Changed at the Altar: The Andre Nero Story

By Andre Nero

This book was birthed from a reality show “To Find Love” rejection after producers were more interested in my true story being a movie verses having the network look bad for casting me because of the X on my back. I knew I was on to something.

My life spun out of control when my high school sweetheart of 6 years, stood me up at

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andre Nero
• Release date: Apr 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998928128

Andre Nero

Andre M Nero was born June 2, 1979 in the Great City of Chicago, Illinois and was raised with a strong Christian foundation. Having a fairly rough upbringing being the middle child of a single mom of 3 boys. Andre has not had an easy life moving around a lot as a youth dealing with peer pressure, he has made some misguided and life altering decisions. This has led him down the path of prison, homelessness, embracing jobs less than ideal, encountering intense family tragedy and many other challenges teaching him invaluable lessons. In spite of the many tear jerking adversities, these experiences gave Andre the fortitude and WILL to WIN in ANY situation. Now with an increased and refined edge, Andre has honed into his ability to communicate with all walks of life and is able to relate to anyone regardless of their age, sex, religion or creed. Andre, now Motivational Speaker with over 350 engagements to credit, uses EVERY SINGLE OBSTACLE to encourage and tell you - YOUR LIFE IS NOT BEYOND REPAIR!

Book preview

1 THE BEGINNING

When I was young, I remember always wanting to get married and have a family. Even now I have a strong desire to be a woman’s husband and a child’s father. I didn’t grow up in a two-parent home, as my parents divorced when I was three. I was born and raised in Chicago, and there weren’t many examples of happily married couples set before me, but as I got older and watched sappy love movies, TV shows in the eighties that related to marriage, read magazine articles about married life, and especially paid attention to marriage stories in the Bible, my passion to marry grew even stronger and I wanted to be the perfect husband.

I was always outspoken as a child, but when it came to the opposite sex, I was unbelievably shy and found it very difficult to speak up enough to reveal my feelings for a girl. During my freshman year of high school, I somehow crossed paths with Samantha, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was of light complexion, bright skin, long hair, thin bottle shape, modestly dressed and gorgeous smile.

We didn’t have any classes together, but we had lunch at the same time, and our eyes locked many times but no words were ever shared. I would sit with my friends while she sat with her girlfriends a few tables over.

Some of our friends knew each other and had grown very tired of us staring at each other, so they devised a plan—unknown to me or Samantha—for us to meet. The plot was rather successful especially knowing both of our extensive church backgrounds and love for Gospel music. I was known as Church Boy or Preacher Boy, and she was known as Church Girl, or Songbird, and as people got to know us individually they thought we’d be the perfect pair.

The plan was set to happen during our lunch period. I was sitting there when my friends—a set of fraternal twins—Tony and Tommy—started to laugh. Then Tony stood up from the table and said, You know what, Andre? We’re tired of sitting here every day watching you gawk at this girl and not say anything! That’s okay, because we gonna fix this right now!

The twins were bigger than I was and they physically grabbed me and pushed me toward Samantha. Her girlfriends pushed her toward me. Samantha and I stood face to face for the first time. I felt my cheeks blushing like there was no tomorrow. Our friends surrounded us and were not going to let us escape.

Tommy said, Well, Andre, don’t just stare a hole in her soul . . . say something! As I attempted to gather myself, my hands clammy and shaking from nervousness and partial embarrassment from being put on the spot, I took a deep breath and said the first thing that came to mind: I know you don’t know me, but would you go with me?

Our friends broke out into laughter and cheers. My friend Tony shouted, Aw, Andre, are you serious? That’s the best you got? I couldn’t stop smiling even if my life depended on it. My mouth was dry and the muscles in my cheeks hurt from smiling. Samantha smiled sweetly and said, No, I won’t go with you, but I can give you my number and we can go from there.

My friends continued to laugh, but their plan was successful. I got Samantha’s number and was saved by the bell. We all scattered to our next class, and I left the cafeteria with a great sense of accomplishment. For the rest of the day, I could not wait to get home to call her, but it seemed like my last few classes were taking forever.

Finally, the school day ended, and I rushed home. I couldn’t wait to hear her voice on the other end of the telephone. Our landline phone was attached to the wall with a long curly cord. I had gotten home, threw my backpack on the couch, and dialed her number multiple times, but there was no answer. This went on for a full hour. Just when I was feeling defeated, my fingers tired from dialing on the rotary, I placed one last call. It rang twice and then I heard her voice. Chills raced down my spine and butterflies filled my stomach.

