I remember it like it was just yesterday, the first time I fed a Smart Car sized gator. It was an unusually cool summer day in Miami, Florida. My mother and I decided to take a cruise a few blocks down to check out the local lake by our house. The moment we arrived, I felt amped and full of excitement, I still remember my initial step out of the car simply because the first thing I saw was this huge lake with a light mist rising above, almost like a fresh cup of tea. And the smell was so refreshing: the scent of clean lake vapors intertwined with the pines. Looking around at my surroundings, I tried to scope out any wildlife that the lake had in store for us. Being that I was a little city boy, my personal experience with animal life consisted of dogs and cats. Then I spotted it—a real live gator, and I mean a GATOR. This thing was monstrous. I had never seen anything like it. It felt like I was in one of those Nat. Geo. specials that you would see on TV.

I approached the sandy lakebed, wary of danger. It was like a chess game: every step I took, the primitive gator inched a little closer as well. Before I knew it, I was staring into the eyes of one of Mother Nature’s deadliest hunters—one bite could break me in half so effortlessly. The ninja like reptile emerged from the murky waters onto the soft sand. My mother dashed to my side and protectively spread her arms to separate me from my impending doom. She was ready for anything. Fear struck my heart realizing the power and size the animal had over me. I bolted back to the car to retrieve a bag of marshmallows from our camping trip the day before. Returning to my mother’s side and screaming at the top of my lungs, I took a handful of marshmallows and threw them as far as my little arms would extend. I screamed so loud in fact that I heard my own echo from across the lake as if at that time another small child was experiencing the same situation I was. The gator turned to follow the marshmallow trail and I actually felt as if I was being heard.

The only reason it departed was simply for the food scattered across the lake. I watched as it was feeding, contemplating the fact that these primitive beasts are simply doing what they know from repetitive years of evolution: Feeding, is all they know surrounded by what seems like death and murder, yet in the animal kingdom there is no murder or morals. It’s ether kill or be killed. At that point, I came to realize that truly we all just live to die. As I snapped back to reality, I realized we are all little marshmallows in our own little lake called life, just waiting to get snatched up by a hungry gator. But not me, I always thought of myself as that gator. Life is measured by will and determination. From that point, I never allowed anyone to discourage my efforts. I guess you can say that little lake right by my house was more than just a lake, to me, it was one of the biggest life changing moment I can remember.