I am the middle child in a family of 5 kids.  We are all close in age and as kids we fought a lot.  But we mainly had loads and loads of fun when we were together.  We had few toys and there wasn’t much to watch on tv so naturally we created fun, built forts and go carts and invented games.  Outside we played stick ball and skelly and hop scotch.  Inddors we played cards, read comic books and made up our own stories, play acting dramas.   

When I was 10 my mom moved us all to Puerto Rico and we left NYC behind, but not for long.  In P.R. we would discover unimaginable sweet fruits like passion fruit, guava and tamarind, and yucky vegetables.  When my father got vacation time he came and fenced off an area in the front yard for chickens and ducks.  So cool!

We had dogs and a cat and though we never went to the beach for lack of a car, we loved getting soaked in the rain and played in the mud.  And our favorite hangout was a big breadfruit tree in our front yard.  We even loved going to school and to church because everywhere you went you were surrounded by the great outdoors and it meant time to play with friends.  

I start my story with these happy memories because as children we are strong and resilient regardless of the turmoil at home.  When we make peace with the trauma and the drama of our past this is what we are left with - with a deeper understanding of the world as a whole, and a knowing that we were appreciated, accepted, wanted, needed. 

We return to joy, freedom, trust and love.