling myself like you you won't hurt me as bad as Kenny did you can't and so I just was like well whatever what what's it going to hurt so people quit messing with me and I developed this ego I thought I was this big tough guy I thought I was cool and not at all you know I come back and now the group of friends that I had before that Now I'm a snitch all of a sudden.

No clue where that came from. But all of a sudden, I'm a snitch, which I'm written off by everyone now. My group of friends, they're gone. The popular kids, they don't want anything to do with me. I was in FFA for a few years because I lived on a farm. I loved that group. They didn't want anything to do with me because all of their parents are, you know, like God-fearing country people.

I'm the black sheep. So the last few months of my high school career was just silent. I just put my head down and do what I was supposed to do. I graduated, got out. I stayed clean. I actually wanted to do good. I stayed clean up until like August of that year and it freaking tanked again. I went right back into it.

I didn't care about probation. I just was left and right popping drug tests, fell on them. Of course, I had two more attempts as an adult as an 18-year-old, which led to Rivendale again. I was put in a program called the Father's House, which is a faith-based rehab. which sounds great but it was not you literally go work at sawmills like 12 hours a day and everything's based on donations like the food the lodging everything's based on donations um and of course the sawmills pay the facility for like you know their their mortgage of the land or whatever and it was just a

work camp it i found a way out i asked my mom to bring me a disposable camera because they had septic issues and i took pictures and she took it to the judge and the judge let me out early So there was no help there. No. No, it was very literally like, we're going to do this hard labor all day long. And when you come back, we're going to read the Bible. And it's going to change you. And it just made me bitter.

Yeah. Which don't even wrong. I grew up in church. I'm strong in my faith now. I thought I was back then. I didn't have a relationship. But I was taken out of that. And I was put in a Kim Freehouse with a little bit more.

rope. Nope. I was there for like three weeks and went off the deep end again. Well, finally, my juvenile drug court coordinator, because I was 18 still under juvenile jurisdiction, they could have helped me until I was 21, but they didn't because he got tired of me. He was like, we're done. Here's your papers. You're done. You're, you're Scott Fri, go bet your business. And I did just that. I moved out of my parents house. I also moved in with my sister, my biological sister who had moved back. And she was just by your dad? Correct.

My biological dad, which also made me, I got to back up again. Sorry. You're okay. I'm following a long time. My biological dad, again, he took murder two. So I don't remember what his original sentence was. I think it was 360 months. Not enough time.

you know, for murder, but he got out when I was 17 and I was working at a restaurant. I was a dishwasher. And that's actually when I had my ankle monitor on. But I got a phone call. Well, let me back up even further. I was going to classes for the DUI, my first DUI. And one of the classes is called defensive driving. Well, during that defensive driving class, they were like, all right, let's break for lunch.

I go to Sonic. It's a pretty day. It's spring. I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to sit on my tell you. gate. I'm going to eat my lunch on this tailgate. I said, I'm a tailgate. They bring me my lunch, and this woman comes running up to me, like crying. She's like, oh my gosh, Tracy, she gives me a hug. And I was like, hey, and she's like, you don't recognize me. I'm like, no, I'm sorry I don't. She's like, it's Sarah. And then it hit me. Sarah's my sister, one of my biological sisters.

And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I thought y'all weren't still in California. No, we moved back. Dad's out of prison. And I was like, you know, what? You know, I was terrified of my dad. I didn't know his name. I didn't know anything about him, but I was terrified of him. Because, you know, one of the things that Ashley would also say when she would call was, if Kenny ever gets out, it's, you know, you're next. And who knows? Yeah. You know, I don't know why she said any of the things that she did, but I believed all of them. Every, every single bit of it, I believed it. So I'm terrified. I remember rushing back to defensive driving and the guy who ran the class. Like, I come in and I'm like, hey, I need to talk

to you. He told me, you know, he used to work for state police. He doesn't anymore. And I, like, trauma dump on this man. And he was like, okay, we gotta finish the class. I'll get you home. You know, he followed me home. Um, because I was afraid that, you know, like Ashley, or not Ashley, but Kenny would like be waiting on me. I thought he was some kind of hardened murderer, you know, it wasn't.

But while at Sonic, I gave Sarah my phone member. She gave it to Kenny. So back to the, the, I'm washing dishes. I get off work one night. I have a voicemail on my phone. I answer it and listen to it. And it's Kenneth. And he gives this whole spiel about how he hates that things went the way they did.

He's sorry. Sorry's not enough. He'd like to meet me. And I hung up. I called one of my best friends who was older than me, who was bigger than me, kind of a tough guy. And I was like, hey, man, I need a favor. Will you go with me to meet my dad? And he was like, what?

are you are you like we're going to go to we're going to go to varner and varner where's the prison he was in i'm just like no he's he's out he's right down the road you know like i want to just get it over with i didn't want to wait and uh he's like yeah sure why not so we loaded up and i got in trouble for it because of my monitor but uh i went and met him that night on a whim and asked him the first thing i asked him i didn't even say hi to him i wouldn't shake his hand he like was acting like he was going to hug me and I didn't do anything and then he shook his hand out wouldn't do anything and uh I just asked him if he killed Michael and he said nope you know Ashley did all that and I just took I just took the blame so you I guess I just kind of gave him

the benefit of the doubt and um we developed a relationship over the next couple years and just like my siblings I thought he was the coolest thing in the world because he'd let me he let me drink He let me get high. He let me bring girls over to his apartment. It was actually my sister's, my youngest biological sister's apartment. So yeah, I thought he was the coolest thing in the entire world. My parents didn't let me do any of that. Of course, my parents were taken back when I told him that he was at a prison.

Then I met him. They were upset that I violated my tracking device and my probation to go meet him. You could have coordinated that and we'd have done it the right way. But they also understood in a weird way. they also let him into their house they were skeptical at first they made sure my brother my adopted brother was there you know their biological son every time he was there in the beginning but you know he that's where i learned my manipulation or that's where i got it from i think because my dad was he was slick he was very very charismatic he's a small guy but very charismatic he could

convince a, you know, an alcoholic and a sobriety in 10 minutes. And so he fooled all of us. And I don't know, we had a relationship for, you know, a couple of years, maybe a year and half. But we went out and drinking together one night and came back to my adopted parents' house and he slapped my mom. And because she caught us and knew that we were both drunk and she said, I knew that you were going to corrupt him. And, you know, she told me, you don't need to end up like him. And when she said that, he slapped her. And my mom had dentures.

She had fake teeth. And he knocked her bottom dentures out. And that's, I think that's the first time in my life that I ever, like, I thought, yep, I'm going to take it from you. Like, you're going to pay for that. And so we got into a fight. And, you know, it didn't last. didn't last long it was over and then i'm like i'm we're done i'm taking you back to destinies my sister and um like halfway back to destiny's house and we live in the country so halfway back to

her house it starts again and i'm driving and he anyways we start fighting in the truck and we pull over and um i ended up kind of getting a better hand and i left him right there yeah and i got the truck and drove back i called destiny and said this is where he's at figured out and I didn't ever talk to him. I talked to him when his brother died at the funeral, but it was just like a you stay over there kind of deal. I never talked to him again. It's weird. I'm sorry, the timelines all over the place, but it's weird that I desperately wanted to know. I didn't know I had siblings. And then I found out I was like, I got to know him. I got to know them. Like, we're going to love each other. We're going to be siblings. It's going to be great. No,

fell through. I met my dad. Crossed that bridge. I faced that fear. You know, maybe my dad is different. Maybe Ashley's the bad guy. No. You know, and it was just like one by one.

And I think that's what when the timelines are actually lining up, if I had told it right, you can see like the steady just decline. Yep. The tank. So it wasn't long after me and Kenny got into that fight that I was finally released from juvenile probation. They signed the papers and they were like, you're done. I couldn't believe it.

I was off of probation. I was like, I was finally free. I could do whatever I want. I was 18 so I could make my own decisions. I moved out of my parents' house and I moved in with my sister Sarah. And Sarah introduced me to my drug of choice, which was Crystal Meth. I'm very thankful that I never got into IV use. I'm very thankful that didn't ruin my teeth.

But I loved crystal meth because it kept me up. And my wife Hannah just, I guess I just never told her. She knows everything, but I never told her why it was my drug of choice. But like when I would get really high, you know, smoking weed or K2 or really drunk and I'd pass out, I'd sleep really hard. There were still times where I'd wake up in a panic from the same dream. You're high math. You don't sleep. And then when you do finally crash out, it's lights out.

I mean, you up for, you know, two days, two and a half days, start having like sleep deprivation hallucinations and stuff. When you finally crash, it's over with. It was for me. And I didn't really care about being high. I cared about not having that dream anymore. You're like the avoidance of it. Yes. And yeah, there was part of me.

It made you feel like Superman. And I just, you know, like when you're a little kid, your parents say don't do drugs, you do it once and you're hooked. and like I don't believe that's the case for a lot of them for that 100% for me it was the first time I did it it was like yep we're doing that how do we get more of that and Sarah was she was that for me well when I lived with her I got close to Sarah I learned about her story and her childhood and it is way worse than mine way worse than mine so it makes sense as to why you know she's She had two children. They lived with us. At that time, they were like three and six. And I loved those kids, but I was guilty to be around them because of, you know, how we were living. And then I would see like Sarah doing the stuff in front of her kids and it bothered me.

And so I actually talked Sarah into moving the kids out of her bedroom. She lived with her mom, which is really weird. Her mom and Kenneth, right? Those were the four siblings. Well, her mom divorced Kenneth and married his brother. My, our uncle, Ronnie, it's weird. Uh-huh. I don't know why that happened.

