The Undeserved Miracle

AuthorHouse

Contents

Dedication....................................................................viiForeword......................................................................ixIntroduction..................................................................xiThe City......................................................................1My Family.....................................................................5The Accident..................................................................23Traffic Pileup Carol Doiron: "Oh, God, preserve his life".....................33Aftermath of the Accident.....................................................37The Moment of Truth for My Family.............................................43Panic.........................................................................45Time Line of My Serious Condition.............................................51The Hospital Death Watch......................................................59Thank You, Mom and Dad........................................................61Miracles Never Cease..........................................................63Unhealed Wounds...............................................................71How Could I Ever Get Better...................................................75The Beginning of My Spiritual Change..........................................79Conclusion....................................................................87Acknowledgments...............................................................89Endnotes......................................................................91Sources.......................................................................93

Chapter One

In the year 2000 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Waterbury, Connecticut, with an estimated population of 107,902, was the fifth largest city in Connecticut. The city received its official name on May 15, 1686, when the settlement was admitted as the twenty-eighth town in the Colony of Connecticut. The name Waterbury was chosen because of all the streams flowing into the Naugatuck River. The town proper is 28.6 square miles. With an elevation of 325 feet above sea level, Waterbury is also known as a hilly city. It is located thirty-three miles southwest of Hartford.

Waterbury was once known as Brass City. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, it had large industrial interests and was the leading center in the United States for the manufacture of brassware (including castings and finishings). Another famous Waterbury product of the mid-nineteenth century was Robert H. Ingersoll's one dollar pocket watch. He sold five million watches. After this, the clock industry became as important as Waterbury's famed brass industry. Evidence of these two important industries can still be seen in Waterbury, as numerous clock towers and old brass factories have become landmarks of the city. Its historical sceneries blend in with the beauty of the Brass Mall and other modern structures.

Inhabitants of smaller neighboring towns—Wolcott, Prospect, Watertown, Naugatuck, Plymouth, Cheshire, and Middlebury—can be entertained at Waterbury's beautiful and spacious Brass Mall, located right off Interstate 84 and Connecticut Route 8. Along with the mall there are many historic sites such as Union Station Clocktower (1909), Waterbury Clock Company (1857), the Apothecary Building (1893), Carrie Welton Fountain (1888), and the Soldiers' Monument (1884). Another historic site is the Hotel Elton (1905), the balcony of which is the site of a speech delivered by President John F. Kennedy.

Many famous people have resided in Waterbury. Among them were Erick Poundstone, Strong Man champion; Roger Connor, Hall of Fame baseball player; Dr. Robert Gallo, a U.S. biomedical researcher for the AIDS virus; Fay Vincent, the eighth commissioner of Major League Baseball from September 13, 1989, to September 7, 1992, and Joan Joyce, one of the greatest women athletes of all time who made a name as an all-American softball player but also excelled in basketball, bowling, and golf. She struck out baseball legends Ted Williams and Hank Aaron with her 110plus mph pitches in exhibition games. John Sirica, Watergate judge and Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1973, was born and raised in Waterbury.

There isn't a country, state, or city without its share of crime, and Waterbury is no different. Its crime rate exceeds the national average. It is a fact that environment plays a major part in the mental development of a child and the mortality of its citizens. Although no adult can blame anyone for his or her behavior, it is quite evident that children develop overtime into good or bad citizens as the result of their environment. However, there are many successful and productive people in Waterbury. The ratio of people not participating in crime is greater than the ratio of people who are. Although crime is high in Waterbury, it is still a great city in which to live.

Chapter Two

Thursday, October 7, 1982, began like any other fall day in Waterbury—except in the Marques household. It was the day I was born to Antonio Marques Sr. and Joanne P. Marques at St. Mary's Hospital. My father was from Portugal and my mother was from the United States. My father worked in construction, and my mother worked at Southbury Training School on the second shift. My only sibling, Melissa, was two years old, the prettiest little thing any eyes have seen. Like all parents, my mother and father dreamed that their little boy would carry on the family name and succeed in life. Prior to my birth, my mother stayed home with my sister, but had to return to work about four months after I was born. For the first four or five years, my sister and I were close. It was so special to me to have her around. But when I turned four or five, I started playing by myself a lot until Luis came into my life.

My mother and father were raised Catholic, but my father was raised strict, Old School Catholic. While growing up in Portugal, he and the neighborhood boys would walk for miles to church and visit the site of Our Lady of Fatima. He loved going to church. My father wasn't abusive, but when we got out of line, he would use his right hand to bring us back in line. I feared misbehaving because I didn't want him to "get" me. Although Melissa and I did not fear our father, we had a great deal of respect for him. Mother didn't like for Melissa and me to get spanked, so many times she didn't tell my father what we had done. Those secrets my mother kept from him regarding my bad behavior led to later problems.

