75

JASON

Pain is something you carry, just like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's in all you carry. That's what matters.

Whoever said that certainly did have me in mind; he had envisaged my misery.

Everything that could have gone wrong had put on a show before me. It had a been horrendous, I don't even know if that's the right word that best describes it, couple of days for me, more like the horror movies that had become bread and butter for me.

I had made the tough decision to leave Atlanta following the murder of my entire family.

"Where are you leaving for?," Costa asked me, worried about my safety.

"I don't know," I responded. I really didn't know about my next destination, but I was determined to leave a city that had taken everything but me from me.

And then, he said, "I may not say it the way I should, but I want you to know that you are a gift I am grateful for. We may have spent just a little time together, but it's like a hundred years already. You