Londaryl Perry blog series Part 2: More on his mother and two brothers
This is Part 2 of five-part blog series, continuing the life story of Northeast girls basketball coach Londaryl Perry, who I featured in Tuesday’s newspaper.
Today, I’ll focus more on Perry’s relationship with his mother and two brothers. Here is the full blog schedule:
Tuesday: Perry’s basketball career
Wednesday: More on Perry’s mother and two brothers
Thursday: Perry’s first coaching job
Friday: Perry’s military career
Saturday: The state of Perry’s family today
****************************************************
At age 13, Londaryl Perry almost decided life was too much.
“Who gives a damn about me?” Perry thought as he briefly considered suicide.
“Who cares if I live or die?”
He watched his uncle die with his own eyes after a drug overdose. His father died after overdosing on heroin.
But the continuing nightmare was the home life with his mother, who regularly called him a “bastard” and “ugly.”
Yes, Londaryl Perry’s mother wasn’t just dismissive and unattentive. She displayed a genuine disdain for her oldest son.
Londaryl’s mother has claimed for years that she was raped as a 16-year old, which is how she became pregnant with him.
“She says she wasn’t sexually active (when he was conceived),” Londaryl said. “My mother has never changed that story after all these years, that he raped her.”
Because he shares some physical features with his father, Londaryl believes much of the anger his mother showered him with is because of the alleged rape.
“I feel like I was a reminder of him, and all that hatred was taken out on me,” Londaryl said. “To know you’re born out of that, and to be treated like that …
“I was like, ‘What do I do?’”
Even though his mother’s addiction resulted in her often neglecting his two younger brothers, they never got the insults that Londaryl did.
“For both of my little brothers, it was different,” Londaryl said. “She cherished them, and she resented me.”
Perry’s wife Shana, who he’s known since he was in the eighth grade and dated throughout high school, remembers coming home with Perry after a game one night.
There was a house full of addicts, getting high with Londaryl’s mother.
He kicked all of his mother’s friends out of the house, and the two began arguing.
Perry’s mother picked up his basketball, clutched it between her hands and said she was so upset that, “I wish I had a rock this big that I could smoke.”
Follow
