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Overview
Ben Carson grew up in the inner cities of Boston and Detroit with his mother and brother. When his father deserted the family, Ben's mother worked several jobs to support her boys yet worked even harder to encourage them to get an education and follow their dreams. Ben's dreams nearly ended when his anger at being poor and the ridicule of a school mate caused him to snap; he lunged at the boy and cut him with a knife. That brush with attempted murder caused Carson to break down and ask God to turn him around. And turn him around he did. A poor student, Carson under the guidance of his mother and brother became the best student in his class, his school, and ultimately earned a scholarship to Yale. The next time he used a knife was as a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital where he pioneered surgery techniques that not only saved lives but miraculously gave countless children an amazing quality of life.
My Life is the story of a young boy who could have remained trapped in poverty were it not for his mother's tough and sacrificial love, his own perseverance that he learned from her example, and his deep faith that called him to do great and mighty things.
This book contains a new chapter about Dr. Carson's philosophies of serving one’s country, becoming role models for people with disadvantaged backgrounds, using the talents God has given you, embracing what success really is, and believing, youths and adults alike, that with hard work and perseverance, "you can do it." And on May 4, 2015, Dr. Ben Carson declared himself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780310344605 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Zondervan |
| Publication date: | 07/14/2015 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Dr. Benjamin S. Carson has served as the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, a candidate for President of the United States, and the seventeenth Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He currently serves as the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute. He is also the author of six bestselling books: Gifted Hands, Think Big, The Big Picture, One Nation, A More Perfect Union, and Created Equal, the last four of which he coauthored with his wife, Candy. They are the parents of three grown sons and grandparents to eight grandchildren. They live in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Cecil Murphey, author of 112 books, has also assisted well-known personalities in writing their biographies.
Read an Excerpt
My Story
The Ben Carson Story
By Ben Carson, Lyn Cryderman, Becky Jen
ZONDERVAN
Copyright © 2015 Ben CarsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-34451-3
CHAPTER 1
"Why Can't We Just Forgive Him?"
Just like that, he was gone.
When my mother announced that my dad wasn't going to live with us anymore, I thought I must have done something bad to make him want to leave. Then, when my mom said he had to leave because he had done something bad, the answer seemed so easy to my eight-year-old self.
"Then we can just forgive him, right?" I asked.
I was too young to understand the bad things that Daddy had done. To me, he was my dad, an affectionate and caring man who did fun things with my brother, Curtis, and me. I used to love to sit on his lap and play this game. With my little hands I would try to push down the big veins on the backs of his large, strong hands. No matter how hard I pushed, the veins would always pop back, and Daddy would laugh and say, "Guess you're just not strong enough."
I loved my dad.
Sometimes he would bring us presents for no special reason. "I just thought you'd like this," he would say as he handed me a box, his dark eyes twinkling at my excitement. He wasn't around a lot, but when he was, he always made me happy. When I knew he was on his way home, I would sit by the window and watch, and when I saw him strolling down our alley, I would run out to him screaming, "Daddy! Daddy!" Then he would grab me up in his arms and carry me the rest of the way home.
And then he was gone.
As my mother tried to explain why he could never come back, I sobbed in her lap. She tried to comfort me. I couldn't imagine life without Daddy and pestered her for weeks, trying to make her change her mind. I pleaded with her, trying every argument my tender little mind could come up with:
"With Daddy gone, we won't have any money—what'll we do?"
"If you let him come back, I know he'll be good."
"Mothers and fathers are supposed to stay together."
What I didn't know was that my father had another "wife," and together they were raising a whole other family. He also struggled with drugs, but I didn't know about any of this at that time because my mother kept it from us. His behavior must have hurt her deeply, but we never knew. She carried this burden alone because she wanted to protect us from the truth about my father.
Every night when I said my prayers, I asked God to help Mother and Dad get back together. I desperately wanted us to be a family again, but after a few weeks, I stopped praying. My mom told me later that Curtis and I struggled with a lot of pain during that time, but to be honest, I don't recall anything other than Dad's leaving. I guess that's how I learned to handle my feelings. I just tried to forget them.
One thing I do remember is that we never had enough money. Even before Daddy left, we were never well off, but without his paycheck, we barely scraped by. Every time I asked my mother for something like a candy bar or a new toy, her answer was always the same: "We don't have the money, Bennie." I could tell from the look on her face that it hurt her to not be able to buy us the things that other kids had, so after a while I quit asking.
