Raised in 1980s Madrid in the streets of San Blas, which bore the devastating scars of heroin addiction and crime, Jonathan Tepper’s childhood was anything but ordinary. Born into a family of American missionaries driven by unwavering faith, Jonathan’s home became a sanctuary for society’s most broken – addicts, conmen, even murderers – pulled from the streets with the fragile hope of recovery. While others recoiled, Jonathan found friendship and family in those who joined his parents’ centre, standing loyally beside them as they battled their demons. San Blas may have been Europe’s heroin capital, but it was not the drugs, the alcohol or the violence that took so many lives. AIDS hit Spain a few years after it exploded in New York and, like an invisible plague, it claimed countless lives – including those who Jonathan came to love as brothers and sisters in the family rehabilitation centre. Unable to do anything but helplessly stand by, Jonathan, from a young age, had to confront the raw reality of grief and the fleeting nature of life itself.
