Survival Was My First Language I wasn’t supposed to make it. At eighteen, I was a young mother with no safety net — no parents to call, no plan to follow, and no roadmap for survival. My mother battled addiction. My father was serving a 25-year sentence. My grandmother, my rock, passed away while I was still figuring out how to be someone’s mother. There I was, holding a baby in one arm, pain in the other, trying to rewrite a story that seemed already decided for me. But even

My Journey Begins: A Young Mother Fighting for Survival -At 18, I wasn’t just a teenager. I was a mother with no guidance, no money, and...