There was nothing about my childhood that would point to the bleak existence I would eventually lead. The safety of our small town afforded us the ability to learn by trial and error, and everyone knew each other and looked out for one another. Our lives were suffused with an innocence that once existed for the average American child, an innocence that, as of recently, seems lost forever.
My life began in the Connecticut beach town of Milford in January 1985. Milford was named one of the top beach places in the country, replete with Blue Ribbon schools, a beautiful downtown area, and a tight-knit community. Not far from New Haven, we had access to the best pizza in the world, and we were only a short train ride from Manhattan.
I was born a healthy brown-eyed, brown-haired baby and was doted on from day one. Every birthday, every Christmas, every trip to the playground was recorded on 16mm film and treated like some sort of life-changing event.
As soon as I was old enough to swing a bat, I was registered in the Tee-Ball League and my entire family showed up to every game. My mother was a devoted PTA mom and always baked cupcakes for bake sales and sewed costumes for plays. She was there with a Band-Aid for every cut or scrape and cold medicine for every sniffle. The beds were always made, the house was always clean, and between my mom and my grandma, there was always a hot meal waiting for us.
My father was a hard-working marketing manager for a technology firm based in Rhode Island. He spoke fluent German and several other languages and traveled constantly out of the country for business.
He was a highly skilled negotiator and was well-versed in how to conduct himself in the corporate environment. He was also a stickler for good manners. He taught me to place a napkin in my lap at meals and how to properly sit and eat, and to stand whenever someone got up to leave the table. When I was ten years old, my dad gave me my first lessons on how to interact with a client at a business dinner.
I was blessed with two sisters, Lillian and Gabby. My older sister, Lillian, liked to tease me and rat me out to my parents when I did something wrong. She also had a gentle side where she pretended to be a teacher and hold classes for me and Gabby. Lillian would later go on to get her master’s degree in education.
My younger sister, Gabby, was a much more jovial soul. Like me, she loved to clown around. We spent most of our childhood running around with the neighborhood kids, playing cops and robbers and getting in trouble for walking through the house with wet feet from the pool.
When I was ten, I was chosen to be a part of Milford’s enrichment program for gifted minds. My parents always knew I was quick to answer tough questions or spell tricky words. By the time I was in fourth grade, my teachers knew it too. Twice a week, I was bused to another school to undergo creative testing methods used to stimulate the mind for what the faculty considered to be gifted students. My mother and father couldn’t be prouder of their “brainiac” child.
During that time, my teachers also started to notice my more problematic characteristics. I was constantly a distraction to other students in class. I made jokes and had outbursts that made it difficult for my classmates to learn. Teachers scolded me, saying that just because I grasped concepts easily didn’t give me the right to distract others who needed to focus to learn. I didn’t understand that, and it led to some prickly challenges at school.
My parents eventually took me to see a psychologist to try to figure out what was causing my disruptive behaviors. I would talk to him about things that were bothering me, and then my parents would wait for him to give some sort of diagnosis for my behavior. Each time, the diagnosis would eventually disprove itself. For example, when the psychologist suspected I had attention deficit disorder, the notion was quickly eliminated once he tested my ability to focus and then received my straight-A report cards. Focusing was never a problem for me; I just loved putting on a show.
Finally, my parents decided the answer might be to enroll me in a Catholic all-boys school for my freshman year of high school: Notre Dame of West Haven.
When it came to modern-day schooling, Notre Dame of West Haven was about as strict as it got. The students were forced to wear uniforms of white oxford button-downs, khaki pants, brown shoes, and neckties. Catholic brothers roamed the halls just waiting to witness an infraction. Some of them were cool; some…not so much.
None were harsher than the infamous “Brother Benjamin.” He was about ninety years old and ruled the school with an iron fist. He didn’t take shit from anyone, including the parents who paid the expensive fees for their sons to attend such an elite school. My parents figured this was exactly the kind of discipline I needed. In their view, they were willing to try anything to help me and give me a chance to better myself—a theme that would stay constant through the years.
From the outside, my family life appeared to be the perfect American story. Our house even had the proverbial white picket fence, so often referenced as an indicator of having achieved the “American dream.”
In reality, every family has its problems. Marriages sour after years of miscommunication or misunderstanding. Spouses cheat on each other out of selfishness, spite, or lust. Houses are foreclosed, cars are repossessed, and financial burdens weigh down even the best of relationships. Unfortunately, those most likely to suffer from the fallout of such things are the children.
Our family, like others, had some of those problems. When my sisters and I were old enough to understand, our mother began to fill us in on some of the details that were causing the decay that would eventually crumble our seemingly perfect family life. Misconduct led to mistrust, which eventually broke down a marriage that had produced more than 23 wonderful years of good fortune and success.
By the time I entered Notre Dame, the relationship between my mother and father had been stretched thin by mistrust, arguments, and indiscretions. It was eventually beyond repair. All the baby photos, the memories of better days, and the attempts to reconcile wouldn’t be enough to postpone the inevitable any longer.
When I was fifteen, my mother sat me down at the kitchen table. “Mikey,” she said, “your father and I aren’t going to be together anymore.”
The news hit me hard. I’d known the day was coming, but I still wasn’t ready to hear the words. As a child, even as a young man, the thought of my parents not being together was one of the saddest things I could imagine. I struggled to make sense of the situation.
“I need you to know this isn’t your fault,” Mom said, gently rubbing my hair. “It’s just how things go sometimes, kid. Everything is going to be just fine.”
It seemed like the very next day, my dad was gone.
When he walked out the door, the strict rules he’d enforced for so many years left with him. All the discipline, the spankings, and my mom’s threats of “I’m gonna tell your father” came to an end.
Together, my sisters and I carried on. We still got the chance to see our dad sometimes, which helped. He continued to coach my intramural basketball team and took me on ski trips where we bonded as father and son. But his absence at home was deeply felt.
One day at the end of ninth grade, he sat me down for a talk. “Mike, do you like Notre Dame?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said. “I mean, it’s okay.” I was unsure what he was asking. I didn’t care much where I went to school. I figured “school was school” and I had to go either way, so it didn’t really matter where.