And that was how my relationship with Samantha started. In the getting-to-know-you phase, we had spent countless hours tying up the phone line having the most unusual of conversations for the average thirteen-year-old.

We had many talks about church, gospel, music, family, marriage, dreams, ideas, etc. I loved roller blading, singing Gospel music and desired to go to the marine corps immediately after high school. I wanted a wife and family that traveled with me to see the world. Things escalated very fast in regards to identifying our love for one another that we engaged in a secretly committed relationship.

I was so committed to Samantha that I wanted her to feel confident in knowing that we would be taken care of. I walked her home every day from school, sang to her sometimes and also gave her a portion of my paycheck every week for her to deposit into her bank account so that when we got married we wouldn't have anything to worry about.

I worked as a newspaper boy and assistant manager for A Christian Music and book store. At first, Samantha was a little reluctant to accept money from me, but it didn’t take her long to start accepting the money.

Everyone in school voted us the ideal Christian couple to get married after high school, and it sure looked that way to me. It appeared to be a storybook relationship. We held hands and talked every day at school, if not every other day. At thirteen, we were both virgins and saving ourselves for marriage. We were thought of to have very old souls and knew what we wanted. We couldn't wait until the day that we married so that we could have children. One of the main reasons I wanted marriage so much because my birth father wasn’t exactly the role model, I wanted to prove that I can be the loyal husbandman and not only be there for my wife but for my children. I aimed to be the opposite of my father.

Every single day I made sure that I treated Samantha like a queen so she would feel special and would know that I would always be there for her through the good and the bad. I open doors, let her go first, pulled out her chair, wouldn’t eat until she ate and brushed her long hair at times. For the most part our relationship was picture perfect. Samantha and I were both Gospel singers and choir directors in the Christian faith, so we had many church engagements on a separate level, so we were rarely apart.

I had spent much time observing married couples, reading, studying and learning what it was to be married from the opinions of published articles and actual couples I had known. I’d watched many married couples and surveyed them so that when it was time for me to cross that threshold I would know what I was supposed to do in a marriage to make it work for the most part. Every chance I got, I would walk Samantha home and sometimes even carry her on my back. We would have long, in-depth talks about life, marriage, children, and our roles in the Christian church. Discuss doing college online so we could spend and enjoy as much of each other as possible. We even communicated having a large family to the tune of 10 children.

We didn't have many glitches in our relationship. We didn’t do much without consulting each other to make sure we were on the same page with things. In many ways, our peers in high school looked up to us almost as if we were adult counselors in teenage bodies. Samantha was my muse; she invoked my creativity, as I thought the world of her. Our relationship was practically storybook. It seemed that nothing could penetrate our togetherness.

 It took Samantha awhile to introduce me to her parents because they didn't necessarily care for boys approaching their daughter. I, of course, reasonably understood. She asked for some time to present me to her parents and it took some convincing on her part but she talked about me so much that they demanded to meet me and she was excited to tell me and wanted to tell me face to face. She saw me in the lunch room and she power walk over to me with stars in her eyes to share the news.

So now it came time for me to finally meet her parents after school as I walked Samantha home as I usually do. Her parents met us at the door and no smiles were present at all only staring. They didn’t hesitate to drill me with questions but then they warmed up to me relatively quickly; however, dating their daughter came with great stipulation. There were many dos and don'ts. I could not be alone with their daughter even at school, and we couldn't go on dates without their supervision. We could not go on dates with my mom, either; they had to be supervising.

Regardless, things were going very smoothly, and her parents’ rules didn’t matter to me. Those of my family who met her - loved her, my friends loved her, and most of all, I loved her! She was my rock, my muse. She even inspired me to start our first high school gospel choir in my sophomore year, which came with some difficulty. The principal told me that it wasn’t in the school’s budget, and if I wanted to do it, the funds would have to come out of my own pocket. Since I was working at a newspaper company and Gospel book store making about $200 a week, I more than happily put up my own money to make this venture a success.

The choir started out very strong with 187 voices of all students, freshman through seniors. Everyone was very excited, as our school had never had a choir. I had received support from most of the parents, and I had even managed to get school buses for next to nothing to take students home after rehearsal because the bus owner admired what I