My parents made us do all the things that Catholics are supposed to do. We went to church every Sunday until I finished catechism. I loved catechism because young people taught it and they could care less whether we learned anything. I played volleyball and fooled around a lot. Needless to say, I didn't learn much of anything from going to catechism. It didn't put the fear of God in my life. The most I can say is that I believed there was a God and He was watching over us. My whole family believed and we all prayed, but not together. I prayed every night before I went to bed, "Our Father," and "Hail Mary" prayers. I prayed if I got in trouble or if I wanted something. I prayed for God to watch over my family, especially my mother because of her drug problems. Beyond that, I couldn't care less about religion and church. Now that I really serve God with my whole heart, I know for a fact that we didn't serve God from our hearts. We were only performing our religious duties for the Catholic Church.

I started out as a very shy child; you could say I was an introvert. Most of the time I played alone; I was my own best friend. Most of the day I played with action figures and video games, but I also loved to play with ants, spiders, and other bugs. My two female cousins lived behind our house and sometimes I played with them. As Melissa grew older, she began to pick on me and didn't want to play with me anymore. So, we started to drift away from each other. Luis came along later, in third grade.

It wasn't until I was in kindergarten that my parents learned I had a hearing problem, and, due to this, I had to repeat kindergarten. Sometimes I wrote backwards. If my teacher was standing on my right side and talking to me, it would always cause me to write backwards. Along with that problem, my father's sister babysat me during the day because my mother worked second shift. My aunt only spoke Portuguese, so I didn't hear any English until Mom got home from work. A professional stated this was part of the problem why I wasn't doing well in reading and writing. After two years in kindergarten, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed and they put plugs in my ears. With the hearing problem solved, I started doing better in school.

Beyond my hearing problem, I knew something was wrong with me. Although I craved to fit in, I just didn't so I became a clown and a jokester. It seemed as if no one wanted to play with me until I "acted out." I felt somewhat like a leader because I could clown around and get people's attention, but it was actually my way of handling the loneliness I felt inside. Except for when my father was around, which was not often, I misbehaved. I got away with lots of things. My aunt couldn't coach me with my homework, and when my father came home he was too tired to help me. My mother wasn't there in the evenings because she worked at night. So my sister became my tutor, and we somehow got it done. At least I was promoted each year to the next grade level in grade school. While in the third grade, I met my best friend, Luis Velasquez.

Luis came from a dysfunctional home life, so my mother and father took him under their wings. He spent a lot of time with me while we were growing up. Whenever he could, he would come over to play and we'd go outside to look for insects. Most of the time when Luis came over, we'd play video games. Lots of times he spent the night at our house and sometimes went on local trips with us. My father and I hardly spent time together, but he would take me to Portugal with him on vacation. Mother's work schedule kept her from going. I also visited Luis' home and we would play video games at his house. As we grew older, Luis and I received BB guns. We would go into the woods near his grandfather's house off North Main Street. We'd shoot at everything. It would be just us two most of the time having fun. Now that I know God, I can say that the relationship between Luis and me was like two close friends in the Bible, David and Jonathan. As Forrest Gump would say, "We were like brothers and stuff."

My other best friend was Edward Shaad (Ed). I met Ed through my cousin John after I graduated from the job corps. We were very good friends. John, Ed, Luis, and I would hang out at the Sunoco Gas Station when John worked there. Ed and I developed a close bond. If I told you that I weighed more than 125 pounds when I met Ed, I believe I would be exaggerating. But I swaggered like a banty rooster and started a lot of fights, from which I usually emerged unscathed. The reason for this was due to Ed and Luis. I looked up to them. They had my back regardless of the situation.

I remember one incident in Waterbury when I started a fight with a kid at the gas station. After the fight, this kid told me to get in my car and follow him. So Ed and I jumped in the car and followed him. We pulled up to where three cars were parked, and five guys were standing around the cars. Ed and I got out. One of the big guys acted really tough. He came toward us and demanded, "Who's fighting?" Ed and I looked at each other. I said to Ed, "Five against two. Let's go at it." When the big guy saw that Ed and I weren't going to back down just because it was five against two, he said to me, "Hey, why don't you and the guy you were fighting before you got here go at it." Before I even thought about it, I went into the guy like lightning and coldcocked him. When he fell, a tire rod clattered to the ground. He had been hiding it behind his back. Ed picked it up and threw it into the woods. When I finished beating that guy, the other guys just stood still. Ed and I climbed in the car and left. Luis and Ed truly were my best friends.

As I grew older, my parents allowed me to play baseball. I had fun but I kept to myself because I was no good at it. Around this time my mother and father argued a lot. I tried to pretend everything was fine, but deep inside I felt helpless to handle these problems that I had no control over. Maybe the reason was due to the fact that I never felt like a normal kid. When the baseball game or practice was over, I would lock myself in my own little world. After baseball I tried karate for one year, which led to boxing. As in everything else, Luis also joined me in boxing.