I'm not going to question it, but the kids, we talked, I talked to Sarah getting the kids out of her bedroom and they actually went and lived in their bedroom in a, in a house. And life was pretty dark for like six months. And it's not a really long time, but it just, it wasn't good. I ended up getting another DWI, and that's what saved my life because I went back to district court in the same judge that I'd slipped through the cracks on before. he was like, oh yeah, yep, I got you now. Because when it was two court systems,

juvenile had jurisdiction over me. I don't know why or what. They had more authority than district court. Well, now juvenile wasn't in the picture. And his name is Judge Oam, and that man saved my life. He was like, yep, you're mine. And I know just the place I'm going to send you. Because somewhere, somehow, I don't know how,

but through all of the mess, he told me that he saw something that he thought was special and he thought was worth fighting for instead of just sending me to jail for a year. So I sat in jail for a couple days and I came to court and he was like, all right, Mr. Gray, you ready to go to Teen Challenge? And I was like, oh, absolutely not. I'm not going to Teen Challenge. I don't know if you are familiar with Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge is another faith-based recovery program. And at that time, that was pre-COVID, there was a it was two phases there was a home center which was approximately four months and then there was the learning phase which is 10 months it was 15 months or 14 months minimum

all residential all impatient you don't go home it's people call it jesus jail um because a lot of people are sent there on plea bargains okay that they don't want to go to prison i get it makes sense i wasn't facing prison but that's why i was sent there um so i didn't have to go to jail So I said no And Judge Allen was like All right here's the deal You're going to Teen Challenge You can go back to jail and you can think about it

But the next time you come up I'm going to ask you again And we're going to do that until you agree Well My parents Again never left my side You know my mom walked into a drug house When I was living with Sarah

Walked right by the guy who owned the house Who was a known dealer Not a good guy Looking for me I'm hiding in a closet I'm scared of my own mom. Like, not scared of her physically, but I was scared to let her down. I got kicked out of a dope house by the dude who owned the house.

Because he was like, dude, your mom's looking for you. You're in here hiding in the closet. A guy that was living in, you know, that world felt so guilty, I guess. He was like, dude, go to your mom. And he even told me then, like, none of us have parents that love us. And what are you doing? And I couldn't explain it. But my parents never left my side and Judge Ome had talked to them.

And I remember the day that I finally agreed to go. I look back and both my parents are just boo-hoo crying. And, you know, my dad, he was a firm guy, but he wasn't afraid to show emotion ever. And he was crying and he was like, Tracy, please, you have to get this right. You have to get this right. Don't, you know, don't miss this opportunity.

And so I was like, whatever. It's stupid. Let's go. If I let me go home that night and I had to be a teen challenge at next morning and that was May the 13th of 2013, and I've actually been, that's my sober date. Wow, congratulations. Thank you.

It was 12 years this year. And I bucked the system for the first seven months. I didn't want to be there. You know, I was like, I can hold my breath this long. No, I couldn't. It was not, it was a good program, but it was really hard. And what made it hard was you couldn't go anywhere. And it was all self-reflection.

But it was self-reflection with help of like a counselor. and also like with faith. So you felt like you finally had progress, would you say? Oh, yeah. When I finally quit being a knucklehead. Right. When you let it in, when you let the help in. And another thing that I haven't mentioned up until this point,

I was so violently mad like at God. And I know a lot of people aren't religious. And I don't ever want to feel like I'm pushing my religion on people. But I was so mad at God because, why? Why would you let that happen to my brother? Why would you let those things happen to me? You're supposed to be a good and ever present, ever loving, and ever faithful God. Why would you do that? If you're so great, why would you ever do that? And my parents were always like, Tracy, you don't understand, you know, God's not doing this to you. And I'm like, God creates everything by what you're telling me, you know, what do you mean he's not doing it?

Why if he can if he can speak and create everything that we see why can't he speak and stop it? Why can't he speak and stop the pain? Why can't he stop? Why can't he speak and make all of it go away? And my parents and I thought about that a lot. So when I went into Teen Challenge, I didn't want to go because that was one of the reasons. Why am I going to come in here and get indoctrinated, you know, by this cult is what I thought it was. and it was on one of my passes where my parents got to come up

and they were so happy. They were so proud of me. I'd gain some weight. I was like 130 pounds when I went into Team Challenge. And I was, you know, I'm 6'1. So I was 6'1, 130. And for context, I'm like 240 now. So I was a literal skeleton.

But I'd gain weight. I looked better. I was happy. I was starting to open up to one of my counselors that was there. But then I remember that pass. My mom gave me a hug and she was like, you're not quite done. And I knew what she meant. And whenever they left, they gave me a hug and they were both crying.

And I remember in that moment thinking, I've got to get this. Like I'm young enough. I had just turned 19. See, I went in May the 13th. I was 18. My birthday's at the end of May, so I'd turn 19. And I remember thinking, like, I had my whole life ahead of me. If I get this right now, maybe I can still make something to myself.

So I did quit being a knucklehead and started actually asking questions and getting into the nitty gritty. And I remember one of the most profound things, I guess, that I had ever heard when I was in Teen Challenge, the counselor that I talked to, you know, he said, Tracy, whenever you realize that what hurts you is also hurting God, I think things will start to change. And that made me mad. And I was like, hey, man, we've been cool up until right now. What are you talking about? You know, what hurts God or what hurts me is hurting God. And he was like, I'm going to leave you with that. And I hated that.

I hated that. I was like, no, we're not done. He was like, no, you don't understand. I'm the boss. We are done. And I got to think about it that night. And, you know, all the times that I was a scared little kid and all the times that I was really going through physical pain or emotional pain, that night I realized that the only

reason that I survived, you know, I call it my whole. all of the holes that I was in, God was in that hole with me and met me right where I was at. And although I never found, like, peace through all of the things that I went through that night, I found peace. I just remember thinking, you know, why would Jesus do that for me? When my whole life I'd just been made to feel like I was nothing. And I believe that to the point where I tried to take my own life. and run from all of the pain and when I finally realized

that the hole that I was in, God was there with me. And he like very literally had his whatever you want to say at his hands, his wings. He was there with me. And like I remembered the old poem that my mom loved so much.

He gave me like 40 of the bookmarks of the footprints in the sand. And I can remember thinking all of the times I was yelling at my parents, why would God not make it in? Why am I having to walk? this alone and there were times where my mom was like you're not walking it you're being carried and I was too mad and too hurt to understand what she was saying but the entire time

I was being carried and so when I finally realized that I finally realized okay it's it's time it's time to buckle down I was able to start sharing and opening up his name was Hagoos was the counselor and I started opening up and we would just you know, I'd open up. And of course, back then, I hadn't talked about it. I hadn't worked through it like I kind of have now. So it was just a big, blubber fest, and it just hurt.

And I think that's something that people need to know. You know, it's okay to look back on your trauma, but we can't stay there. But it sucks really bad sometimes looking back on it and feeling the feelings and working through it. And, you know, we've had foster parents reach out to us. And they're like, how do we love these foster children through it? Like, you better buckle up.

If you want them to work through their hurt, it's not going to be easy. It's going to get ugly and it's going to get, you know, heavy, but you have to. You have to work through it. If we keep things in the closet or in the darkness, it can only be used against us. It can only continue to have power over our lives. And for me, all of the resentment, all of the anger, all of the business. bitterness, all of the hurt, all of the scared little kid, like I was an adult, but I was a scared little kid below the surface. And I didn't want to do that anymore. I wanted a better life.

And so for the last six months of Teen Challenge, I finally plugged in. I finally started trying to develop a relationship with, you know, with Jesus and with my parents, a real relationship with my parents. I really, truly let them in. And it was all. I remember whenever I graduated, Teen Challenge. You know, my dad couldn't ride in a car because his back was so bad. And it was like a seven-hour drive. I had no clue that my dad was coming and he showed up with my sister. And we had to help him walk at that time because he had two bad knees.

He ended up having knee replacements, but he wouldn't let anyone help him walk into the church. Where we had graduation. And when I got to him, I grabbed him and I was like, what are you doing? and you're going to fall and he was like absolutely not i'm going to walk into this church by myself said i want you to know that i'm going to support you and i oh man it broke me i was like dude you don't have to do that you know they supported me so passionately and so selflessly and uh i think that was the hardest thing for me to work through honestly i didn't want to forgive ashley but i worked through that the hardest thing for me to to move past was what i put my parents through

Yeah. All of the, they found me on all four of the attempts. You know, I told you about sitting down with my dad and saying, you're not my dad. I did that again when I was like 15 or 16 to both of my parents. And just I tried so hard to push them away. And I think I truly hated myself for everything that I said to them. So when I graduated Teen Challenge, they give you like, you know, most improved student. That, da, da, da, most whatever.

Well, I got the outstanding student Most Improved or whatever. And Teen Chowland, the name is misleading. It's not for teenagers. It is for adults. So I'm in a program with 150 grown men and I'm a kid. You know, some of them pretty heavy criminal backgrounds. But I can remember them giving me that award for Most Improved because I finally turned around. And my dad just, you know, was just.

so happy and I gave him my certificate. And that night, the pastor asked me if there's anything that I wanted to say to my dad or if I wanted to ask that I never had an opportunity to. And I asked my dad in front of all of my, you know, my peers if he would forgive me for everything because I never had before. And it just, it spoke volumes to me when he, you know, he was like, you don't have to ask me for forgiveness. I forgave you a long time ago.

you know that's why we love you and um you know i went home and it was like it was like a fairy tale everything was good um i still had some legal stuff to deal with nothing crazy i made a mistake trying to still be friends with a couple of guys that i was friends with before and i found out very quickly i couldn't do that yeah i went to a party one night and uh i stayed out of the drama because there's seems like there's always drama people start drinking and everybody wants to fight and guns got you know involved and I went down to the dock it was on one of the lakes and I was like this is it judge elym's going to crucify me when he realizes I was I was over there and I wasn't getting eyed I hadn't drank I hadn't got an eye I was diligent and not doing that but

I wanted to be friends with the people that I was friends with and after that night I've cut all ties I met my wife Hannah um in August 14 so I graduated Team Challenge, July the 15th of 14, and I met Hannah August 23rd. So, I mean, just over a month. And I met her at a bonfire. It's pretty cliche. But, you know, what stood out to me about Hannah is when we met, I live in a community small enough to where everyone knows me. You know, everyone knows everybody, especially when you went to the same school for, you know, 13 years, essentially. So I knew that she probably knew of me. In the very small stint when I was 18 and came back to school where I was actually clean. I worked with CASA and this other organization where I'd go to

schools and share my story. I was actually doing some good things, but I spoke at the school that she was at. She was younger than me, and she was not there that day. She had to take the ACT, so she missed my story. Well, I remember when we met, she was like, tell me about yourself. And I told her, you know, a general synopsis of like my story and she's like, okay, yeah, that's cool, but no, who are you? And I was like, well, I just told you. She's like, no, no, that's what you went through. Who are you?

