Chapter 1
The Early Years
I was born Joseph Matthew DeKalaita, on February 17, 1989, in Flint, Michigan, to Nikkianne DeKalaita. The only son of a single mother. No father figure, which, as I was told, was exactly how my mother wanted it.
Those early years of my life, it was just the two of usâand we were close. I remember how sheâd chase me around the halls or in the backyard of family gatherings over the summer, totally encouraging play. My mother was obsessed with Harley-Davidson. One Christmas she got me a little electric motorcycle for kids, and let me zip around the house on it. Another time I remember going into her bedroom late at night asking if I could have a glass of soda. She yawned and said of course, and so I poured the soda, brought it into bed, and then fell asleep snuggled up beside her.
On my fourth birthday, my relatives in Michigan threw me a little party at Chuck E. Cheese. There were games and it was a ton of fun, but weirdly, my mom didnât show up. I donât remember much else about the party, or that night; I just remember not seeing her, and waiting the following morning for her to pick me up. But my mother didnât show up the way she always did.
I later found out that she had met a couple of friends for a quick happy hour drink before the birthday party. But as she and her friends were heading from one bar to another, they asked a colleague to drive to the next spot. They had had a little too much to drink and didnât feel safe driving. The guy said he was okay to drive, but he wasnâtâhe ran a stop sign and, when he did, a passing car T-boned the passengerâs side. Right where my mother was sitting.
By the time I found out what had happened the following day, she was still in critical condition, fighting for her life. The guy? He escaped unscathed, and later claimed that it was my mom who had been driving. Thankfully there were witnesses there at the scene who said that sheâd been in the passenger seat. And a doctor could tell that the blood and injuries on the right side of my motherâs body matched the blood on the right side of the carâs interior.
When I was finally able to see her again, it was like meeting a different person. I knew within seconds that this wasnât the mother I had known. The crash had changed her completely. She couldnât walk, couldnât talk, and looked like she was fifteen years older. I remember going to see her at the hospital and nursing home, and in the beginning it was pretty uncomfortableâlike meeting a stranger. She wasnât able to call me by my name anymore, couldnât stretch out her arms to hug me or chase me down the hallway like she used to.
Weâd had such a dynamic relationship, but seeing that I was only four years old when she had her accident, there are only a small handful of memories I have of her.
I remember that as a little kid I used to go to work with her to the auto shop she managed, a place called Rainbow Muffler. One time, when she had to take a call, she left me in our car in the garage, and the mechanics were watching over me. While I sat in the backseat playing with my toys, the car just started lifting up.
Totally panicked, I looked out the window, teary-eyed. The mechanics were waving, and there was my mother laughing and telling them to get me back down right away. That was how she was, and how I remember herâthe life of the party. Just so vibrant and energetic. I couldnât totally understand that the person I was seeing after the accident was the same person, that she was my momâjust a different version.
About two years after the accident she passed away from complications of her injuries. During those two years I didnât have any sort of stability, just bouncing around from household to householdâone week with one relative, the next with another.
After her death, the court decided that I would stay with my auntâmy motherâs sisterâand uncle, who at the time had three kids, in Florida. The court felt my aunt and uncle were in the best place financially and structurally to bring in and raise another child, and doing so meant my cousins would now be my brothers and sisters: Nick, Jacob, and Rachel at first, and, later on, Hannah and Sarah. Moving in with them also meant when I was legally adopted my name was changed from Joseph Matthew DeKalaita to Joseph Scott Greer.
I was adopted into a Christian household. Even to this day, I joke that I was adopted on a Saturday and kneeling in a pew the very next morning. We actually lived next to our church, and went to services every Sunday and Wednesday. For the next fifteen years, church would prove to be a stabilizing presence in my lifeâand that kind of security was something I desperately needed. I know that isnât the case for a lot of people who grew up in the church, and that faith can prove to be part of a more complicated relationship. But for me, church and religion provided a safe haven during those incredibly transformative years. I had questionsâlots of them. I went to God.
Some were questions about my own life: Why had my mother died? Why did the driver who hit her escape unscathed?
Some were larger, more existential in scope: Who is God? Why would an omnipotent God care about, well, me?
I would get so wrapped up in the magnitude of those questions I wound up wondering how much God could really care for me. I knew that there had been about 108 billion humans who had lived, died, or were still living on earth. 108 billion! How could there be a God, I wondered, who knew and wants to know and love all of those humans? How could He see me with such an expansive world before Him?
I wrestled with those thoughts for a while. I was young, traumatized, and confused. So much of my life felt opaque, like I was looking at it in a clouded mirror. Iâd lost my mother, never known my father, and moved into a home where I knew I looked different from my adopted family and my new siblings. Much as I loved them, there was a whole other life that I could have hadâone that on some days didnât feel so far out of reach. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up with my mother, to have actual blood siblings. I thought about her quite a lot, and how our relationship would have evolved.
Thinking like thatâwondering what my life could have looked like, wondering why it looked the way it didâjust made me feel alone. And even though I could hide that sadness from the people around me, I couldnât truly hide it from myself. I kept going to church, I kept asking questions, but of course I still wondered about what my life could have been.
Iâm sure that the suddenness of losing my mother and the far-reaching effects of trauma have impacted what I can remember about her, which is a challenge. While as a kid I didnât think about how the effects of trauma might have impacted my memory, Iâm sure they did. Iâm grateful for what I have, I just wishedâand still wishâfor more.
My aunt never really talked about my mother, her sister. I didnât understand whyâthough I had my theories. Maybe because losing her baby sister was too difficult for her to talk about. Maybe she was worried with how it would affect me bringing her up? Maybe it was a bit of both, or neither. I donât know.
Outside of going to church, my childhood in Florida was sheltered. My adoptive parentsâand especially my auntâhave even said they felt like they needed to be more strict with me than with my other siblings. While they never said why, exactly, I always felt like this was because they didnât want what happened to my mother to also happen to me, and were afraid that the drinking life my mother lived was a struggle I could face. Which is likely the reason that while growing up we kids never saw a drop of alcohol in the house. Not one.
So aside from going to school, church, cross-country and track practice, I was at home. I sincerely believe that this kind of upbringing left me absolutely thirsty for the outside world. Thatâs how my mother was, too, forever chasing new experiences. As a kid, I was the same way; I was curious about new things, new ways to see the world, new kinds of experiences, always looking to find beauty outside of our tiny 1,300-person town of Inglis, Florida, north of Tampa near the Gulf Coast.
I had glimpses of what the world outside of Inglis was like, most memorably at camp. Every summer, from when I was six to twenty-one, I went to Bible campâand man, I loved it. Summer camp was my escape. Whether it was the opportunity to meet other kids, or find adult role models, through the years I saw so many facets of human experience there. Like how typically the younger kids cry when their parents drop them off, and the older kids just sprint off to find their friendsâsometimes even forgetting their bags in the car! For many young kids, summer camp is likely their first time staying away from home, and a week away can be daunting.
I was the opposite.
When I was younger, I was the kid who cried when I had to leave at the end of the week. Camp came to represent freedom and adventure. Those were things that felt foreign to me g...
