Cascading Live Story: Deborah

Audio Clip Transcript

I stayed in Miami 'til I was 10, so mainly with my grandmother because both of my parents was in college. So my dad, he was working on his master's, I believe when I was smaller. But, he's a professor. He got his doctoral degree and taught Psychology at Tulane University. My momma was a nurse, she was a RN. So grandmother stayed probably like 10 minutes away from us, so most of the time we'd be down her house. So she really helped, while the parents, my parents was going to school and working, she was home with us, taking us where we want, need to go, and help with whatever we needed. So she played a big part in our life, we practically loved to stay with grandmom [laughter].

My mama pass, I was seven months pregnant with my first child. She was in a car accident. And it happened on Thanksgiving Day. She was traveling down to Panama to be with my youngest brother's god mother. And they never made it. She was like a best friend, mother, sister. It's, it's like a part of you left.

I guess 'cause it's in like you could always go to your mom and talk to her about anything and everything. But it's hard to go to someone else that, you know, tell them everything what you would have told them. My mama pass, I was seven months pregnant, and I probably weighed 110 pounds and then I lost down to like 95 pounds. I could not eat and it, the doctor just making me eat, but it was rough. So the baby came out being a crybaby because that's all I did was cry through my last three months there.

I guess I had to find the emptiness to someone else and that was my grandmother. Because my grandmother actually came, moved in with me, and help take care of my oldest daughter, and while I worked in, went back to school, so she was right there for me. She stayed with me two years with my first child, and the second and third child, maybe a year. I mean, one time she stayed with me probably like for five years. I wanted to go to cosmetology school. I did that for two years. So she stayed with me the whole two years while we're going to cosmetology school and working a full time job. She, she just became my second mom.