Boy

A true story of love, loss, survival and finding your voice.

Before the roads. Before the raves. Before the reputation. Before the man.

There was just the boy. A black child raised in a white seaside town, searching for somewhere-anywhere-to belong.

This is a journey through the silence, the secrets, and the scars.

From fishing trips and foster care to carnival, sound systems, fistfights, and murders, Boy is a raw, unforgettable memoir of identity, abandonment, and the power of being seen.

Told with brutal honesty, unexpected humour, and deep reflection, this is more than a story about growing up - it's about rising up. A reflective therapy for me, the writer and an invitation for you, the reader, to walk every step of the journey with me.

It's about finding light where there was none, and a voice where there was silence.

Some memories leave bruises while some build armour. Some do both.

If I'd known I'd grow up feeling like I had no identity...

Abused by those I loved...

Witnessing death first-hand...

Thinking I was the only Black kid in the world...

Feeling like I didn't belong - anywhere...

You know what? I wouldn't change a damn thing.

Because all of it made me who I am today.

When you find the boy.... you will discover the man!

Fredi

An exercise in self examination. I hope it delves more deeply into my life than those of whom I have written. Discretion is not the better part of an autobiography, someone once wrote, but identification where it is not necessary, has been my watchword. Someone else wrote a Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiographya . Curious a " yes. But as I age the curiosity becomes less important. Only today matters and the ones I love and have loved. Will there be more? a | Ia d like to think so.

On February 28, 2009, Nick Schuyler went on a deep-sea fishing trip with three friends: NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, and Will Bleakley, former University of South Florida football player and Nick's best friend. What was supposed to be a day of fun and relaxation aboard Cooper's twenty-one-foot vessel turned nightmarish in the Gulf of Mexico, seventy miles west of Tampa, Florida, when a tragic mistake caused their boat to capsize. With no food or water, no emergency beacon to alert authorities, the four athletes clung to the overturned hull through the night--battling hypothermia, hallucinations, hunger, dehydration, and huge pounding waves, as they prayed, spoke of their loved ones, and shared what they would have done differently with their lives. In the end, only one would reach dry land alive.

Much more than a riveting true account of survival, Not Without Hope is Nick Schuyler's inspiring story of courage, resolve, and friendship.

J. Michael Wilson (1916-1999), Soldier, Medical Doctor, Priest and Academic, may be best known for his often ground-breaking professional achievement, from working with lepers in Ghana to his seminal work in Pastoral Studies. For all his successful accomplishments, however, he thought accolades, titles and qualifications were no more than vain baubles for obituary columns. Becoming a fully human being was, he believed, best manifested in community, through art, poetry, prayer and revelling in the wonders of Nature. Here, finally, is your chance to share a merry dance through his creative life and works...