Maybe Life Is A Test

Death is always around the corner for this young child growing up in the urban Washington, DC area, and growing up Leon witnessed many things that left a lasting impression on him. The lessons of life get Leon to start writing. With poetic entries written as early as 14 years of life, each piece has been selected to have the go along with each chapter in the book. The topics range from birth to puberty, love to remorse and all coming of age. The story also highlights the various stages of dealing with brain injury. From the first impact of the shock to the lasting pain, the therapy, the daily aches and the overall will to triumph.

At first an innocent child, LEON “SONNY” SNAPS doesn’t know how to cope when he awakes in the hospital dilapidated after a terrible accident leaves him on death’s door. When everything hurts and everyone expects you to die the hardest thing in the world is to continue to fight on. Yet fight on is exactly what Leon decided to do. The only problem was that this was a fight no one expected the underdog to win. If having to learn to walk again and talk again wasn’t enough, Leon had to start learning hard lessons in his new altered life. He learned that when his father BIG SNAPPER left the family in drug riddled 1980’s Panama, Leon had no one other than his mother and his brother CHAMPION. Death is always around the corner for this young child growing up in the urban Washington, DC area, and growing up Leon witnessed many things that left a lasting impression on him. The lessons of life get Leon to start writing. With poetic entries written as early as 14 years of life, each piece has been selected to have the go along with each chapter in the book. The topics range from birth to puberty, love to remorse and all coming of age. The story also highlights the various stages of dealing with brain injury. From the first impact of the shock to the lasting pain, the therapy, the daily aches and the overall will to triumph. Ultimately Leon realizes all of his joys and pains will come to pass. We all go through trail and tribulations, one way or another. No one is exempt. Upon the sting of death hitting Leon close to home from the blind side, he matures to see life for what it is – war. As his writing matures, Leon evolves into Verse by putting his life into verse – and this is the complete journey from brain injury to maturity. After the journal there are assessments to scale individual mental illness that one may suffer during brain injury recovery. Every man has his cross to bear. In one way we’re all victims, in one way we’re all predators. Don’t get caught up in the game. Life is just a Test.

When your brain has experienced trauma through visual, physical or emotional damage or experiences, your brain changes. Sometime after that trauma - it can sometimes take months or years but there comes a point that you experience an awakening to the fact that your brain has changed - never to be the same. How we adjust to the change will determine the quality of the rest of our lives. Many of us struggle to find peace in our new altered reality - and bouncing back to compete in a highly competitive society seems like a distant dream. Sonny Snaps is one of such people. Having experienced several brain traumas during the course of his life, he was forced to survive or die. One of those traumas was a near death experience resulting in brain surgery when he was just a child. Doctors said that he would never survive, but a strong spirit fueled by the 23rd Psalm and a will to persevere got him through the first stages of life, as documented in his book, “Maybe Life is a Test.