I have depended on my family for 55 years, and they have been there to back me up. My big problems of course, have been with my children, my husbands, my wife.... personal stuff.

In 1980, I was living next to the projects (which at that time was worse than _in_ them) with three little kids. My mother had rented the apartment as I was escaping with them through snowstorms all the 1500 miles from their abusive father. She knew what she was doing. SHe was making sure I was taught a lesson for breaking up my home. I love her, and I honor her memory, and she was stuck in a 1950s mindset. Came the day that our apartment was vandalized by our babysitter while I was at work. My mother came and swept up the kids, leaving me there in a chaotic mess with a non-running car and no babies. I was walking down the street when I had an epiphany. There was nothing between me and the street but my tennis shoes, and I was still okay. I was there and the universe was going according to its laws. I could make it or not, but it was up to me to decide which way to go.

I walked into the pub where I worked, and told a customer (just a vague acquaintence) what had happened. He said, "Come with me" and took me to his bank, where he withdrew $100 and gave it to me. "This isn't a loan. You need it, use it." We went back, I sat down next to a stranger who said, "Gee, I'm looking for a roomate... want to see the house?" He, it turned out, lived across the street from my best friend from Jr. High and was her friend too. By nightfall I had a place to stay and my car was running. My mother kept my kids while I worked and went to school, and I visited every evening.

I have proven to myself that things will work out if you roll with the punches and accept every blow as a challenge. I have done it many times since then. My life would be rejected as a soap opera script because it was too unbelievable! Still, the thing I have been learning over and over is not to worry about tomorrow. It will happen the way it is going to happen, and I won't change the future one bit by worrying about it. I am alive today. I may still be alive tomorrow. But there is one thing for certain... eventually I'll be dead. I want to try to enjoy it while I'm here if I can allow myself.