But by the time the Bengals took Bernard with a Carson Palmer Trade Pick in 2013, Yvens had bounced back to buy and run Regal Cleaners. He almost didn't get back home in time to see the pick. The Truly American Success Story times two.

"He's always busy," Giovani Bernard says. "But he always makes time for his kids. Whenever we had a football or baseball game, he's always there. Either yelling or super quiet. It's never really a clapping. It's either, 'I'm mad he didn't do something right,' or, "He's doing pretty well so I don't have anything else to say.'"

So on Sunday, Yvens may be vocal as always. But not as vocal as his brother. Still, Paul Bernard probably won't do Sunday what he once did at one of Gio's brother games when Yvenson was either playing football or baseball and Uncle Paul leaped over a fence.

When Gio Bernard makes that trip from the Bengals' Fort Lauderdale headquarters Sunday morning for the game, the bus is going to take him over some of the same hard roads.

"My dad's been through some tough times," Gio says. "Losing his right-hand, his partner and having to raise two kids, I don't know what's tougher than that."

So it wasn't hard for Yvens' son to go back to Haiti.

"When I would go back over there for summers I understood how life was," Bernard said. "When I came back to the states I really felt fortunate and I understood what that was. When my mom passed away, things didn't go right, so I kind of understood how things were going to be for a little bit. That's obviously tough, but one of the things I never did, I never sat down and asked, 'How am I going to do this? How am I going to do that?' I just went and did it. It worked out. I stayed on the right path, hung out with the right people and watched my dad work multiple jobs."

The Haitian summers with his grandmother, Mami Grand, Josette's mother, along with his cousins and aunts became a part of him. He fits in, like taking a shower outside without batting an eye or loading up on one of Mami Grand's dishes of goat, chicken, rice and planteens, or kicking a soccer ball through the dust.

"It's still dangerous with the politics and all the things going on," Bernard says. "It's been bad for a long time. I do my small part helping the kids over there because obviously the kids aren't at fault for anything. Where I can help I try to do it."