So I like reiterated the horrible things and she was like, okay, that's fine. I'm really sorry that you went through that. But who are you? And I was like taken back because usually people are like, oh, I'm so sorry. Right. They let that define who you are. Yeah. And she was like, I don't really care.

I mean, I hate that for you. you know like she didn't hate it for me she couldn't care any less but she was like who are you and i found out that night i said like i have no idea i have no clue i've never been an adult i've never been a functioning person outside of running from the the pain so i asked her to um i used to take her home that night because she was with a whole group of people that were drinking and driving and i was like i don't want you to hurt she wouldn't do it well we started talking and when I realized that we were actually going to start talking, I was like, all right, here's a deal.

I need to go talk to your dad. I need to go talk to your mom and dad. And maybe it's from where we're from and like the Bible Belt and whatever. But that's what you do. You go sit down and you talk with dad. I knew that they would know who I was or they would find out who I was

because the community is so small. And Hannah was like, absolutely not. You're not doing that. My dad was 20 years Air Force. No. My mom will write you off in a second And I want to continue to talk to you so no And I was like, well

Then we can't talk You know, if we're not going to be honest about it We don't need to do this And she got really mad at me And then that evening I got a text And it was like come over We realized that we live like four houses away from each other But there was one neighborhood

Like there was a creek that ran in between our neighborhoods That divided us We went to the same high school. We were three grades apart. Never ran into each other. We had mutual friends, but we never came in contact. Well, I get to her parents' house, and I basically tell her dad, like, hey man, you know, my name's Tracy, shake his hand, give her mom a hug. They were like, so, Hannah says you want to come over and talk to us? And I was like, well, I need to tell you all some stuff. And her dad, I'll never forget. He was sitting, like, in a recliner with a laptop

on his lap watching TV also and his glasses were on the end of his nose and he like looks over at me he's like yeah what's up and i was just like hey i just want to let you know i just got a rehab like paused and like waited for like drug use and i lay it all out and i said i just wanted to come over here and like tell you because if you don't want me to be around your daughter i want to cut the thighs right now before you any further and he like never looked at me he just kept type in and watching the football game and then he stopped and he looked over at me he's like okay cool well i appreciate that um real quick if you decide to go down that road again you leave my daughter here and that was that of course her mom was like oh my gosh you know i can't believe all this you just

told us and i told them all the bad like all the really bad not not like the child abuse but the drug use um i think i was trying to scare them away honestly and they were like yeah cool and perfect. And I had Hannah. I had Hannah and I had my parents when I cut everybody off. My probation officer did find out about the party. It didn't make it to judge him, but he put me on house, like not house arrest, but I had a curfew. So I got a job at Best Buy and I was working at Best Buy and I'd get off work and I'd come home and Hannah would come over. And I did that for, you know, a year and a half and I finally graduated probation the right way. Everything was good. I asked Judge Ome to keep me on probation because I was scared of not having like that looming. You know, if you mess up, it's, you know.

And he was like, no, that's how I know you're good. And I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. I'm afraid, you know, I had to have the conversation like trust yourself. And life was good. I sat down with my parents, like the first week I got out of the Teen Challenge and said, at ask any question you want and I'll finally answer it honestly and we were able to have those like real deep heart to hearts a lot of really uncomfortable conversations but they had to have they had to happen yeah um in 2016 I found out about a welding college just on a whim and honestly the only thing

that caught me was the money because one of my buddies was making like $3,700 a week and so I was like okay hold on count me in I'm working. I'm working at Best Buy, dude. Like, that sucks. You're making how much money a week? So two weeks later, I packed all my stuff in a pickup truck and moved to a town about three hours north of where I lived. And I thought Hannah and I wouldn't make it.

We did. I went to welding school and graduated welding school and was going to go work on the road. I got one job on the road making pretty good money. And Hannah was like, no, I want you home. And so I came home. I got a job back in my hometown. And that was 2016, February of 17, we bought our house. And so I graduated Weldon School in June of 16.

I proposed to Hannah. It was like July 19th of 19. And Hannah, whenever she sees this, she's going to laugh because she always tells me that I'm weird about dates. I don't know. but I proposed. We asked my dad if he'd do our wedding because he's still, you know, a preacher. And of course he says yes. And then we buy our house and we move it together.

And that was a big no-no. So we went on. We were supposed to get married in November of 17. We bought the house in February. Well, like, I don't know. It was a couple months after we moved in. My dad calls me and he was like, hey, we'll still come to your wedding. We think, but I'm not going to preach because we moved in together.

That's a big no-no to that generation. And, you know, that kind of damaged the relationship between Hannah and my parents big time. It was also around that same time. Hannah and I were doing husband and wife activities, right? And the scar tissue from Ashley and her boyfriend tour. So I had to go to the doctor. obviously. And my primary care physician I've known since I was a little kid. I went to high school with his son who was killed in a car accident in 2009. So I've known him my whole life. He

knows my backstory. He knows, well, I had to go there to get a referral to urology. And he didn't know that side of the story. And so when I tell him, I was, it was really awkward, obviously, you know, and the fact that I had to all right, all right, dog, here, you know, let's do the examination. Of course, it was awkward, and he was just dumbfounded. He left, and I thought he's going to come back pretty quickly and finish the rest of the exam.

Well, he's gone for like 40 minutes, and I'm like texting him. I'm texting his cell phone. I'm like, dude, what is going on? Am I good to go? Well, he comes back with state police officers, state troopers. And I'm like,

his name's Kevin. I'm like, Kevin, what are you doing? He's like, Tracy, I have to report this. Like, dude, this was, I was 22 when that happened, I was like, you know, this was like almost 20 years ago or almost 18 years ago. It's like, I have to report this. As a mandated reporter with evidence of trauma, I have to.

And so, you know, open that door again. And they were dumbfounded that I didn't want to press charges or didn't want to file a report. Of course, they had to do their side of it. But at 22, I had to have a, you know, a circumcision at 22, zero out of 10. Don't recommend. That was not fun. But in a really weird way, and people won't understand this.

A lot of people don't understand this when I say this, but I'm so thankful that that happened because the scars are gone. You know, there are like still two that are there. I can't see them unless he's like really good looking for them. I'm really thankful for that because like we're humans. We have to use the bathroom every single day. Right. So every single day I had to see them and think about it.

Yep. And of course I told the urologist how it happened. And I don't know if he called in a plastic surgeon, but they did a really, really, really good job on like getting all of the scar tissue and in a really weird way I'm really thankful for that a hundred percent makes sense to me yeah um it's kind of like a a closure for that in a way yes yes and it's like I think if people don't understand it maybe it's because they're looking at it from an aesthetic point yeah but that's not yeah like although yes in the sense of like you're look you have to see that and that was a

reminder at the same time it is like that is the only way to close that Yeah. For you, I feel like. Yeah. It was, in the other side of it too, I think, that helped. Was it forcibly brought it to the light to a lot of people around me? I had to tell my boss that was going to be off. Why are you going to be off?

I told him. I didn't have to tell them the whole story. But our close group of friends, although we were close, I didn't tell them that. Right. You know, they didn't need to know all that. But when I did tell them, they were accepting and loving. And, you know, guys will be guys. And maybe this is just for you to hear, I guess.

But, you know, they made light of it in a good way. And they gave me a nickname. And it's, you know, it's ridiculous. It's stupid. But they call me Frankenpecker. And a group of friends and a group of guys, you know, it was hilarious. Yeah. And it made it a lot easier.

I think to it, you know, when you hold anything in, no matter how big or small, it creates shame. within yourself. Absolutely. And being forced to, you know, face that again. So many years later, I think even though it was probably so uncomfortable and scary, it's like, you know what? It happened.

And you can feel so sad for the younger self, you know? But it's like now it's like I have to take it and own it and not let it define me. Yeah. Or make me feel ashamed. Because it was out of your control. It was a horrible thing that happened. that in some ways, I'm sure, did define you. Yeah, it did.

It did. I mean, I was, you know, kids will be kids. Right. You know, especially when the hormones are raging, kids are going to be kids. And, you know, like all of my guy friends, there was a time where a couple of guys were, like, are you gay? Do you like guys? You know, because I didn't go looking for women because I was embarrassed. Yeah.

I was very embarrassed. I didn't want to have to have that conversation. Right. And I had to have it a couple times. And so I didn't have a lot of girlfriends, you know, because I didn't, I had those conversations a couple of times and that couple times was enough. Like, nope, I'm good. Yeah.

We're good. And it was like one of the first things I told Hannah whenever it came to that in that point of our relationship because I was embarrassed. So, of course, she felt terrible about the situation that led to the procedure. There was nothing that could have been done about it. but after it happened, I was really thankful that it was gone. And, you know, that was another door shut. But, you know, my dad, that really hurt the relationship whenever he was like, no, I'm not going to do the wedding.

We had to scramble around and find a preacher. Well, then to make things worse, like two months later, I don't know if I got cold feet. It wasn't great, Hannah fighting with my parents and back and forth. and then, you know, like, that seeded doubt, like, you don't deserve. I backed out. Like, I broke up with Hannah, and that was terrible. Like, five days of just not good. And my dad and I and my mom talked about it, and, you know, my dad was like, do you love her?

Like, yeah, I do. And he said, then, what are you doing? And I was listening to everybody else other than Hannah. And I went back and like just laid it all out and I was like please please please forgive me there was no like infidelity none of that I just got cold feet and was like I don't know if I really want to do this and when I realized that again I was listening to everyone that I shouldn't have been listened to instead of listening to Hannah we got back together and we got married and we were married actually our anniversary's coming up it was November 18th of 17 it was awesome

I mean, it was like almost surreal. Hannah and I had been through a lot up to the point that we got married. My younger brother, Austin, I mentioned earlier, because of Hannah, not being stubborn like me, we found my younger brother through social media. Whenever I turned 21, I went to the DHS office because I was told, like, if you turn 21, they'll give you the records of your siblings. It's not true. Okay.

