Not a bullet to his left leg; not incarceration; not the hard concrete of city streets as his bed, feasting on scraps recovered from bins moves Steve Smart like his memory of the first time his mother kissed him.
He was 43.
All the hardships of this recovering drug addict’s life disappear into the reservoir of his brain when he draws on the memory of that first touch of genuine warmth on his mother’s lips. The joy surges. As a teenager, he had turned to the streets, crack cocaine and crime, longing for affection. Any kind. At any price.
Steve has told his story over and over again to anyone willing to listen. Abstinence and resistance are the foundation of the message he shares with young and old across Barbados.
Please read the full story in today’s Sunday Sun, or in the eNATION edition.