I didn't know it then, but even though my dad was supposed to send us money, he seldom did. Maybe that's why a few times we went with Mother to the big courthouse. In spite of his lack of support, my mom seldom uttered a critical word about my dad, and that's probably why I never held a grudge against him. Rather than focus on him, Mother set her mind on making sure we were a happy family, even if it was just the three of us. Despite her lack of education and having to fend for us all by herself, she never complained. Countless times she reassured me: "Bennie, we're going to be fine."
It wasn't easy for Curtis and me to grow up without a dad, but it was even harder for Mother to carry the burden of providing for us all by herself. Before my dad left, Mother was always there, but now she had to work and be away a lot. Her dedication and sacrifice had a big impact on me, which is why I begin with her. Sonya Carson. The earliest, strongest, and most important force in my life. The only way I can tell my story is to begin with hers.
CHAPTER 2The Driving Force
I almost felt sorry for the school counselor who got an unexpected visit from Mother.
Back in the day, schools tracked students according to their abilities, and the junior high that my brother Curtis attended placed him in the vocational curriculum rather than the college-prep curriculum. His grades were good enough for the college curriculum, but this was a predominately white school, and Mother was convinced that the counselor had made the fairly common assumption that blacks were incapable of college work. So Mother headed straight for the counselor's office the next day.
"My son Curtis is going to college," she told the counselor. "I don't want him taking any vocational courses."
Curtis immediately became college material and was placed on the college-prep curriculum.
That's my mom—a strong woman who does not allow the system to dictate her life. Today we would describe her as a classic type-A personality. Driven, hardworking, refusing to settle for anything but the best. She was also a big-picture woman, intuitively knowing exactly what needed to be done in any situation. Some of that rubbed off on me, though I wasn't always open to her constant prodding to do my best. In fact, at times she could seem demanding, even heartless. The word quit wasn't in her vocabulary, and she tried her best to banish it from mine. I can't tell you how many times I heard her say, "You can do it, Bennie!" or her favorite, "Just ask the Lord, and he'll help you."
Being kids, Curtis and I often resented her constant pushing, but over the years it took hold. We started to believe that we could do anything we chose to do. I guess you could say she brainwashed us—in a good way. Even today, when faced with something that seems impossible, I can still hear my mother's voice: "You can do it, Bennie. Don't you stop believing that for one second."
Mother may have had only a third-grade education, but she was the driving force in our lives. Her frugality allowed us to own our own home. In contrast, my father placed more emphasis on looking good, having nice things, and being liked. Both of my parents had come from large families—Mother had twenty-three siblings, and Daddy had thirteen. After they got married in Chattanooga, they moved to Detroit like so many other laborers in search of work. My father got a job at the Cadillac plant and, believe it or not, served as a minister at a small Baptist church.
* * *
Several months after Mother told us that Daddy would not be coming home again, it started.
"I'm going to be gone for a few days to visit some relatives."
When we asked if we were going too, the answer was always the same. "No, I have to go alone. Besides, you have school. I've already arranged for you to stay with the neighbors."
What we didn't know was that "visiting relatives" meant she was checking herself into a mental institution. The separation and divorce had brought on periods of severe depression, and somehow she had the inner strength to know she needed help. This happened several times, and each time, she would be gone for several weeks. We never knew because she never wanted us to know. But our neighbors knew, and it became a hot topic of gossip. Mother kept her head high and did her best to provide for us, but eventually it became clear that she couldn't keep up with the expenses of living in our home. So she rented it out, packed us up, and headed to Boston where we moved in with her older sister, Jean Avery, and her husband, William.
The Averys became like another set of parents to Curtis and me, showering us with much-needed love and affection. For another year or so Mother continued to go away for psychiatric treatment, but the Averys always reassured us that she was doing fine. Though we missed her, Aunt Jean and Uncle William treated us so well that we grew to like our living arrangement. They handled the situation so well that we never knew how difficult things really were for Mother.
Despite being abandoned by friends, talked about behind her back, moving out of state, and struggling with near-paralyzing depression, she never let on just how lonely and sad she was. And she never gave up.
Because that's who Sonya Carson is.
CHAPTER 3"I'm Just Dumb"
Boston was nothing like Detroit.
Instead of our own home, we lived in what used to be called a tenement building, basically a dilapidated structure in which a lot of families lived. Instead of dogs and cats, rats roamed our neighborhood. They were bigger than cats! They mostly scurried around the piles of garbage in the alley, but sometimes they'd get inside our apartment, joining the ever-present cockroaches. No matter what Mother tried, she couldn't get rid of those nasty roaches.
You might think we hated our new surroundings, but within a few weeks they seemed normal. Mother worked all the time, cleaning rich people's homes, but when she got back, no matter how tired she was, she would quiz us about school. She made it clear that education came ahead of everything. That, and the kindness of the Averys, made life in Boston seem pretty good, in spite of our poor surroundings.