They won't do that because it's a, closed case file. They're juveniles. But what the DHS office told me was make a post, like on a poster board, take a picture and put it on social media. Well, that made me mad. I was like, that's stupid. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Honestly, my feelings were because I was expecting them to just give me everything. Yeah. So I did what I normally did. Just like crawl fist up, turn into a turtle, close my shell. And Hannah made the, she made the, the poster card for me. and the next day she was like,

we're taking a picture. You're going to hold this sign whether you like it or not and we're posting it. Well, when I was in Teen Challenge, I didn't have a lot of clothes that fit me because I was so skinny and as I gained weight,

well, I had an affliction shirt. Like, I got from a thrift store. Okay? And so the photo that I took I had this affliction shirt on, you wouldn't believe the hate comments that I got just because I had an affliction shirt on. And I'm holding a sign like,

hey, please help me find my brother that DHS separated. And people are like, you suck. you're wearing affliction. Why don't you go fall in? You know, it was stupid. But that post went viral in 2015 and within eight hours.

His adopted mom called me and was like, hey, you're not going to believe this. I'm like, yeah, you're right. You know, I got interviewed by a news station that day who also helped me share the story. And so by the time she called me at like 939, I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm probably not going to believe this. But go ahead. You know, I've talked to 40 other people today that said the same thing you're about to. And she just started off with, okay, well, and she just starts naming our family members by name.

Like my biological family. I was like, oh, okay. And then she starts giving addresses of where we live and like where Ashley used to live. And I was like, oh my gosh. She's like, listen, I know that this is hard to believe, but we truly adopted. your little brother and we'd love for him to meet you. There was like some still like, are we sure about that? And what was the age gap?

Six years. Okay. Yep. I'm sorry, five years. Okay. Yeah. He was born in 99. I was born in 94.

Is that five? Yeah, five years. Five years? Yeah. Okay. Math did math with me sometimes, you know? Yeah. But he was 16 when we met, I think.

Yep. but that weekend he drove up and Hannah has an uncle who is well off in life and has a lake house that's just gorgeous he let my brother's

adopted mom and sister and him all stay in the house they catered they let us all stay in the house for a week and it was awesome you know

it was hard because we didn't really know each other and the first couple days he didn't like talk at all and I wasn't I say that I'm an extroverted introvert, you know, but I'm really an extrovert. My wife will see this and she'll be like, no, you're not. I really am.

He's not. And now that is your full brother, right? We have different dads. Okay. But he's my younger brother on my mom's side. I don't actually have a full sibling. Yeah. Okay.

But he was like the last missing piece. And now also, by this point, I'm sober. I've already been burned by literally everyone else. And I'm like, there's no way that a kid is going to burn me. And he didn't. But we did have to have some uncomfortable conversations because he started asking me questions. And I was like, hey, man, we need to include your mom into this because I don't want to corrupt you. Yeah.

And so his mom, her name is Leah. I was like, hey, I want you to be in here. Like, is it okay that he's asking these questions? because I know that what I went through, and I didn't know if she had been honest with him, her and her husband, her husband couldn't come, he was working.

And she was, you know, she was like, yes, we've been honest, but we don't have a lot of the answers. And so we sat in this room and all of us talk,

and I was able to talk to him and answer a lot of his questions, and they weren't what he wanted. You know, they were never the answers that he wanted, but is the same way for me. Yeah. And the last day he was at,

the last day that he was up in the town that I live in, Leah was like, why don't you take Austin? and drive around town. Get him away from here and see if he'll talk to you. Because he was still really kind of held back with drawn. I took him to the house. I took him to the house where I took him to the road.

You know, our whole family lived on this one road in town. And he was like, oh my gosh. I remember that house. And it was our grandfather's house. And you could see it. Like he went back somewhere. And like, I get that. Yeah.

Like I do that. I've seen it. I've done it. And holy cow, the question started coming in. And I'm glad. But then the very last thing he asked me, he was like, can I stay with you? Can I come live with you? And that was probably one of the hardest things to tell Austin was like, buddy, I love you.

You probably don't know that. But I truly, I love you. But your family also loves you. They chose you. Just like my family chose me, they chose you. You need to stay with them. If you turn 18 and you decide, like, yep, I want to move up here. We'll figure it out.

But right now, you need to honor your family. And that was hard, but he understood. And he did. They did great. He has a wonderful family that loves him just like he needs to be loved. And I'm so thankful for both of them. He was able to come to our wedding. So that was really cool.

My youngest sister on my biological dad's side, I kept her like this because I got burnt my Kenneth Senior, Kenneth Jr. and then Sarah, right? So I was like, I'm not, she tried to come in my life and I'm like, no, we're good. You stay over there. Well, Hannah didn't understand that. And so Hannah became, well, I'm sorry, Destiny became friends with Hannah trying to get to me. I know what she was doing. I kept telling Hannah like, you don't want to do that. I promise you don't want to do that. She'll burn you. She did. But Destiny was at her wedding. Destiny is my youngest sister on my dad's side. And so Austin met her and it was not a, it wasn't great. But we weren't going to let it ruin our wedding. So we diffused it. And destiny's not in our life anymore. Austin still is. Thank God.

But Hannah and I got married November of 17. I had another career change in June of 18. I started working for the fire department that I work for now. And that has also been one of the biggest blessings. You know, I always knew that I wanted to help. people. I actually had a dream of becoming a paramedic when I was in high school. I wanted to be a paramedic so bad. And obviously my life choices kind of prohibited that. But I applied to be a law enforcement officer before I applied for the fire department. And they took my application and threw it in the

trash because I still had a DWI on my record. And HR like literally looked at it and they're like, let's see, nope, through the trash. So things happen for a reason. I don't believe in coincidences. applied for the fire department. I put in Judge O'em. I put one of my old probation officers. I put the undersheriff who worked in my case. And when I applied for the fire department, there's a series of interviews.

The first one was like with the Civil Service Commission and then a new hire committee and then the chief officers. When I went into the new hire committee, I was like, hey, this may be an orthodox. I want to say something before the interview starts. And I was like, they're going to rat me off right off from the rip,

thinking I'm trying to take control, but I needed to tell them about my criminal history. I never caught any felonies, but I wanted, I wanted to be the one to tell them. Right, you wanted it to come from you. I think that's the right thing to do. Absolutely.

Whether they wrote me off or not. And I did meet some of their disqualifiers. Like if you'd ever use illicit substances, it wasn't within the time frame, but some of them didn't really have timeframes. And then, of course, I knew that I had a PTSD diagnosis, which isn't great to go into a EMS field, but I think mine was a little different. Anyways, I start and I say, hey, like, here's my dirty laundry.

I know that you all have my background checks. I know that you're going to see it. If you've already read it, I'm sorry. I wanted to be the one to tell you. If this disqualifies me, I just want to say thanks for the opportunity, and I'll be on my way. And they, it was dead silent. You know, these guys that have got 20, 25 years, 30 years on the fire department, like, just staring at me. awkward, you know.

And the one guy, he just recently retired, the one guy that was like rough, gruff at the department, everyone was scared of him. Of course, I didn't know him, but he looked rough and gruff. He stood up, he shook my hand, and he said, Mr. Gray, I don't have to hear another word. You've got my vote. He sat down, and he looked over it.

I found that later, but the guy who runs that committee, I don't have a question. And he just sat in the chair and smiled the rest of the interview. They interviewed me like normal. Chief officer interview was the same way. Of course, Chief had questions for me, and I answered them all honestly. And Chief told me he called every one of my references. And because I told him, like, don't believe anything that I'm telling you because I was really good at lying.

I know this doesn't look great for an interview. Call my references. And I didn't know it, but Chief was good friends with Judge Ome. And, you know, Judge Ome saved my life again. He told Chief that I was worth a shot. and I've honored that decision ever since I was able to go to the fire academy and I made like top of my class in the fire academy. I went to EMT school and made top of my class.

The door opened for paramedic school. Like here's my dream, you know, I got to go to paramedic school. Got top of my class. I am a paramedic, so I got to do that. My wife quit. She was working at a retail store. She quit whenever I started working for the fire department. And I was like, I love this is the best thing in the whole world.

Like, you know, every day that I came home from work, I was just like a happy little kid. Like I did the most fun thing in the entire world. I got to ride in a big fire truck and everyone loves us. Everyone hates the cops. Everyone loves us, you know. Well, Hannah hated her job. I didn't realize it, but I was driving her nuts talking about how much I loved mine. Well, she quit her job and went and worked at the sheriff's department that I applied for.

And she loved it. It worked for her. Yeah. So it was kind of funny. We had like professional photos done. It was super cheesy. I got a lot of flack for it, but a photographer came to the fire department, and we got, like, photos of a fire engine and a police car, and I'm in my turnouts with an act.

Oh, I love that. Oh, it's so cheesy. I love it, though. I got grilled for a long time, but I'm glad we have them. Yeah. COVID hit, and we also found out that we were pregnant. Hannah found out she was pregnant. She hates it whenever a couple say we're pregnant.

Uh-huh. But we found out Hannah was pregnant. early 2020, like January or February. And it was amazing. You know, I'd always wanted to be a dad. Hannah didn't want to have children at all.

She didn't want kids at all. And I guess I was just so, like, passionate about it that she wanted to honor that, which I didn't, she told me she wanted to have kids. Well, she didn't know she wanted to have kids until we had Nathan is what she told me. Hannah was like 20 weeks pregnant in a situation. She worked at the detention center at the jail. Like a big fight broke out and she was left in the unit.

And like nothing against the sheriff's department, but it was just protocol, you know, how it happened. And it scared both of us. And we were like, no, we're not doing that. Like we don't want to risk, you know, the baby at all. So she quit. And, you know, we're not rich people. Right. you don't become a firefighter to get rich.

You know, I make a good living now. But I looked at our budget every way that I could imagine. And I was like, there's no way that this is going to work. But we'll figure it out. And so I was working at the fire department and we don't run ambulances. But there's an EMS agency in town that I started working for part time on my days off. At the fire department, you know, we worked 24-48. I'm on 24.

