WESTFIELD – This is not who Ahmad Thomas was born to be. Back then, long before he arrived here for NFL training camp with the Indianapolis Colts, he had another name, another family, another future. Also, he was dying. Doctors said so. Just a matter of when.

And that was before he took to holding a knife, and looking at his wrist.

Oh, this story will take you places you’ve never been, show you things you’ve never seen. Families will be torn apart, and put back together. Several people will die. A boy will live.

The boy’s name is Kalvin Darnell Hooshing. Well, it was. Kalvin’s gone, but he’s not dead; the doctors were wrong. And later, that boy would put the knife down, time and time again, until the day came when he stopped picking it up.

Ahmad Thomas had a choice to make when he was 16, and he made it. His choice took him from the struggle of inner-city Miami to the glory of Oklahoma Sooners football. It brought him here, didn’t it? All the way to Grand Park in Westfield, to training camp with the Indianapolis Colts, where he has a future as a small but fast NFL linebacker.

Ahmad Thomas decided he had a life worth living. His choice created two families, and put a third together. His choice looks like three small children in a wagon, waiting for daddy in his No. 54 Colts jersey. And it sounds like a woman he hasn’t seen in 23 years, standing in the hallway, crying softly.

And then she ran away.

* * *

I just want to live my life

Who wouldn’t want a better life?

I just want to love mine.

Couldn’t be a better time

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

The truth

Ahmad is 16 when he hears something. He’s sitting in his living room, playing a video game with a buddy, and there it is again. Is she … crying?

Ahmad goes to his mom’s room and finds her on the edge of her bed, hunched over, bawling into hands that are balled into fists. He drapes an arm around her and asks what’s wrong. Marvice Thomas doesn’t have the strength anymore, and it all comes out: The financial struggle, the bills.

Then she says:

“I think it’s time you know.”

Know? Well, he’d known he was adopted for years. Suspected, I guess you’d call it, but he knew. He’d been asking Marvice where he came from, why he didn’t look like her, how old she was when she had him.

“Boy,” she’d said, “I pushed your big head out when I was …”

He’d grabbed a calculator and done the math. It didn’t add up. And then comes the day he’s sitting in math class, taking a test, when a younger cousin sends him a text message.

I didn’t know you were adopted.

Ahmad slumps in his chair. He finishes the test, but his math teacher notices. He asks Ahmad to stay after class, asks what’s wrong. Ahmad tells him about the text. Adopted? This is real?

The teacher says, “I was adopted, too,” and now Ahmad is crying, wondering what is happening to him. “So,” his teacher continues, “if you really are adopted, what would you do? How would you see your mom?”

“She raised me,” Ahmad says. “I’m not going to rebel. I’m not an idiot.”

No, this kid’s no idiot. An accomplished student, he graduated a semester early to report to Oklahoma in January 2013. He can draw, he can write. He can rap. Later, he’d pen a song about his childhood – “That’s Mahd (I knew it)” – but at this moment he’s sitting with his mom, trying to process the details: His birth parents were young. His dad is from Trinidad. His mom? She’s one-half Chinese.

Ahmad leans closer.

“You’re my mom,” he tells Marvice.

* * *

Sixteen, first time I seen my mama’s tears dropping

Now I see she had to live cautious

Holding her fears, scared of losing her son

For the day she had to say she never carried one

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

The lie

Michelle Hooshing was hungry. That’s how it began. That’s why any of this happened.

Years later, Michelle describes a childhood that was brutal. Her parents left Jamaica when she was 10, coming to New York to live with a relative, whom she says molested her. When Michelle told her mom, they moved to Miami to live with another relative, whom she says beat her until she ran away. Michelle and her sister entered the Florida foster system, ending up with a woman who locked the kids out until she got home from work.

“After school we’d sit outside in the sun from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.,” she says. “I was hungry. Michael would feed me.”

Michael …

That’s Michael Samuel.

“Every day after school I’d go inside and we’d watch TV, and he’d feed me,” Michelle says. “We really liked each other and became boyfriend and girlfriend. That’s how that happened.”

It didn’t last long. Michelle’s foster mom decided she didn’t want her anymore. She stuffed Michelle’s belongings into a black garbage bag and sent her back into the system, separating her from her sister. Michelle landed in another foster home, a nicer place with seven other girls in a three-bedroom house, a place where they fed her and paid attention. And noticed her belly was growing.

She was 12.

A doctor gave her the news a few days later.

“Do you know what being pregnant is?”

No, Michelle said. The doctor shook his head.

“You’re getting ready to have a baby,” he told her.

A baby?

“A baby. A human person is growing inside of you.”

Michelle’s sister still lived near Michael, also 12. Michelle called her, and soon was speaking to Michael. She told him she was pregnant – a human person was growing inside her – and he was the father. Then she disappeared from his life.