My mother has given me permission to share her problems in this book. Thank God her problems are over, but we can't change history. I think I was in the third grade when she started using drugs. She tried not to bring the problem home with her, but she failed at that and her problems broke out like a virus in a broken vial and infected the entire family. Added to my introverted character was the dread of having others know that my family was dysfunctional. Mom argued and fought verbally with Dad all the time. Inside, I blamed her for messing up my life, and I developed emotional problems. Because of her drug problems, we almost lost our house and everything else. One problem led to another and then another. When Dad found out about what Mom was doing, our house became divided like a sliced cheesecake. I didn't like her. I hated my life and I was determined to let the world know just how I felt. Today I know I can't blame her for all my problems, especially after I hear testimony from children whose parents have done worse things but they refused to follow in their footsteps. But as a child I blamed her and used her problems to fuel my misbehavior. Melissa and I grew further apart as well. She started having her own problems because of our mom's problems. Our house was divided and each one of us showed it in their own way.

My misbehavior started in middle school and went downhill fast because I hung out with kids who smoked marijuana. I kept getting in trouble at school. By the time I was fourteen, I didn't care about anything but lived only for the moment. I had a huge chip on my shoulder and constantly dared anyone to knock it off. I was always ready to create the next problem. I was hot headed and any little thing lit my inner fuse.

My dad was a hard worker, but he had his own set of problems. His associates drank after work, and many times he drank with them at the Portuguese Bar. These side trips made him come home late, but other than that he didn't let his drinking cause any undue problems for our family. As the old saying goes, "He knew how to hold his liquor." The worst things he would do while intoxicated were to pass out on the garage floor or yell at us more than when he was sober. Then he would fall into bed to sleep it off. Today he believes that if he had been home a little more I would not have gotten into as much trouble. But he was from a culture that believes the man's job is to work and the woman's job is to raise the children. If the mom had any problems with the kids, the dad would deal with them later and then pass the children back to the mother. However, he provided well for us. His many hours of overtime financed the building of our house on Birch Street. But what stuck in my memory was that my dad didn't spend enough time with us.

As I stated earlier, I was a bad child away from home. One day in my sixth-grade class, for no apparent reason, when the teacher was out of the classroom I took out some matches and lit them. Maybe I felt the urge to do it because I wanted and needed attention. When the teacher returned, she saw the cloud of smoke and asked who had lit a match. All the kids pointed to me and said, "He did it." So she sent me to the principal's office. They tried to contact my parents but they could not be reached. After an hour or so, the principal sent me back to the classroom with a paper to take home for my parents to sign. I forged my parents' signatures and took the paper back to school the next day.

One day the class sat with our work notebooks on our desks. I collected most of them and dumped them in the closet. One day in art class, this kid who wore expensive clothes came up to me and started making fun of my clothes. When he daubed some paint on me I said to myself, "My parents paid a lot for these clothes. That kid is going to get it." Later on I grabbed a bottle of ketchup, found the kid, and emptied the whole bottle on his nice, crisp overalls. He was determined to get his revenge and posted his friends by the front and back doors when school let out. When Luis told the teachers, they escorted me out. The kids beat up Luis instead. Before the sixth grade was over, I think I got suspended about sixteen times. I thought of it as a matter of pride. I bragged, "This must be a record." Parents may think that the reason their child misbehaves is because he got caught up with the wrong crowd. Well trust me, it wasn't true in my case. I was the one that kids shouldn't hang around. I was the problem. In the seventh and eighth grades, the teachers would send me to the principal's office almost every day, but I never went. I would roam the halls until I got caught or until the next class. My name became "Crazy Tone." How I graduated from middle school, I'll never know.

When I graduated middle school, my mother enrolled me in an online learning program called the Quinn Program, to prep me for high school. My sister had enrolled in this program and had done really well. My mom figured this would help me iron out some of my problems. At first she had trouble getting me into the program since my school performance was below standard. But she kept believing in me and fought very hard to get me in. Someone on the Board of Education bought whatever story she told them and they finally accepted me, which made her extremely happy. She felt that I would make a turnaround in both my behavior and my schoolwork. My first report card was better than the previous ones I got when sitting in a regular classroom. I had maybe two As and some Cs and Bs. But I wasn't interested in doing better in high school. All I wanted was to hang out with my friends, and getting good grades wasn't a big enough incentive to get me to stop what I was doing. Once again Mom's attempt to make me better failed. But I successfully concealed most of my bad behavior from my mother and father who thought I was doing okay.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Undeserved Miracleby Antonio Marques Jr. Copyright © 2011 by Antonio Marques Jr.. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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