hchogan on HubPages

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, and one grandmother'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. My parents were having a New Year's Eve party December 31, 1972.  My mother needed to run to the store to get some buns for the party that evening.  On the way to the store she was killed in a car accident.  That evening all the guests showed up to mourn with my father. While they were all watching my father put my sister and I each on one of his knees and said, "your mother is never coming home. 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 older sister tried hard to give me all of those things.  But she was just a child herself.

I wandered around my first eighteen years in a blur. Went to DePaul University, but didn't finish. By then my father was broke financially and my college money 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 at that point, to move to an island where I knew no one, to be greeted by a stranger who I was renting a room from, and unsure of how I would survive the rest of my life mentally and financially.

I searched for the meaning of life 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 the 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.  With faith and hope I turned my life around and gave the one's who need it my story: Can There Be More? www.amazon.com