“School has always been sort of easy for me. I’m good at projects. Perfect for projects. But the one thing is, I’m not a really good test taker. For some reason, I’ve got like this phobia when it comes to tests....
“I have older kids, and then I also raised my stepsons. I thought I was done. But when I remarried, I decided that, you know, time is closing so … And Carlos has really been a blessing to us. When he...
“He was probably 4 or 5 when we really started noticing things. When bathroom hand dryers came on, he’d start screaming because they were too loud. When it was hot outside, the heat was way worse for him than for us....
“After the murder of my father’s dad, John A. Sivek, in 1934, times were very hard. My father, John S. Sivek, was younger than 5 years old at the time. At the age of 10 or 11 in 1940-41, he built...
“I went to live with my grandparents when I was 13. They were like my parents. They raised me as their son. And I helped take care of them until the end. I would go with them to their appointments in...
“I looked at the statistics for the year that Melissa passed. In North Carolina, 131 women were victims of domestic violence-related homicides. That same year in Texas, there were 136 domestic violence-related homicides. You don’t realize how frequently this type of...
“Melissa’s boyfriend was never charged. The thing that really upset me was the way we were treated by the detective who was investigating it. He told us her boyfriend said he was taking care of her. But in reality, he left...
“On Oct. 3, 2008, a Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from my daughter’s boyfriend. They had been together maybe two years, living in North Carolina, and he had never called me before. He said Melissa fell in the bathroom,...
“Some people may not realize it, but we’ve got a lot of homeless people around Baytown. With everybody that’s out there, maybe some don’t deserve to be in that situation. But I believe you’ve got to do something to pull yourself...
“Her name is Kaya. She’s a Bichon Frise. My dad taught her how to chase after the Frisbee. It’s too hard for her mouth, but she’ll run after it and bring it back. And if we throw soft tennis balls, she’ll...
