“It got so bad that we started hiding our mother’s keys just...

“It got so bad that we started hiding our mother’s keys just to keep her from going to the crack house. My grandmother finally rescued us from her right before I went into middle school. When we got taken away, my mother really went off the deep end. We never heard from her. There was a lot of resentment from my side. It was an awkward age. And whenever there were events at school and my friends brought their parents, I’d get angry all over again. Things started to change when I was 15. I got a really bad case of the West Nile Virus and I almost died, and suddenly Mom got serious about rehab. She didn’t laugh it off anymore. She’d call and talk about the things she was learning in her counseling sessions. She’d tell me about the milestones she reached. She finally got clean and now we’re best friends. We talk every day. Out of all my siblings, I’ve been the most forgiving. I think it was easiest for me because I managed to separate the addiction from the person. Even with how bad it got, and with everything she put us through, there was never a moment that I doubted she loved us.”

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