The Unexpected Leader

3Discovering the Leader Within You

Sad news ahead …

My father passed away in September of 2021 and although, yes, tears and grief were on the menu, an unexpected discovery happened in the fray of planning for a funeral and wrapping up funeral commitments. While going through some of his belongings, a brown paper bag with a slight stench of mildew was uncovered. When I was told that something was found that I might be interested in seeing, I couldn't even imagine what this mystery package might be. My dad had a reputation of being—how do I say this—a collector of things that weren't his.

To be more specific, he always managed to get his hands on and stash away family pictures, keepsakes, and things that were one of a kind and not his. To my surprise, this mystery item that he had stashed away was a rather alarming stack of certificates. This wasn't just any stack of certificates, but ones that spanned back to preschool from my beloved K–8 elementary school, Myra Jones, historically situated on the east side of Detroit. It was also an interesting discovery because as a child, we had a house fire and these certificates were thought to have been ruined by fire, smoke, and water damage (hence the mildew smell).

Now, before I go further into why this bag of certificates was so alarming, let me peel back a few more layers of my story. After I left Myra Jones, I graduated from Cass Technical High School, one of the most celebrated and well-known high schools in the state of Michigan ...