We go through life reading and learning from famous historians like Salvador Brau, but we do not really know them or care about their personal lives, their accomplishments, and their failures. Nor do we really know anything about their families. The pain they suffered in the loss of grandparents, parents, and children, as well as siblings.

In this next chapter, we discover through the author’s own words what he did for employment before he became the famous author of Puerto Rico’s history.

Have you ever experienced a moment in your life when you became detached? You felt empty, hollow, or completely numb to everyday living—like a part of your life lost its meaning? And you asked yourself the question, Why Am I Here? 

It’s a question I began to ask myself on Christmas Day of 2002, when my first life began to unravel. I felt empty inside, like a tree that had been uprooted—just a hollow shell of my former self.