To My Best Friend. I remember every moment of my life spent with my best friend Mikee just like it

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1 Gonzalez 1 Carlos Gonzalez December 4, 2013 To My Best Friend I remember every moment of my life spent with my best friend Mikee just like it was yesterday. I can recount of all the times we would get in trouble as well as the many smiles and laughs we shared. As a kid growing up he was the only person I wanted to surround myself with and be around. He was not only my best friend but he was also my hero, my homie and most importantly my brother. We were two teenagers fueled by ambition and trying to make something out of nothing. We were just trying to prove to everyone that we were more than two kids from the neighborhood. It was March 26, 2012 and I received a phone call that would change my life forever. We both grew up together and were raised in the same neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was one of the roughest at the time, being tormented by an epidemic of gang violence. I remember at times I would hear gunshots followed by the sound of helicopters over my house. The sirens of police cars fading in louder as they got closer to my street and fading out as they got further away. I knew everything there was to know about selling drugs and what gang to associate myself with if I ever had to. Both my brothers were part of one of the most notorious gangs in Los Angeles so notorious that some associates were even featured on the FBI s Most Wanted List. I remember the time Mikee and I were being chased around the block with a knife to the first time I ever had a gun pointed at me close range to the head. Still that didn t phase me because I felt that this was the lifestyle I was choosing to live. A lifestyle of

2 Gonzalez 2 violence that had spread into my neighborhood and allowing it to get the better of me. But the reality was, it was really my best friend Mikee who it got the better of for at the age of twelve he had committed himself to a gang. Now here I was away from the neighborhood where it all started in hopes to find a much more positive direction in life. My parents couldn t take the pressure of me ending up like my brothers or my best friend so they decided to move out. However that didn t stop me from hanging out with him, I still saw him at least every weekend and we were both different people by the time we were in high school. He told me how some of his teachers would always bring him down by telling him he would never amount to anything. But instead he was actually doing well in school it was just the image he gave off by wearing baggy pants loose long shirts and a shaved head. Mikee was intelligent he had so much wisdom at such a young age and always pushed me to be the best I can be. Many people who knew us thought he was a bad influence to me and tried to persuade me to join a gang. He was always trying to help me with whatever problems I had in life and no other person knew me better other than him. It was my best friend who got me to where I am today and helped me shape the person I ve become. That day on March 26, 2012 I was coming off one of my best golf matches of the season and arguably the best of my high school career. I was even featured on the newspaper and acknowledged at my high schools pep rally the next day. But all that didn t matter anymore because I received a phone call I wish I never did, my best friend was murdered. My whole world had turned upside down and my heart was sad, it was the worst feeling in the world. My best friend of seventeen years was lying on

3 Gonzalez 3 the doctor s table for detectives to examine and observe while I waited in the wait room alongside family and friends. I never cried so much in my life and I ve never been so depressed in my life until that day. So many things were crossing my mind; I was just trying to contemplate how I was going to get the person who did this back. At one point as I sat there grieving, I thought about seeking revenge by doing the same thing to the person who had murdered my friend. But the fact of the matter was that I couldn t because that wouldn t bring him back and it would only raise an unimaginable deal of harm or threat to my life. His death has taught me so much about myself and there s not a single day passes by where he doesn t cross my mind. Mikee taught me about the greater things in life and left me with so much ambition to succeed in life. Everything that I do is so that one day I can accomplish what he always pushed me to do. Before he passed away I remember this conversation we had about life and about what we wanted to do with our lives. He told me that he wanted to go to the marines after graduating high school and I told him I wanted to go to college to pursue a degree in economics. He told me never let up or give up on your dream because you re better than that, you will be the best you can be those exact words will remain in my heart forever. He left with so many memories to reminisce on and that s something that no one can ever take away from me. I m only half the person that I am today because my better half is up there with him in heaven. Although he was only two months shy of graduating and joining the marines his spirit lives forever among the hearts of many and he will never be forgotten. For every step that I take in life he will take with me for he will be in my heart always and forever.

4 Gonzalez 4 Every now and then I sit around just to think about all the great times I was able to share with my best friend. I remember playing basketball for some league at a park and we would have such great chemistry with each other. He was the heart of that team, he had such great leadership skills and because of that I looked up to him. It was the last seconds of the championship game and our team was winning by at least ten points. He had the ball and the clock was winding down, the energy in the gym was unbelievable. The buzzer sounded and the game was over, everyone on the beach from my team came storming to the court excited jumping around and hugging each other. Mikee and I both looked at each other from across the court and hugged each other saying, We did it. It s a moment in time that I will hold with me for the rest of my life. There s no other person who will ever replace him because he holds a special place in my heart. If there s one thing that I will always remember was his big smile and his laugh. His sense of humor to always make people laugh when they were having a bad day or his ability to motivate others by giving them words of inspiration. We were inseparable and everyone was aware of that, we were always together everywhere we went. I was always there by his side when everything was going for the worst and I was there for him at his best. To this day I still wish there was something I could have done for him that day he passed away. At times I feel that I failed him and that I wasn t there for him the day he passed away. From the bottom of my heart had I been there that day he was beaten and shot to death. Even if it had cost me my own life I would have been there to fight back with him. It breaks my heart to know that no one was there for him when he was being surrounded by a group of heartless people beating him

5 Gonzalez 5 up. For the first time in my life I had felt that I failed, I failed to be there for my best friend and I still don t understand why he was taken from me. He was my best friend, the only person I trusted my life with and shared everything with. Nothing can bring him back and that s where it gets really hard to bare. My best friend was taken from at the age of seventeen, two months shy of graduating and getting ready to take on the world. I believe that life is precious and that you never really know what you have until it s gone. Thanks for the inspiration Mikee.

My Daddy remarried a precious woman who had three children. The youngest being the only girl named Dena and close to my sister s age.

My Daddy remarried a precious woman who had three children. The youngest being the only girl named Dena and close to my sister s age. TRACEY BENTLEY At the age of 2 my mother and father divorced and my mother married my stepfather shortly after. My mom, brother, sister and I all moved with him as a family. At the age of 3 or before I