MANCAVE: A memoir of a man's successful battle over depression

By Gabriel St Louis

This is a story about a man who have struggled through life trying to fit in with the people he was close to. He lost loved ones through the process, notably his biological father. The effect of losing people all around him brought him into dark places. He battled depression and had thoughts of suicide, but God had other plans. He finally had a life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit that changed his outlook on life and on people. His life turned into a success story with messages on how God has helped him to problem solve and fully understand who he is in Christ. For those who have gone through moments of loneliness, or an identity crisis with who they are, or even depression, I recommend that you read this memoir of this man's successful battle over these things!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312804982

Book preview

MANCAVE

For my children

My prince, Gabriel

My princess, Brianna

Table of Contents

The Good Ol’ Days                               4

The Unforgettable Encounter                         21

The Proposal                                     30

The Best Day Ever                                     37

Reality Set In                                     46

The Worst Day Ever                               61

The First Message - Problem Solving: Solve for x 71

The Second Message - Time to Man Up!             93

The Third Message - We need Heart Surgery      103

The Fourth Message - You are never alone            110

Get Ready! Get Ready! Get Ready!             128

1

The Good Ol’ Days

 My family would tell you that I was the baby or that I was the favorite. Here is my side of the story.

When I was born, my family did not have anywhere to put me. I did not have a crib, a bassinet, nothing. So, there we were, my mother and all the girls were in the room. 

There were four of them. Now mind you, my sisters were around six, seven, maybe twelve years old or so…it is probably a good idea not to give away their ages. They will kill me. So, my mother asked my sisters, well where are we gonna put Brandon? The oldest one, Rolanda said, Well, we could put him in the drawer! Out of the three she was the one who always took initiative and always made quick decisions without any fear of repercussions. So my other sisters, Renee and Camille, went into their room, got a blanket that they shared and put it into the drawer. Rolanda held me close and rocked me in her arms with my head on her shoulders. Then she finally laid me down in the drawer as Renee just looked at me shaking her head, bewildered, and probably thought to herself, we just put this baby in the drawer.  

What's interesting is that looking back when I lived on Eastern Parkway with my sisters and my mother, we did everything that we could have possibly done for each other. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our moments when bad things have taken place. 

I remember when I was about 3 years old and I was in a chair that my mom had around the dining room table (very old school). It was one of those chairs that can spin around and had wheels at the bottom of it. Mind you, my sisters were supposed to be watching me and of course they were out and about doing whatever it is that they wanted to do. They were preteens at this point. They would just hang around with their besties and really close friends and just talk. 

Of course, at this moment just like any ordinary nine- or ten-year-old, they’d disregard me. Their attention was off me, and they were oblivious to the fact that I existed.

Now here I am in a chair spinning myself around so fast to the point of making myself dizzy and you guessed it, no one was watching me. Suddenly, I fell off hard. I ended up falling out and busting my left eye open. I just started screaming as I was bleeding profusely. As a result, I had to get stitches. 

Funny enough you would think that my sisters would be afraid at the fact that I could die from the number of pints of blood that I was losing. That wasn’t the case; they were more scared of what was going to happen to them once my mother found out they weren’t taking care of me as they were told to.  

Oddly enough that wasn't the first time that I needed to get stitches over that same left eye. The next time something happened like this was when I was in school. I was going down some stairs and unfortunately there were some kids who were all running down behind me. One of them knocked into me, I lost my balance and then I fell from the second step from the top of the staircase all the way to the bottom and then hit my head face first smacked right onto the bottom of the ground floor. 

That busted my eye open again and I had to be rushed to the hospital. My favorite teacher at the time, Ms. Lucky, took me there. The saying every time  when something luck-based happened involved her we would always say you’re lucky Ms. Lucky was there. 

Around this time in my life was the last time I saw my biological dad. I remember the final conversation that I had with him. We were on the phone after my mom had just picked me up from Motha's house who lived right across the hall in our building. She was my grandmother but everyone in the family used to call her Motha, including her own sisters. 

My mom and I were in her bedroom talking. Suddenly, the phone rings. She answered the phone and said Ay, wha go? as if she already knew who it was she was talking to. Back then, there wasn’t any caller ID or any notification of who it could have been on the other side of the line. You had to find out once you picked the phone. Imagine having to go through that today.

She knew who it was, and she said to me Brando? Daddy is on the phone. When I took the ‘receiver’ from her I said, hi daddy! in my highest pitched voice. He said hello back to me. 

My earliest memories of him were that he was just so loving. He cared about me, and he did what he could to try to take care of us, but he was not always physically there. He worked a lot as he prioritized his job and that last phone call to him involved me asking him for a snack. 

He had asked me So what do you want to eat? in his very heavy Haitian accent. I responded, I want popcorn and juice. He would always get me this buttery popcorn with a Mott's apple juice every single time he came home. 

I always had that as my snack but then over time he never came around anymore. I didn't really know what it meant but I just noticed that he just stopped coming and I didn't know why. 

There were so many different things that were told to me when I was younger. Things like, He just went away for a while. He will be back soon. Or He had to go on a business trip. He's doing big things and he's trying to become a doctor you know. The most memorable thing that I was told was that he died in a really bad car accident. I remember crying as a little kid saying to myself, I want my daddy! But after being told a bunch of lies at some point I was able to put two and two together. He just was not coming back.

Eventually, I got over it when I realized there was another kind of fatherly figure who started showing up years after. The whole family just accepted the fact that my dad was not going to show up again. In the process I was still being raised by wolves, my three sisters that is. 

I also had an older brother, Roger. He was the oldest out of all of us, but he was not in the house a lot because he had gone to the Marine Corps. I thought of him like a ‘Superman’ because he decided to fight for his country. 

He would come and visit and whenever he spent the night or the weekend there he would lay down in the middle of the floor between two bunk beds. Rolanda and Camille shared one and me and Renee shared the other. We would stay up late and talk to Roger about everything that's been going on in our lives, and he told us stories about the training he had to endure being a marine.

We had so much in our room. The girls would freestyle while I made the beat thinking we were all these great singers and rappers. We got each other into trouble, and we always fought each other a lot. Those were good times.

In that building, I had some amazing friends. My closest friend was Timothy who lived