Prologue

The Weight of What Remains

There are moments that split your life in two — the before and the after.

You don’t always see them coming. Sometimes they’re quiet, slipping in on an ordinary night. Sometimes they arrive with the sound of a door being kicked in and a gun going off. Either way, when the dust settles, you realize the person you were before no longer exists.

I’ve lived through more of those moments than I care to count.

They don’t just change you — they carve you. Every scar, every ache, every tear you hold back becomes part of your foundation. I used to think strength meant standing tall no matter what, but now I know it’s about learning to stand again after you’ve fallen, even when you don’t want to.

People see you smile and assume you’ve healed. They don’t see the weight you carry in silence — the ghosts you tuck behind every laugh, the memories that never fade no matter how many years pass. Twenty-six years since the night that stole everything from me, and I can still hear it sometimes — the shattering glass, the screams, the gunshots. I can still smell the gunpowder in the air.There are things you don’t ever forget.

You just learn to live around them.

But before all of that — before the heartbreak, before the loss, before the trial and the years of trying to rebuild — I had a beautiful life. A childhood full of sunshine and laughter and the kind of love that made you believe the world was safe. I grew up in a small hometown where everyone knew everyone, where kindness was a kind of currency, and neighbors were more like family.

My mother was the heartbeat of it all. She didn’t just raise her own children; she raised everyone else’s too. Friends, cousins, strangers — it didn’t matter who you were or where you came from. If you needed help, you found it in her kitchen, where the coffee was always hot and her advice was soft but steady. She was everyone’s mom — the glue that held people together when life tried to pull them apart.

My father was quieter — the steady hand, the silent pillar. He didn’t shout or demand. He listened, he guided, and he trusted me to make my own choices — mistakes included. Between the two of them, I learned what love should look like: patient, kind, forgiving.

Life seemed simple then.

But loss came early and often. My great-uncle passed away in our home, followed by both of my grandfathers — men who taught me the meaning of hard work, integrity, and love that didn’t need words. And then came the night the phone rang — the night that changed everything. My brother, my 6’3” wall of strength and smiles, the one who was always my protector, was gone.

I remember punching walls until my hands bled, screaming until my voice broke, breaking anything I could get my hands on. It was the first time I ever truly lost control — the first time I learned that grief has no rules.

That was the beginning of my education in pain — though I didn’t know it yet.

Life wasn’t done testing me.

Somewhere between the girl I was and the woman I became, I learned to survive things that should’ve destroyed me. I built homes, lost loves, had children born and children stolen, buried dreams, and started over more times than I can count. And even now, as I stand in the quiet aftermath once again — another husband gone, another chapter ended — I remind myself of one thing:

I’ve lost everything before.

And I still found a way to rise.

And so, before the storm — before heartbreak, loss, and the long road that would shape the rest of my life — there was light. There was laughter echoing down dirt roads, Sunday dinners that stretched late into the night, and the kind of childhood that wrapped around you like a warm blanket. Before the pain, there was peace. Before the scars, there was innocence.

This is where my story truly begins.