Community Connections at the Bud Billiken Parade and Festival
Mercy Home was again well represented at this year’s annual Bud Billiken Parade festivities and had the chance to spread...
August 28, 2024
July 18, 2024
Every other Saturday morning, Brandon Mosley brings his twin 15-year-old sons, Jamal and Jeremy, to the Mercy Home basketball gym for pickup games. For some teenagers, waking up at the crack of dawn to play basketball with their father might seem like a chore.
But for Brandon and his kids, these mornings are special.
Twenty-six years ago, Brandon arrived at Mercy Home’s doorstep at the age of 12 with his older brother. Their father was a drug addict, and when their mother passed away, the two boys came to live at Mercy Home.
Brandon, a self-described people person, said that he quickly made friends in his new home. He also received support from his advocates that he never got at home.
“I never really had people that cared about my well-being,” Brandon said. “I didn’t always like everything that was put in front of me [at Mercy Home]. But that structure that they gave me has a lot to do with how I function and live my life today.”
Mercy Home provided Brandon with tutoring, three meals a day, and a healthy daily routine. They also took him camping, to Chicago Bulls and Chicago Cubs games, and other places he said he never would have gone otherwise.
But basketball was Brandon’s first love, and he was thrilled that Mercy Home had an indoor court right upstairs from where he was living.
“I would do anything I could to get myself in that gym,” Brandon said. “I would play all day every day. A lot of my childhood memories and a lot of my close friends are from playing on that basketball court.”
At that time, Mercy Home operated an intramural basketball league called Hoops to Homework. The league had referees, a draft, weekly games, and a championship game. Brandon’s name is listed on four championship banners hanging inour gym—tied for the most of any resident.
Brandon wishes that he had capitalized on all the educational and other extracurricular opportunities that Mercy Home provided.
“I didn’t appreciate the opportunities being offered to me,” Brandon said. “I wasn’t really focused and I didn’t have any ambitions to be anything. I was just existing.”
Brandon left Mercy Home after six years and said that those first few years living on his own were among the hardest.
“I was all over the place,” Brandon said. “I was never in the streets. I just didn’t have any guidance. I kind of hit, I wouldn’t say rock bottom, but I stumbled once I left Mercy Home. I had to figure things out so I could have a roof over my head, rent paid and it took some years, but I did it.”
Now, Brandon is a local truck driver delivering to restaurants in the Chicago’s western suburbs. He also takes care of his twin boys as a single father and said that he raises them in ways that his advocates at Mercy Home taught him.
“I am trying to be the guidance that I didn’t have at that age for my two boys,” Brandon said. “I just want them to be the best that they can be. I want them to do something that they love. I always say, ‘If you like flowers, then go be a florist. Do that. Whatever you do with your life, be a good person but also do something that you love. If you love it, it’ll never feel like work and everything else will fall into place.’”
Brandon has remained connected with Mercy Home. A few years ago, he spoke to the kids at the Home about working and maintaining a job.
“I try to take advantage of everything that Mercy Home offers,” Brandon said
So, when Kevin Felisme, a Mercy Home coworker, invited former residents to participate in open gyms on Saturdays, Brandon didn’t hesitate.
That gym is a reminder of home to Brandon. It’s the place where he found comfort and stability when he needed it the most. And now he gets to share that home with the two people he loves most.
“It means a lot to me because I never thought that I would have my sons playing in that same gym and I’m playing with them. It means a lot,” Brandon said.
“He’s a great man, a great father,” Felisme said. “I have a lot of respect for him. He has so much pride in Mercy Home, and he’s done a lot to get himself where he is now.”
Brandon comes every Saturday with his two boys, who are the youngest of the group. It gives the three of them a chance to bond and enjoy a little friendly competition.
“While they may not always understand why I say or do certain things, I know down the road it will have a big effect on them,” Brandon said. “And one of those things is playing basketball with their father at Mercy Home.”
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