Chapter 10: From Homeless to Hopeful: Overcoming Tragedy to Persevere

In the world of my childhood years, I did not know love. Instead, I knew troubles too great for a child to bear. My mother died unexpectedly when I was four years old. My identity as my mother’s daughter changed irrevocably at the moment of her death, and the agony of her absence lingered in my life for many years. I did not speak for the first year after her death and was consequently labeled as having a speech and language disorder by a staff person at the elementary school I attended.

Upon my mother’s death, my father was unable to care for me. So, immediately after my mother’s passing, I was placed in foster care with three other families who were all related to each other. Everyone there called the woman who was my foster parent ‘Grandmother’. She was a strict disciplinarian. I called her daughter, Aunt, and her son-in-law, Uncle. Grandmother’s family didn’t interact with me or the other foster children, but Aunt and Uncle’s daughter was my age, so we often played. Grandmother also had two sons who lived with us, one of whom had an adult son of his own who was slightly younger than me.