I'm off 48. So I was working on the ambulance and going to paramedic school. I was working. I was either at the fire department on an ambulance working or on an ambulance doing clinicals and I was working 100 hour weeks every week. Like my long weeks were at if I was working fire department and LifeNet is the company, the EMS agency, I was working 72 to 96 hours a week and sometimes more than 100 but we pulled it off and I graduated paramedic school so I got to raise both at the fire department

and at life net so I didn't have to work as much but I still did yeah I tested positive for COVID three days before Hannah went into labor oh gosh so I miss Nathan being born but I'm thankful that everything went well my mother-in-law was able to be with Hannah and so she had a family member with her the dock walks in and she's like where's husband? is he like being a lazy bum like joking. Uh-huh. They're like, oh, he's at home with COVID. She was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

I was trying to be silly. And Hannah was like, he wants to be here. Could they, could you guys FaceTime? She allowed it. Okay, good. So the hospital that Hannah gave birth, they typically don't allow video, like FaceTiming. Right.

But the doctor's like, I don't care. Right. And during that time, it's so. Yeah. Right. Got to break some rules with that. Yeah. I did get to watch Nathan being born like this.

Right. You know, but. it was still special. He was healthy. He was happy. I still hold it over my mother-in-law's head that she got to cut his cord. It's just something fun that I get to do. I guess now is a really good time also to say that I'm very thankful for my in-laws.

They've always been good to me. My father-in-law, he's the one that brought me to the airport this morning. But we're just buddies. We've never been like, well, it's not, I was going to say we've never been like father-in-law and son-in-law, but that's not true because I've looked up to, his name's Rob. I've looked up to Rob like he's my dad. And I, you know, I don't want to dishonor my dad. But Rob's always been a really good man to me and to our family.

And my mother-in-law, her name is Anna. She's been like a second mother figure to me. I'm very blessed to have the in-laws that I have. Nathan's born. And our first family photo is me like a creeper like this on a glass, sliding glass door, looking through this door at my son and Hannah. Because we didn't want to risk anything. Yeah.

But she came home and I'm like on their back deck looking through this sliding glass door. Yeah. And we got photos of it. It's ridiculous. That's cute though. Oh, yeah. Once again, it's like it's like the lightheartedness of it. You know, what makes a sad kind of thing funny.

Yeah. Yeah, it made it a lot easier. Yeah. A lot of our friends, you know, we'd tell them or they'd find out that I was sick and they were like, like you said they get super sad. Right. Like it's okay. They're like, right. Look at this picture.

We dealt with it. Yeah. Little dudes, he's happy. He's healthy. When they finally got to come home, my parents. parents also came over. And with my parents being, you got to understand, like, at that time, I was 26 when Nathan was born, which means my parents were 86 and 85. They're 60 years between my dad and I. So we didn't want to be around my parents either because of COVID, because we didn't know.

Yeah. You know, we didn't want to risk it. That's when COVID was scared to everybody, no matter who you were. Yeah. So Nathan was born. My parents got to come over, and we all. We all. We didn't want to all got to, we've all got to meet my son. I got to meet my son and my parents got to meet my son. All at the same time. It was a really sweet moment. My parents, I don't know if I mentioned, they were, they were foster parents for 30 years. They raised over 300 foster children in their home. My dad, actually, I sat down with him recently and like interviewed him. It was weird because I never asked him some of the questions that I asked him. He said they quit counting at 30, or not 30 at 300. And I didn't know that. I thought they just had around 300. My sister,

sister, their middle daughter. Her name is Faye. She is 70. She was like, no, they quit counting at 300. One of the things about my adoption, I had a, there was like a backup plan because my parents were so old. My sister Faye was going to take custody of me. Had, you know, my parents died early, which I was very blessed.

I lost my mom two years ago. But I had my parents all the way into adulthood. Thank you. but it was weird. We shared that the other day with a couple of people. Like I had a backup mom. Like that's what Judge Cook called. Faye,

but it was a real deal. But it was a really sweet moment because my parents finally got to meet my kid. And it was like this real surreal kind of like it's finally full circle. Yep. And life was great. I worked full-time fire and then part-time life net and I loved it. You know, don't get me wrong. I love being a firefighter.

I love fighting fire. I never thought I wanted to be a firefighter. and then I remember the first structure fire I went in, you just go in it. You don't really think about it. You don't have time to. Yeah. And then I finally realized,

and it's not like what you see on TV. You can't see anything. It's so dark. The smoke's so dark. You can't even see your hand up in your face. Well, once most of the fire was out, and I could not tunnel vision and actually think, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to burn building.

Like, this is awesome. I love, you know. So I got, that was like confirmation. I'm in the right field. Nathan's born. I've got my paramedic. The ambulance was like my ministry. I loved, loved, loved, loved, love that ambulance,

which is weird. People think I'm a weirdo because not everyone likes the ambulance. I loved it. I worked those really long weeks, like 72 and 96 hour weeks up until like May of 22. And I hurt my back. and I had my first back surgery, like May 23rd of 22, and I was off for, I went back to work on August the first of the same year, and I had to take it easy. I still went back to the ambulance, which probably wasn't the smartest thing, but I had to,

like financially. I promoted also during the same time frame after I made medic. So we had a lot of financial hardship initially, but then I promoted, I made medic. So with me making medic, I got, our department offers a 10% of your salary incentive, which is like the best incentive we offer. So I promoted and got more money at the primary job and then I got more money as a paramedic. So things got a little easier. And again, I probably didn't have to work as much as I did, which I need to give Hannah a lot of credit because when she was pregnant, I wasn't emotionally involved like I should have been. I was gone all the time.

And when I wasn't, I was, I didn't, I didn't know how to, like, show that I was excited. You know, there were expectations that I didn't meet. And that, that's 100% on me. I think, too, for everything that you have gone through, it's not an excuse, but it's a learning curve. Yeah. You know, and I think with work, that was something you didn't, like you said, you didn't really have to think through. You just knew that it was a really good, it's something that made you feel good.

I feel like it was probably a really good distraction. Yeah. You didn't really have to pour your emotion in. Yeah. But then with a relationship, it's like you can love somebody but not know exactly how to show that love. Yeah. Well, and I dropped the ball big time and I've taken full accountability for it. And Hannah has forgiven me for it.

And it's not that I was mean. It's not that I was not loving. It's not that I didn't express that I was excited for the baby, but for Nathan, but I could have done a lot more. I really truly could have done a lot more. And I regret that looking back, but we're past it. We're moving on. I love him more than I ever thought I could love a human, you know. But I worked until I had back surgery, I went back to work, full throttle.

My first week back, like, seriously, my first week back after my first back surgery, I clocked 137 hours. But I was working a couple of, like, that's also people will say, well, how do you do that? there's like 160 hours a week, I'm working 24s. That takes a lot of it. Yeah. You know, I think I worked an overtime shift at the fire department that week, too. So that was like a 48.

And then I worked almost every other day of the week I was working at 12 on the ambulance except for one. And I actually worked like a 27 because I stayed over. I worked a full night shift and then hung over the next morning. So although that sounds like a whole lot of hours, I'm still, I'm also sleeping at the fire department. I work for a pretty slow department. So I'm sleeping at the, those were my day. off we're at the fire department.

Still in the middle of COVID. Life is just good. We're learning how to be parents. Nathan was a wonderful kid. I was hard on Nathan. I still am sometimes hard on him in the aspect of I want him to know what's right and wrong. And he does.

Nathan's a wonderful child. I was really hoping the day that we video called that Nathan would be with us just so you could, he's a sweetest kid. And I know parents are biased, but I promise you, Nathan's the sweetest kid you'll ever meet in your life. But I'm hard on him or I was hard on him on certain things. And it was always the things that would hurt him, you know, like you can't jump on the couch.

You can't stand up on the bed. And a lot of my family, and when I say a lot of my family, a lot of my family has died off. So when I say my family, a lot of my in-laws and we disagreed on some things, but I wouldn't budge on it because. like car seat safety, things that a lot of people think are frivolous. You know, when you work on an ambulance or you work in a fire department

and you see dead children. Yeah, you see it all. It changes your perspective. Right. So I didn't budge on it. And I was tough on Nathan on manners and respect and being just, you know, a good kid.

And there were nights that I went to bed and I just felt guilty. You know, not because I was mean to Nathan or whatever, but because he would be sad sometimes. You discipline your kid. then it's, you know, and not even like, when I say discipline, like, hey, you don't do that, and it ruins their whole day, you know, and I felt like a monster times just from, you know, like putting Nathan in timeout or whatever, he would just, you know, and I had to realize that

it's hard to be a parent, and there's a lot of grace that you have to have, but it's worked out for the best. And Hannah did the same thing. We talked about it before we ever had children, like these are our expectations of each other as parents this is our expectation you know um of the kids and so on and so forth and some of it changes because you have unrealistic unrealistic expectations before you have kids yeah but for the most part we've i'm proud of our parenting i'm very proud of hannah i couldn't stay home and be a stay at home parent because that is way harder than people give credit you know um work never stops when you're a state home parent and um nathan's are kid. He's very well behaved. Austin. My youngest son, baller opposite. You know, so,

but kind of moving into Austin, we always knew that we wanted another child. Hannah struggled with postpartum depression really, really bad. And that's something that, you know, another thing, I don't think people have enough, there's not enough light on that. And yeah, I was, I didn't know a lot about it. So I was like, okay, what is this? And when I saw it, I knew immediately, no, we're not ever doing this again. If we want another kid, we're going to have to adopt or or just have one. And I was happy with Nathan. Well, I guess when Hannah and I first met, I made a statement one time. Yeah, I want two kids. I want one of my own and I want to adopt one. And I don't know how much weight that carried as a 20-year-old, you know, a 21-year-old.

I'm sure I was just looking back on my past. The church that we go to is big on, you know, all of you out there that are pro-life. Are you really pro-life? Are you going to sign up and are you going to become fosters? They don't say it so aggressively, obviously, but that's the message. You know, if you really truly say that you love children and you love life, what about all these foster children that need love? And so I didn't want to foster at all.

