The first time that I was consciously aware of myself was when I was four years old. My older brother, sister, mother, and myself lived in a basement and slept in one bed. My mother had a terminal disease. I don’t know what it was, but she passed away from it.

My first recollection of having to make decisions like I was an adult was when I was four years old. myself, brother at 5, and sister at 7, had to have a family meeting when my mother was lying dead in our bed. We had to decide ourselves, should we tell anybody? We discussed if we told somebody, they might put us in some orphanage home, or might separate us. So we decided to keep the death a secret. Of course it wasn’t long before everyone in the neighborhood knew, something was wrong in the basement.