My life has taken a bunch of twists and turns. As a child, I was blessed with what seemed to be the prefect family. My mother was an educator and my father was an active duty Navy Seal. From the outside looking in, I was privileged, the outside world not knowing my mother and I were being abused by my father when he was home. My father suffered from bipolar disorder. My mother was a 6th grade teacher when she was promoted to principal, she was working on her Ed.D. Shortly after she found that she had a brain tumor that developed from years of abuse, the brain tumor was cancerous. My mother was heaven sent. She loved and cared for everyone. I was 9 years old when the hospital sent my mother home saying there was nothing else they could do for her. Rather than just being there with her, my instinct was to monitor her, prepare her meals, assist her with hygiene and getting dressed. I did all the household chores and my dad mostly was out of town. When it was time for me to go to school, I missed so many days that I had to attend summer school. Six months after being told the tumor was cancerous, the cancer and spread to my mother’s breast. My mother Linda Jean Brown-Haynes, lost her battle with cancer when I was 9 years old, we didn’t make it to my 10th birthday. After losing my mother to cancer, I couldn’t handle the abuse from my father alone. I told one of my aunts and she took me away from my father. A few years later I was living with my aunt, I went court to talk privately with a judge about my dad. I saw my dad at the courthouse that day, I never saw him again. I remember coming home and my aunt saying, “I adopted you!”. I was confused at the time, once I was a adult my aunt told me that my father had given up all parental rights to me, I was heartbroken by that. When I lost my mother I realized how God uses angels. I was upset at first questioning God, wondering why my mother. My mother’s family worked hard to make