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.

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.

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.”