The baby was born Dec. 15, 1994, and Michelle kept him. Tried to, anyway. She named him Kalvin Darnell, and he slept on her stomach. She was 13 by then, still so young, and there were complications. The boy had a heart murmur, she was told. He wouldn’t live past 10.

Michelle’s foster family convinced her to give Kalvin up. It would be an open adoption, they told her. Another family would raise him, but you’d know your son. You’d have a relationship with him.

“I was lied to about that,” Michelle says.

She spent the next 23 years searching for Kalvin Darnell Hooshing, but says “it was like he was wiped off the face of the earth.” Maybe the doctors were right. Maybe Kalvin hadn’t lived past 10.

A few miles down the road, the Miami Central football team was becoming a powerhouse. Central won state championships in 2010 and ’12. Its best player was a safety named Ahmad Thomas.

* * *

I mean that three months I’m blessed to be in it

And at the same time, there’s tragic in it

They was 13, like a stick-up, made to give a kid up

Got separated, you would think their heart was taken

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

The boy who lived

Two people died. That’s not why Ahmad Thomas went to live with Marvice Thomas – now Marvice Chambers – but his arrival gave the family someone to rally around.

Unable to have kids of her own, Marvice, then 33, had been looking to adopt a baby girl since January of 1995. That April her younger sister, Dana, fell into a diabetic coma and died. The next day, Marvice’s older sister, Donnis, lost her husband. Massive heart attack.

A month later, a woman from the adoption agency called Marvice, saying she had good news and bad news. Which do you want first?

“I can’t take no more bad news,” Marvice said. “I need the good news.”

“Well,” the woman from the adoption agency said, “we have a healthy baby, but it’s not a girl, it’s a boy.”

“That’s fine,” Marvice said in May of 1995. “He’ll be my mom’s first grandson.”

Today, she says: “When I got him, the joy was brought back into the family.”

Concurs Aunt Donnis: “Oh my God, it brought joy to us. We had just went through two funerals, back-to-back.”

Was another funeral coming, Ahmad with his terminal heart murmur, in the next 10 years? Turns out: No.

The adoption agency never told Marvice about the baby’s terminal heart murmur. Perhaps the doctor had been wrong in 1994. Perhaps it was a lie the foster family had told a 13-year-old girl to pry her son away.

The clear lie – and this isn’t Marvice’s fault – was that the adoption would be open. It was not. Marvice had chosen a private adoption, and changed Kalvin Darnell Hooshing’s name to Ahmad Thomas.

Marvice worked as a clerk in the Dade County court system, and over the years she came home with horror stories for Ahmad. Not that he needed stories. Living in Liberty City, the horror was already outside: Drug dealers on the corner. Kids he grew up with, in jail or dead.

“Too many to count,” Ahmad says.

It was a hard life, and it got harder. His grandmother died of breast cancer when he was 13. He wore No. 13 at Central to honor her, and it was a heavily muscled all-state defensive back who walked into his mom’s bedroom a few years later, hearing her cry, asking what’s wrong. He walked out a changed, scared boy – Adopted? Part Chinese? Who am I? – and told his buddy they were done playing video games. They walked to a nearby laundromat, where Ahmad Thomas dissolved into bitter tears.

Later, when he was alone, Ahmad found himself holding a knife. He was looking at his wrist.

“I can’t tell you how many times,” he says. “But I never cut myself.”

No, with the help of a teacher at Central – Mr. Cheever – Ahmad began to change the way he thought. Mr. Cheever had him watch “The Secret,” about the power of positive thinking, about speaking dreams into reality. Ahmad watched it three times, and decided to speak an NFL career into reality.

And with that, he was about to breathe life into so much – and so many – more.

* * *

I won’t lie about it

I sat and looked at my wrists with grief

Then looked up and started missing me

Damn

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

“My name used to be Kalvin Darnell Hooshing …”

It’s Dec. 12, 2017, and Michelle is in her closet again.

This happens every year at this time. Her son, the son she’ll never see again, was born Dec. 15, 1994. Probably dead, now. She spends the weeks around his birthday in bed or in the closet, mourning her loss, hiding from the world.

It’s 9:23 p.m. Her phone is pinging, a Google-Plus alert from a name she doesn’t recognize, but that face … that athletic body … that confident slouch. She’s seen it somewhere.

Another ping. The guy from Google-Plus, he sent her an email. She opens it.

I don’t know how to approach you, it says.

I know that you see the name Ahmad Thomas and you are wondering who I really am, it says.

My name used to be Kalvin Darnell Hooshing, it says.

“I was in the closet, a safe place, and I’m thinking: Somebody’s playing a sick joke on me,” Michelle says. “I freaked out. I literally freaked out.”

