I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1970. My life was mostly spent with my older sister going from one aunt's house to the next. My mother was killed in a car accident when I was three, my sister was seven, and my brother was eight months old. She was on her way to the grocery store to pick up buns for our New Years Eve party December 31, 1972. That evening all the guests showed up to mourn with my father. They watched as my father, with my sister and I on each knee said, "Your mother is never coming home and you will never see her again." We were put to bed crying. That same evening he began numbing his pain with alcohol.
My life and my siblings life were altered that day, essentially we lost two parents, not just one. I spent my life looking for acceptance, love, nurturing, attention, and a hug. My sister tried hard to give me all of those things. But she was a child herself.
I wandered around my first eighteen years in a blur. I attended DePaul University, but didn't graduate. By then my father was financially broke and my college funds had disappeared. At the age of twenty two, I packed one bag, a bike in a box, and $1000 and moved to Maui. I did not know one person in Maui. I left my sister that day, it was truly the hardest day of my life to that point, to move to an island where I know no one, to be greeted by a stranger who I was renting a room from, and unsure how I would survive the rest of my life mentally and financially.
I searched for the meaning of life for the next thirteen years. In those thirteen years, I divorced twice, had three children, and made too many mistakes to count. Finally, when I found peace, which is what I was searching for my whole life, I wrote my memoir. I wanted to share all that life threw at me (there were more tragedies to fill the lives of ten people, let alone one) all my faults, all my mistakes, and I wanted people to know, they too, can find happiness and peace even if they lost a parent, were abused, were raised by an alcoholic, were homeless, were depressed, anxiety ridden, angry, and resentful. I was all those things! I kept faithful to God, and he showed me hope and gave me direction. With faith and hope I turned my life around and gave the ones who need it my story: Can There Be More?