I didn't want DHS to be part of my life ever again. You know, in the state of Arkansas, their DHS vehicles are usually white vehicles with a red sticker on the door. I promise you if there's one in this big city, I'd find it. And it's just because I'm like, it's so deep-rooted. I didn't want one of those cars in my driveway. I didn't want to deal with caseworkers. And the most important thing,

I knew I couldn't foster because I knew I'd fall in love with the kids. I knew it, but you know. But we talked. And I talked about it. And we prayed about it. And we reached out to our family. I talked to my parents. You know,

I never got to tell my mom that we actually made the decision to foster. And that sucks. I really wish that I could have told my mom. And I'll just let you know now. I am a huge baby when it comes to my mom. But 22, I had back surgery. We make it through that next year. start talking about other children.

Well, 23, 2023, I hurt my back again. And I had to have another back surgery in the same place. Same surgery, same place. Well, like 10, 11 days before I had that second back surgery, my mom had a colon resection. I didn't talk about, other than my dad being handicapped, I didn't talk about my adopted parents' health.

My mom had diverticulitis, and she had some other health issues. with being her age. I almost lost, we almost lost her a couple times throughout my childhood, just from surgeries and, um, AFib and,

and, oh, which we never did. She got kicked in the head one time when I was in the ninth grade by a cow. That almost killed her. And I, yeah, she was milking a cow.

And, uh, it actually was like a glancing blow. The hawks on the cow cut her head. But when it cut her head, it cut an artery. Oh my gosh. And we live out in the country.

She literally almost blood to death. And I remember that. was the like July the third. Yeah, July the third of 2009. It was the same month that I attempted suicide. And I remember, like, she passed out and I was older and it was not a good deal. But the doctor called her a tough old bird, you know, so that kind of just got stuck in my head. Like my mom was invincible. Well, she had this culinary section at, you know, let's say it was, she was at 87. That's a huge, huge, huge traumatic surgery for someone that old. Surgery was successful.

It was good and good. Well, they sent her home. The incision opened from this swelling, which wasn't the big deal. It wasn't huge. But she ended up going back into the hospital with an infection. Still not the big deal. They got it under control unless she went in AFib. And if you're not familiar with AFib, like you have to control the arrhythmia,

but you also have to control, you have to use anticoagulant therapy because an AFib, the atrium of your heart don't function correctly. So basically the blood in the top of your heart pulls and it clots if you're not on anticoagulants. They couldn't put my mom on anticoagulant therapy because of the huge incision. They didn't want her to bleed uncontrolled if something were to happen. They were able to control the AFib and keep her rate down, but she still ended up throwing a clot and she had a massive stroke. And, you know, my dad, she was home when it happened in bed. and my dad didn't catch it.

And it's really stupid for me, but I was really, really, really mad at my dad. And he's an old man. He's not medically trained. He checked on my mom early that morning. It was like September the 9th, whenever it happened when she had the stroke. And he walked in early in the morning and checked on her,

and he said he thought she was mad at him. Because he was like, well, she wouldn't, talk to me. She just mumbled. And he went outside and took care of the chickens like she did every morning and came back, cooked breakfast, went about his normal morning, and then, you know, a couple hours later went to check him on because he thought she fell back asleep again. And when he went to check on her and she still didn't reply the right way, he finally went in and looked at her and realized something was really was bad wrong. I mean, she had already begun to posture, which is, you know, not good at all.

I'll get a phone call from my dad and he's just incoherent, you know, and I can't get any information out of him, any good information. All I can get is mom has had a stroke, and I'm like, why are you calling me call 911? The ambulance is here. Perfect. I'll talk to you later. I've, you know, now I'm in paramedic mode, and it is what it is. I don't, it's weird.

You shift. There's stuff that has to be done. We'll deal with the emotions later. So I hung up with my dad and I called dispatch because I've, again, I've worked for the company. I called dispatch. Who's the truck that you sent to my parents' address? They tell me, I hang up with them. I call that paramedic on a cell phone because we're friends.

And in the world of EMS, there are good paramedics and they're not good paramedics. And it is what it is. And the good paramedics, you know, you just know. you just know how they operate, you know, to trust them. If it's not a legit emergency, no, we're not going to run lights and sirens to the hospital. If it is a legit emergency, some medics still won't run lights and sirens because it's so much more dangerous. And we can get things done in the back of the truck. This paramedic was one of those guys that he's not running lights and sirens unless it's, they're going to die.

Like in 10 minutes, they're going to die if we don't get there. And when he answered the phone, I could hear the sirens. and I didn't even have to talk to him. And when he answered the phone, he didn't even say hello. He just said, dude, I'm so sorry. And I was like, great house. I don't have time for that right now. I need to know what's going on.

He was like, it's bad. Okay. We have two hospitals in our city, and I said, are you going to St. Vincent? And he said, yeah, I'll meet you up there. And when I got to the hospital, they were rolling her back. from the CT and the girl that was rolling her back was my wife's best friend who worked in CT and her name's Kristen and she was sobbing because she knew yeah it was obvious well after my second back surgery um i kind of petered off of i'm sorry after my first back surgery i quit working on

the ambulance as much and started working at st vincent in the ER so not only only did I know the doctors and the nurses from working on the ambulance, but now they're my co-workers also. So I get to the hospital and like the nurse who's over my mom, we're friends, the doctor over my mom, we're friends. And everybody is just like, you know, just solemn that everybody knows. And everybody's like trying to sugarcoat it. I'm not ignorant, you know, to emergency medicine, you know, because that was like my favorite. everything in the entire world. So when I got to see mom, you could tell it was a completed stroke.

She was postured. It was a right-sided stroke, so she could still talk. She was very slurred. She was somewhat coherent. She was in trauma for her at St. Vincent. And I knew that my parents had advanced directives and D&Rs, but you don't think about it until it's time to implement one. and seeing what I saw and knowing the trajectory of the next couple of days,

there was no fixing that. Cerebral tissue, once it's dead, it's dead. I also knew the protocol of the hospital. If we can't fix it, put them on a helicopter and send them somewhere bigger. It doesn't matter where you send them in the world. You can't fix that. So the doctor came out and talked to me. And he's trying to sugarcoat it.

And, you know, I was like, Doc, hold on just a second. Let's get away from my siblings. By now, all of my parents' biochildren were there. I talked to the doc and I say, listen, I don't need your sympathy. I don't need your sadness. I don't need your sorries. I need to know the facts. Where are we?

What do we have? How bad is it? And he's like, there's no blood flow at all. her um the right side is completely dead and I said okay she has a DNR

it will be honored because she wrote it she filled it out she wants it and don't you dare fly my mom out of this hospital and he's looking at me he's like well we can go to you A. Mass and I'm like don't you dare

ship my mom around and make us chase her just make her comfortable and it looked like I slapped him. It looked like I reached out and slapped him, and you can tell that he didn't want to do that. He wanted to try, and it's like he wanted to try

because obviously he wants the best for his patience, but there was something to be said about, like we had a friendship. He knew that this was important to me, but I want to say this before I get into the next thing, my adopted siblings loved me, you know, but I was, still kind of a black sheep with one of my siblings and I'm not going to, but she had a hard time,

I think, with the way that my parents loved me. And it's, I think she had a hard time with how hard they loved me after I put them through everything. All of my siblings gave me tough love whenever I was putting mom and dad through the bad stuff, but they needed to, you know. And I made myself the black sheep. I made myself the black sheep. But whenever mom was in the hospital, there was one person calling the family. There was one person making sure everybody was okay. There was one person still talking to mom and trying to make sure that, you know, what she wanted was true on the DNR initially.

When I say one person, that was me. Everyone was looking at me, you know, like the, I don't want to say a scared little kid because I wasn't scared little kid anymore, but like the adopted kid. And that's how I felt. I felt like, oh, all of a sudden now you all are looking at the adopted kid because I work in this field and I know all these people for me to do it. And I was bitter for, you know, a little while, stupid.

But so I felt I was mad at my dad. I was mad at my siblings because I was like, oh, I don't get to grieved too, you know. But in the moment I was like, suck it up. This is their mom. Been their mom for a lot longer than she ever was yours. So, you know, I did it for my mom. It was a weird situation because she could still talk a little bit. So they brought a neurologist down and then they brought a neurosurator.

a surgeon down and they came into the room. Of course, they look at all the family members, see who's going to move toward them to talk. And I was the young one. They're looking at this old woman, my mom, and looking at the older siblings, and they just like point at me. And so they were like, we want to talk to your mom. Go ahead. She can talk.

Don't talk to me. Talk to her. You know. And, you know, they were like, Miss Gray. They're screaming at her because she's almost deaf too. And she, like, opened her eyes and looked at them. And they said, do you want us to try to help or do you want us to make you comfortable? And she held up the number two on her on her right hand.

Her left side was almost completely postured by then drawn up. And I knew that she would say that, but I didn't like that at all. You know, the selfish side of me wanted her to go try something, you know. So they took her up to the fifth floor, which is hospice. And we started calling everybody. My dad still didn't understand how bad it was. So we get her to the room and it's, it sucked just because all of the nurses that I've, I developed a lot of really good friendships.

As an adult who knew how much of a piece of crap I was, I tried to really be intentional on being a good person and being a good paramedic, being a good coworker, being a good friend. And so I was able to build a lot of good friendships. and it sucked because everyone's just, everyone needed to grieve. But right in that moment, I was like, why is everybody grieving right now? Like, let's all suck it up. Let's get through this.

And so it made it more difficult that everybody, like, even when we went to the fifth floor, they're like, yeah, Tracy works for us. And now these nurses are crying. And I'm like, I didn't want to deal with it right now. I just didn't at all. So I went downstairs and I told my dad how bad it was. And, you know, they were married for 70 years. and my dad said something about

anybody can revoke a DNR at any time and a lot of people don't know that and he asked if there was anything that could do and I said no dad you know it's we have to honor what mom wants and we we kind of butted heads on that for just a second but I explained it to dad

and I was like you gotta come you know you gotta go spend time with her so we went and spent time with her Hannah was at home with Nathan the family started pouring in I was calling everybody and I don't, I'm like an object permanence person. I'm terrible about it.