If you can believe it, the email wasn’t Ahmad’s idea – it came from the NFL. The San Diego Chargers had wanted to sign Thomas in 2017 until a routine physical turned up the sickle-cell trait. The Chargers’ doctors asked for Thomas’ family medical history, but he didn’t have it. A few months later, in Green Bay, it’s the same thing: The Packers find the sickle-cell trait, and want to know more.

Ahmad calls Marvice. He tells her he needs his birth parents’ names. Begrudgingly, she sends him his adoption papers. Ahmad, married now to Skyler, calls his wife: “Should I do this?”

“You deserve to know who you are,” Skyler tells him.

Ahmad sends Michelle the email.

I just wanted you to know that I’m doing fine and I respect the decision that you made, it says.

Then he sends a copy of the adoption papers. And calls.

“I fell to the floor and started crying,” Michelle says. “He was like, ‘I know it’s a lot for you.’ I told him: I’m not crying because I’m upset. I’m crying because you have no idea how many years I was looking for you.”

Michelle and Ahmad start talking for hours every day, FaceTime when they can. After a few weeks Ahmad says he wants to find his birth dad, but Michelle isn’t sure. She hasn’t talked to Michael in 23 years.

“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Ahmad tells her. “But I need my dad.”

The next three months are a blur, one that continues today.

“What happened is unbelievable,” Ahmad says. “I feel like I’m just along for the ride in my own life.”

* * *

OK I gotta meet ‘em.

What if the story is true?

(Screw) it, Dog

At least I gotta see ‘em

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

The reunion

A few miles from Michelle Hooshing, a lifetime away, Michael Samuel is in a Miami garage. He’s divorced and talking to his dad, literally talking about the girl who got away when he was 12, the child who was born when he was 13, a child he never saw.

That’s when his phone rings. It’s her. She’d used BeenVerified.com to find him, she says, and tells Michael about his son. His name is Ahmad, and he wants to meet his birth parents. Together.

“Oh my God,” Michael tells Michelle. “You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been looking for you guys.”

It happens on Feb. 5, 2018, when Ahmad is with the Packers. Michael and Michelle book rooms at a hotel in Green Bay, and Michelle arrives first. A knock at her room. After 23 years, Michelle opens the door.

“I jumped on him and hugged him for five minutes,” Michelle says.

Together they drive to Ahmad’s apartment. They walk up the stairs, Michael in the lead, Michelle behind him. She’s terrified when the door swings open, and there’s her son, towering above her.

Ahmad had been standing next to his door almost since he got back from the barber shop, and he hears them coming. He steps into the hallway. He smiles, then giggles, then freezes. Michelle blurts out, “Oh my God,” and runs the other way.

It’s Michael who breaks the silence: “Come on man, what’s good?”

They embrace, two men so identical – and so young – they could pass for each other.

“Like looking in a mirror,” Michael says of seeing his son for the first time.

Ahmad lets go of his birth father. Now he’s walking toward Michelle, who has disappeared around a corner. He wraps her in a hug.

* * *

I just want to live my life

Who wouldn’t want a better life?

I just want to love mine.

Couldn’t be a better time

— From “That’s Mahd (I knew it),” by Ahmad Thomas

* * *

The future

What happened next? Everything happened. Within 24 hours Michael and Michelle are staying in the same hotel room. Within a month they are engaged. They go to a courthouse in South Florida to be married.

The Packers release Ahmad Thomas in September 2018. Two days later he signs with the Colts, and plays in two games. He makes his NFL debut the day after he turns 24, against the Dallas Cowboys. He starts the following week, against the New York Giants.

Thomas is back in camp for more, and while a 2019 roster spot will be difficult to come by on an improving roster, the Colts like him. A lot. He is fast – a 6-0, 227-pound converted safety – he is smart and he has impeccable character.

He started Thomas’ Heart Foundation in January, with the goal of helping struggling people find their way.

“There’s always a lesson in your pain,” he says. “You can get over it, and it can shape you into a stronger person. I overcame a lot of things, and I want to let people know: Your circumstances aren’t who you are.”

No, Ahmad Thomas is not who his circumstances suggested he’d be. He made it out of Liberty City, to college, into the NFL. Once a baby without a family, Ahmad is a son two times over, and a father of three: Skylinn turns 3 in a few weeks, Ahmad II (aka “Deuce”) is 19 months, and Saylah 1 month. Skyler brings them to Westfield, carting them around in a wagon.

After practice one day earlier this week, after signing autographs for Colts fans, Ahmad walks his family off the field, onto a blue carpeted path carved into the woods at Grand Park. They’re headed for the parking lot when Skyler has to stop the wagon for a moment. Ahmad’s walking with Skylinn in her tiny No. 54 jersey. "Daddy," it says on the back. They’re holding hands. They keep going.

Deuce climbs out of the wagon and toddles down the carpet, after his father. Ahmad hears the ruckus and slows down. Deuce is running now, giggling and gaining ground. Ahmad stops and drops to a knee. Daddy’s waiting. Daddy’s here.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.