In fact, living in Boston may have been the best part of my childhood. For one thing, that year I had the best Christmas ever. Maybe the Averys and my mom were trying to compensate for the absence of my father, but they smothered us with presents. What eight-year-old boy wouldn't be thrilled to get a scale-model 1959 Buick? But the best gift of all was a chemistry set. I played with that for hours, mixing chemicals and conducting experiments. I was fascinated with the test tubes and litmus paper and how you could make a liquid change colors. Sometimes I'd mix the wrong chemicals, and a horrible smell would drift through the apartment, annoying everyone else but making me laugh like crazy.
But even better was the day I made the decision to follow Jesus. We were Seventh-day Adventists, so we went to church on Saturdays. One Saturday morning at our church on Burns Avenue, Pastor Ford illustrated his sermon with a story about a missionary couple being pursued by robbers, but they escaped by hiding in a small split in the side of a cliff.
"They hid in the cleft of that rock, and God protected them," he told us.
At the close of the sermon he led the congregation in the hymn, "He Hideth My Soul in the Cleft of the Rock," pausing between verses to tell us that if we placed our faith in the Lord, we would always be safe.
That's all I needed to hear. Even though I was only eight, I walked up to the front of the church to accept Pastor Ford's invitation to turn my life over to Jesus Christ. Curtis joined me, and a few weeks later we were baptized. With my newfound faith, I began thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. At church we often heard stories about missionary doctors in far-off places like Africa and India, where they would treat sick people in remote villages. That's when I decided to be a doctor. When I told my mom, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "If you ask the Lord for something and believe he will do it, then it will happen."
"I believe I can be a doctor," I responded.
"Then you'll be a doctor."
Just like that. Her simple faith convinced me that I really could be a doctor.
* * *
After three years in Boston, Mother's finances improved, so she moved us back to Detroit, hoping to return to our original house on Deacon Street. Even though that house was tiny, she still couldn't afford to live there, so we moved to the top floor of an apartment building in an industrial area. Still, it was a step up from our place in Boston. Mother worked as many as three jobs at a time, mostly working for wealthy people. When she came home at night, she'd school us on how these rich folk lived, adding, "You boys can live that way too if you want to." She was always pushing us to higher goals and values, especially the value of education.
Unfortunately, I was the dumbest kid in my class.
* * *
Higgins Elementary School was predominantly white, and the fifth graders I joined were way ahead of me. And they let me know it. After every test, someone would invariably yell out, "Hey, Carson, another zero?" Those words stung, but I never let them know it. I began to accept my spot at the bottom of the class. Worse yet, I also began to believe that black kids just weren't as smart as white kids.
I'll never forget the math quiz that turned out to be the worst school experience of my life. In those days, students corrected each other's quizzes, then handed them back to the owner. The teacher, Mrs. Williamson, then called out each student's name, and we were supposed to respond with the number of questions we got right. As she started calling out names, I dreaded having to let the whole classroom know my score.
It wasn't long before she got to me. "Benjamin?"
Wishing I could disappear, I mumbled my answer.
"Nine? Why Benjamin, that's wonderful!"
Being praised for failing a quiz was bad enough, but the girl behind me, who had graded my test, made sure Mrs. Williamson—and everyone else—heard me properly. "He said none, not nine!" she snickered as the entire classroom erupted in laughter.
To her credit, Mrs. Williamson scolded them, but the damage was done. I really was stupid. I knew it. They knew it. And it hurt. The only thing I could think to do was to make them think that I didn't care, that their laughter didn't bother me, even though I felt like crying. So I did what was becoming a common response to my own shortcomings. I plastered a big, carefree smile on my face.
I likely would have accepted the fact that as a black kid I would never amount to anything, except for two things that happened that year that changed everything.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from My Story by Ben Carson, Lyn Cryderman, Becky Jen. Copyright © 2015 Ben Carson. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1. "Why Can't We Just Forgive Him?", 7,2. The Driving Force, 10,
3. "I'm Just Dumb", 14,
4. A Change of Vision, 18,
5. Trying to Fit In, 25,
6. The Fire Inside, 28,
7. High School Heroes, 32,
8. You're Not in High School Anymore, 37,
9. More Than a Job, 41,
10. "I Guess I Like You", 45,
11. Discovering a Gift, 49,
12. Hooked on the Brain, 53,
13. Hitting My Stride, 57,
14. A Dream Come True, 61,
15. Holding Life or Death in My Hands, 65,
16. They're More Than Patients, 68,
17. Never Give Up on Life, 72,
18. "Remember What Your Mother Said", 76,
19. An Impossible Assignment, 81,
20. What about You?, 85,