If it's not right in front of me, it's not that I don't miss my family. It's not that I don't think about my family. But I'm so focused on the day-to-day stuff, I'm terrible about reaching out. So the family members that saw my phone number calling them, they all knew. So once I contact all of the family,

I wanted to go home, and I wanted to go get Hannah and Nathan and bring them up because I wanted mom, I don't know why, but I wanted mom one last time to be able to see Nathan. I don't know why.

But she loved Nathan. So, when I left the hospital, I got to talk to mom and I was the last person that she ever talked to. And I just said two sentences. I got really close to her.

And I got right. in front of her face where she could see me clearly. And I asked her, you know, I said it's Tracy and she said Tracy and she was still slurring really bad and her head was actually starting to draw to that left side. But she could see me. I know she knew who I was because she repeated my name. And I told my parents, I loved them all the time, you know, but I told my mom that I loved her.

And she said, I love you too. And then something I just, I guess I never told my mom or my parents, I never thought about it. But I told her that I was very thankful for her. And she reached up with her, her right hand, and like touched my cheek. If my parents weren't physically affectionate, they weren't touchy. And so she, like, grabbed my cheek. And she said, I thank God for you. And that was big for me, really big.

because I finally felt like I was able to finally tell my mom what I needed to tell her a long time ago. It kind of sucked too because I felt like the woman that wholeheartedly loved me through everything, now I'm there. And now I've got my mom. I went home and Hannah was like, why do you want to take nothing up there?

That's weird. And I was like, we're doing it. We're taking our son up there to see my mom. And she was like, yep, we're doing it. Let's go. And so we went, and by the time we got everything done, and finally up there, her mom was, she was unconscious. She wasn't unresponsive, or she was unresponsive, not unconscious, I'm sorry. And I thought, am I going to traumatize Nathan by, you know, bringing him up here, but I know that I didn't because he needs to see that.

and when we came into the room I kept him away from mom for a second and the family wanted to talk to us and I was having a hard time is what it really was I didn't want to go back to them off and so Nathan was kind of bashful but I finally got him to start talking

and one thing that I always did with Nathan is I always used to sing old gospel hymns to him at night. My mom was the pianist at our church. And she was like the most beautiful alto you've ever heard. And so I started singing with Nathan. And Nathan started singing. And Mom actually opened her eyes and looked around for just a second.

She didn't do it. That was it. But she heard Nathan. I know she did. And that was everything. Of course, we get home. I just, I fall apart. I held it together in front of all of my siblings because everyone else was not.

And I wanted to be strong for them. I want to be strong for my dad. And I got home and I just fell apart. And I'd always told Hannah like, it's not, if I'm hurting, that's not your burden. And that is not fair. If you're in a relationship, that is not fair. It is, it is their responsibility. It is their privilege to help you suffer.

And I remember that night. I told Hannah, I went outside, and I was like, just give me some space, please. And she did. And I came inside, and I said, sweetie, I don't know how to let you help me, but I need you to help me. And she just hugged me. And it was like, it was like the best thing that she could have ever done. The next day Nathan came in, and I was still having a really, really, really, really hard time. I mean, it's two years later, and I'm still not over it.

You know, I feel silly, but Nathan asked me that day, Daddy, why are you sad? Why are you crying? And, you know, I'm not that guy that's like, guys don't cry. I don't care. Don't care at all. You know, I think there's a time and there's a place. You know, if I'm on an ambulance working a death, I probably don't need to be crying right now. If I need to be taking care of somebody after the call, absolutely, let it out.

You have to. it'll eat you alive well Nathan asked me why am I crying and I I got to be a dad and um I'm always a dad with Nathan but um I told Nathan that day it's okay to be sad just don't stay there I don't know where that came from but that's the best way that I could tell Nathan how I felt and to try to teach him something you know it's okay to cry and you know it's okay to be sad just don't stay there and that was it that was all the conversation took for you know my son they went about his business let's see that would have been September 11th so September the 12th um I got a phone call at 4 o'clock in the morning from my oldest sister and she said

you need to get to the um you get the hospital right now and so I did I drove up there and mom was really really really bad her respiratory rate was like 56 her heart rate was in the 170s she's an Apib with RBR. And when I touched her, she was, it was like she was in a sauna. She was cooking. And I was having a hard time because in a DNR, I didn't know this, but in a DNR, you can request obviously no CPR, no AED, no medications, but you can also request no artificial nutrition and no artificial hydration. So my biggest fear was that mom was going to lay there and starve to death or just be dehydrated and it killer. The nurse, the hospice nurse was supposed to come up and give her versed and fentanyl just to make her comfortable,

or not fentanyl versed and morphine to make her comfortable. And the nurse is in the room drawing the meds up. And like I said, mom's respiratory rate was in the 50s, which is insane. And she was really, really, really struggling. It was hard to see her like that. I was holding one of her hands when my sister, Juanita was holding one of her hands and we were singing to her. And she took one deep breath. and I don't know how many people I've seen die in my field a lot, you know, it is what it is.

And when she did that, I said, there it is. And the nurse was like, what, what? And I was like, that's it. And I'm feeling for a radio pulse. I can't feel anything. I felt for a carotid. And she had a carotid pulse, but she was in the 150s initially. And now she's like in the 40s and then the 30s.

And then she finally coated with a DNR. you just have to honor it. The nurse panicked. She was like, we've got to do CPR. I was like, do not touch my mom. You know, I was kind of crappy. Maybe not crappy, but I was really, really stern, like, don't touch her. And on that floor, I guess, I don't know.

It was a weird reaction, I guess, for her to see a family member be like, no, we're going to let it happen. But mom died September the 12th. 628 in the morning and I got to be with her. So I'm really thankful that I got to be there. But that also really sucked. But I just had back surgery like I mentioned. And I struggled really, really hard with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to carry my mom. And then we get to the funeral.

And the funeral home is outside of the city limits that I live in. or the outside of the city limits for the fire department that I work for. And we show up to the funeral and one of my fire engines is sitting at the funeral home. And six of my closest friends from the fire department carried my mom. They were the fall bears. It's just a, it's such a blessing because I grew up and all I ever wanted was a family. And I just kept getting stabbed every which way. And now I'm an adult and I have my family, my adopted family.

and I have my own family I also have a family of brothers and sisters at the fire department and they showed up without me having to family doesn't always mean no and sometimes their roots are so much deeper and they carried my mom

they stood guard at my mom you know for the service and they carried her to the cemetery they blocked traffic and I never asked them to and they stayed for the entire funeral service just good dudes you know i'd do anything for any of them mom passed in september we finished all of our training for dhs that winter so now we roll over into 24 we opened our home after a lot of prayer

and a lot of support from our church um we opened our home for fostering in february and we got like two calls over a couple of kiddos that didn't work out it's just easiest way to put it it just didn't work out and then we got a call about our youngest son and I actually said no yep I did because there was a potential hepatitis exposure and so I was like no right Mm-mm. We have a child that we have to protect, and I was adamant about it, and I was kind of a jerk about it. And that's just me trying to be honest.

I was kind of a jerk about that one. But Hannah and I thought about it because she went up to sit with him at children's, and he has kind of a complex story, but he was abandoned. And there was no family, but he went into respiratory distress, so they flew him to children's from Hot Springs. And Hannah went to sit with him. Even after I said no, like she still told DHS, I won't go sit with him since someone else will. And so she did. Hannah has a heart of gold. And I finally broke and said, all right, let's, you know, let's do this.

But I talked to a couple of physicians at the hospital that I worked for. And they were like, dude, there's a cure for hep C now. Like a definitive cure. Yeah. Why are you freaking out? It's okay. And so I was like, all right, well, let's try it. And exactly what I thought would happen when I saw Austin happen.

When she handed me that baby, I felt like, in love. You know, he was just like he was my son, Nathan. And we fought for 13 months. We hired an attorney. A couple of weird things happened where a family member, an adopted family member from halfway across the country came up and said that they wanted him. But the way that she went about it, she sent an email to DHS, like, as a whole,

not even anyone specific. And it turns out that the grandmother, it was her sister. her adopted sister who put word in. Anyways, it didn't work. Yeah. And so how old was he when you guys got him? Oh, he was 10 days old when he brought him home. Wow.

Yep. He only, we only ever had one foster child that was Austin, and he only ever had one set of foster parents that it was me and Hannah. That's amazing. And we were very fortunate, very blessed. He's happy, healthy, well, happy, maybe not so much those first couple months. You know, he was, he had, his mom didn't make great decisions. And I don't want to speak ill of his mom.

But he had the detox. And he struggled the first couple months. I mean, big time. And Nathan was an easy baby. Austin, no. Not at all. Not an easy baby. But it taught Hannah and I a lot.

And it showed us how much love, you know, we had to give and how much he needed. You remember me telling you about telling Nathan It's okay to be sad, but don't stay there The day that we found out about this adopted Great Aunt, I was at work I promoted to a position at the fire department to where I'm in administration now. I work Monday through Friday.

My title is medical training officer. So I, anyways, I was at work in the middle of a fire academy, teaching our own fire academy. And Hannah called me and was like, you need to come home now. She's boo-hoo. And I'm like, okay. So I leave work. My partner takes over. I get home and Hannah's just like dry heaving. She's still worked up crying. Can't get anything out of her. And then she finally tells me and

like a ton of bricks, you know, just stops your whole life. It feels like. So I'm like trying to be the like it's okay. Just calm down. This isn't going to happen. I didn't know, but I'm trying to, you know, comfort her. But we get through like the big part of it and we get calm down a little bit. Hannah's still crying. When Nathan gets up from his nap and comes down the hallway and he's like, he sees Hannah crying. He walks up to her and gives her hug.

He's like, Mommy, it's okay to be sad. Just don't stay there. I said that to him once. Like, and that was another thing for me that it came full circle. This is almost a whole year later. And of course, Hannah's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I remembered that. Had Hannah and I not plugged in as hard as we did at our church during this time frame, I don't know that we would have made it, honestly.

Not necessarily our marriage, but just we needed a lot of support and we didn't know how to go about it. And I'm glad that we went the direction that we did. We found some really, really good people that are close in our lives now. We're so thankful for them. We learned that, you know, we're not meant to be isolated. We're built for community. We're built for friendships.

