At 6'4" and 230 pounds he literally is my "biggest" motivation haha... but he's just as great a man on the inside because he has an extremely big heart.
This is my boyfriend, Makani, but everyone else knows him as Keoni, linebacker at the U of A (except my mom who calls him Mac). I've known him since we were freshmen in high school but we weren't together until about 2 and a half years ago, and let me tell you, those 2 years have been quite eventful. In his short 19 years of life, he's been through much more than most people will go through in their entire lifetime, yet he continues to amaze me everyday with his courage and strength. At the age of nine, he was removed from his biological family, and was adopted by a different family, along with five other newly adopted siblings. At this point, most kids are placed into a wonderful family home where they happily spend the rest of their lives but the hard times were far from over for Makani and his 5 siblings. A lot has happened since then, and long story short, Makani and I have been taking care of his four younger brothers since April, 2013. We are now in the process of becoming official foster parents for all four of them and soon permanent guardians for the younger two, as the older two will be moving to Washington with family. This makes us the youngest foster parents in Arizona and maybe even the country! Aside from this Makani is a full-time student AND a full-time athlete. He is a living example of the transformative power of crisis; instead of letting all the crises in his life tear him apart, he looked at it as an opportunity to change himself and build his own future. He reminds me everyday of what true strength really is... True strength lies not in what you can do, but in overcoming the things you thought you couldn't.
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