Concrete Angel

The product of a broken home and shattered dreams, 22-year-old Amy Lester remains as vibrant and good-humored as she did when we were kids.

Amy and I are first-cousins on my father’s side of the family. Being that we are so close in age – only 14 months apart – we were partners in crime from the day we were both able to talk. We always found ourselves in mischievous situations – putting dish liquid on the kitchen floor and spraying it with water for a homemade slip-and-slide, digging into her mom’s make-up bag in attempts to grow up a little faster, sharing a pair of roller skates, I with one and her with the other, to glide our way to the corner store almost every afternoon.

Two peas in a pod, mono y mono, cronies…best friends. Amy and I were unstoppable, or so it seemed.

It was 1996 and I had just started the sixth grade. I felt as if things could not get much better. I was meeting new people, gaining a sense of independence, and enjoying every second of it. So consumed with my new lifestyle, I began finding less and less time to spend with Amy. Little did I know, this was a point when Amy needed me the most.

Feeling somewhat lost in a world that had not always been kind, Amy struggled to find her place. As she searched, she eventually found herself walking down a path of drugs and alcohol.

“I was not very confident at that time in my life, so I was very easily influenced. I mostly wanted to fit in. I wanted to belong to something,” Amy said.

This was only the beginning of a long road to recovery. Amy found herself becoming dependent on the affects of drugs and alcohol. She developed so much of a dependency that she found herself resorting to stealing from friends and family members to fulfill her need.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. The only thing that mattered at that point was getting high. I had lost all inhibition,” she said.

Amy eventually suffered the consequences of her actions when a friend’s mother that she had stolen from decided to press charges. Amy was arrested and spent nearly four months in jail.

This though, was the wake up call she needed.

This March will mark the two year anniversary since Amy was arrested and she has since cleaned up her act – literally.

Amy has been sober since the day she was arrested and now helps her mother with her cleaning business.

“I’m so excited. I have saved enough money to buy a car of my own. That’s a huge accomplishment for me,” she said.

Despite the mistakes made and past opportunities ruined, Amy remains hopeful and feels very lucky to be alive. And though we may never go back to being the best friends we once were, there still exists a sense of nostalgia in each of our hearts when we look back to the days when the trouble we made was just for fun.