We're built for family. And sometimes you have to let other people help you carry your load. And that's humbling because we feel like everybody else has hard things to go through. Why would we give you any of ours? But that's what we're here for, you know, together to help each other. And we push through it. And then March of this year, we adopted Austin. And again, I guess my firemen just love to watch me cry.

I don't know. But we're standing in the courtroom or in the halls of the courthouse. and like literally a third of my fire department shows up. I didn't ask any of them to come. Some of them were on duty. Some of them were off duty. And every one of them that showed up, I was like, dude, I just quit crying.

Like, you know, but we got a big picture of everyone in the courtroom of all the guys and me and Hannah and the boys. I got it on a three foot by two foot canvas and put it above my desk. So it's really crazy how it all came full circle. You know, and not to be like dramatic, but, you know, I was, I was that hurt little kid. And then to come full circle and to get a hurt little kid and to love him. We had to do a adoption bibliography because he was put on an adoption registry and we were top of the list, thank God.

But the lady who did the adoption bibliography, it was a FaceTime. she asks us all these questions. She gets to this one question where she's like, do y'all feel personally attached to Austin? His name wasn't Austin. We changed his name. Do you all feel attached to, I'm going to just call him Austin.

And we were like, yeah, we give her a textbook answer. Like, we've had him since day one. He's only ever known us. He's got a relationship with our son, yada, yada, yada. And I'm like, am I going to chase the rabbit and tell this lady, like I was a foster child? Or is it, you know, not even worth it? Of course, I was like, yeah, it's worth it.

I'm going to tell her. Anything I can do to try to persuade her that we need to keep this child. So I tell her. I'm like, personally, I feel attached to him because I was also a foster child. I will be able to relate to him when he's older. And this woman, I didn't realize I knew her. I guess I didn't really know her. After I tell her, like, I was a foster child, she says,

I knew that was you. And me and Hannah are like, it's like super awkward. It's silent. And you can tell, like we're both trying to come up with something to say. And she's just staring at us through the phone. And she's like,

is your dad, Merwin? Do you know anyone else named Merwin? You know? Right. Probably not. And so I was like, yeah. She said, was your mom,

was your mom's name Thelma? Yeah. And she said, you're not going to believe this, but I was your caseworker 30 years ago. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh. And she was like, your case made me quit DHS because the judge kept sending me back. And what are the chances, you know? None. Right. So we got connected in that very strange way, but it was a really cool thing to come full circle. Yep. Yeah. And I talked to her last week. She's been able to answer a lot of

questions for me. We've been looking for a couple of my caseworkers. I never thought these doors would open. You know, Hannah and I shared the trauma candy salad. Did you ever see that video? Like, it was a joke. It's like a trend on TikTok. Yeah. Is that how you got started? Yeah. Yep. Yep. It was a joke. Like we share this trauma candy salad on TikTok and yeah, it took off. And then people wanted to story time and the story time took off. And then other story time. And I'm pretty transparent. I try to be. I try to be honest and real.

I feel like there's a whole lot of fakes that mislead people. Well, you're definitely meant to tell your story. And I think that there's something so different. I always say this. You know, some of my favorite episodes on the show are from men because it isn't as often to see a man get vulnerable and be willing to share everything, you know. And something else.

that I wanted to mention is, you know, when before you were talking about, if God, it was real, why would he let this happen? You know, there's no answer to that, but I like to believe that he puts these lives in front of people who he knows can handle it. Yeah. And you not only handled it, but now you're using it to help other people. And not everybody could do that. Yeah. You know, like I was saying before, there's people that's people that. could go through the same thing and not make it out. And of course, there were times where maybe you tried to not make it out, but you did. You know, and now you're here, you're sharing your story here.

And the thing is, it's not only just that, it's these little moving pieces of even just doing a trend on TikTok. It opens these doors for you. And that isn't coincidence. Yeah. You're meant to speak out. You're meant to share your story. And I truly believe I tell people this all the time.

That is a different form of healing. Yeah. You know, there's something about owning. your story for yourself and then watching how it helps others. I mean, there are so many kids, male and female, that probably hold so much guilt, so much shame, so much embarrassment from their childhood, you know, and the family that they were handed, basically, you know, and in so many different aspects, you can change people's lives by sharing your story.

And not only that, but now you just adopted a child. that was dealt similar cards, you know, and you, thank God, you got him so fast that you can just give him this beautiful life. But you're absolutely right. You will be able to relate to him, you know. He's such a sweet kid. And, you know, you said there's so many people that are holding on to stuff. We have had, again, I never thought that people would be interested in And then I never thought people would reach out. So many people have reached out. And Hannah and I sit down and diligently break down their stories.

And some of these people, like they say, we've never shared this with anyone. I believe them. Oh, 100%. Because some of the stuff's deep. It takes one voice to make someone else feel like, oh, I can do that. It's incredible. That's why I always say to people like, I hear all the time. People will be like, I never thought I would tell this.

And it takes hearing one other person to make you feel like, well, they could do it. Yep. I could do it. Yeah. And we're so blessed that people have trusted us. Yep. It's heavy reading their stuff, but I'm so proud of them. And, you know, we had no clue where the TikTok thing is going to go.

We don't even know what we're doing. But it's a way for us to love people and minister to people and be like a, like a safe place. And we tell the people that interact with us the most. I have a, I'm old school, I have a little, a stinopad.

I have their username's written down. And I say, hey, if you feel comfortable like telling us your real name, I got their real names written down so I can, like, I want them to know that I truly care. Yeah.

And someone called us. Imagine if you had that community at that age. You know what I mean? It's things like that. That it's like, if you could even just change one child's life, you know, like a teenager, somebody that's going through the things that you went through and has a phone and then find you and your story.

It's so inspiring. Yeah, people, I remember the hardest times in my life. What made it so hard was I felt alone. And I wasn't. But I made myself feel like I was all alone, all by myself. And there were times where I was, but, you know, there are people who, block people out or they get into a dark part of their life and they say,

you know, I'm completely alone, you're not. Even if you don't know me or you or the other thousands of people in the world who have, not the exact same story, but one very similar, you're not alone. And there are people, and I'm sure a lot of the people, I'm sure there are a lot of people that hear us tell these, you know, these individuals like, we love you. You don't know that. You may not believe that.

That's fine. I don't care. We love you. People love you. People think highly of you. You know, all of the pain that is in you right now, you just have to trust me. It will be replaced with love someday. You may not know the purpose of your story right now, but in the future, it'll be to share

and help other people here. Yeah. Or not here, heal. But that's so hard to listen to when it still hurts. Yeah, when you're in the midst of it, for sure. And I think, too, it does go to show that you don't, like we were saying before as well, you don't have to have blood-related family or friends to have a community.

Even if that community is solely online, that's still incredible. That's still huge. That still makes the biggest difference. And that, you know, I always say social media has its pros and cons, but that is such a big pro because, you know, years and years ago, that wasn't the case. You didn't have these outlets. You couldn't Google things. You couldn't find different groups and all these resources.

They weren't at like your fingertips like they are now. And I think that aspect is so incredible and it makes the biggest difference. And, you know, I mention this too all the time to be able to type something in on YouTube and hear somebody's just raw, authentic story. Yeah. That can make the biggest difference. And it does. I agree.

I agree. And you have, we talked whenever we did our, when we talked the first time, you know, and I want to say it again, I genuinely commend you for what you do and giving people a voice. You're doing huge, huge, huge things for these people. And I'm sure you probably see a lot of the impact that you have, but I bet you don't see even, you know, half of what you're doing for people. And that's really important. Thank you. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for the hospitality. Of course. You did incredible, truly. Was this your first time telling your story, like in depth, beginning to end? Yeah, like this. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know that I've. That's not easy to do at all. No. But you are just, the way that you describe everything that you went through and how vulnerable

you get, it is so truly. Like, I know that, I feel like the word inspiring is thrown around a lot. but it is. It is incredible. You, there's no words, genuinely. Yeah. You know, and I, you should be so proud of yourself. And I know sometimes, just like you just said to me, it's not always easy to recognize those things,

but to come out the way you have and not only that, but then be willing to tell hundreds and thousands of people about it, is unheard of. Well, I remember, I remember the darkness. Right. You know, and I remember I've got forgiven tattooed on my chest from shoulder to shoulder because I needed a reminder.

Yeah. Every day. And when you go from remembering the hurt and the pain and then seeing how happy you can be and how peaceful life can be, I'd shout it on the mountaintops if people would listen, you know, but I've never known how to. Right. Right, you weren't given the tools. And it's scary. People don't talk about that enough either.

It's like I don't think people want to not accept it. They don't know how. And they're terrified. Because if you let that in and you're disappointed, it's like, well, let's go back to square one again. And who the hell wants to deal with that? Nobody. You know? So it's almost like you really have to be willing to just get vulnerable and be like, let me, let me try this for me.

You know, worst case, we do it again and again until we get it right. And it is scary, and it sounds cliche, but it does make you stronger. And it always, always teaches you something. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think that sharing is healing because you get to share it and it makes you like rationalize it and feel better about all of the things. But there have been people that I've shared my story with. And they're like, oh my gosh.

Listen, it's not something that gets stuck on the bad. But I'm trying to tell you is you're not alone. And then to see, there's a couple of people in specific that I have seen make changes. And I take credit for none of it, zero. But I know that helping them find how to start opening up and find help, there's not anything better. I don't think. You know, if my sons, either one of them, Nathan or Austin, you know, not just Austin because of his situation. but I know what to be as a parent now because I had a phenomenal, I had the best example.

My adopted parents, I don't know how they did it. I mean, I truly don't. Yeah. So it gives me. Especially at their age. That's not easy. Oh, no. At all.

I feel like the odds were against them. My mom was a gangster. Yeah. And my dad was a big teddy bear, but between the two of them, they had enough, just enough fire. Amazing people. Oh, yeah. Same with you and your wife, truly. All just amazing people.

I appreciate that. Of course. Oh. You did amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Was there anything else? You think you got it all?

No, I think I got it all. Okay. I think. I'm sure you. You did amazing.