My Inspiring Story

1. My Inspiring Story I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say…because of you I didn’t give up.

2. My Start… As I have grown up, I have got to travel the Midwest. These are some of the schools I have attended… As I changed schools I became stronger. Every new door I entered…I have friends from all walks of life….

3. This is where I gained the courage to tell my story…

4. I am a strong, independent young lady who will fight for the very breath I take in. So what? We’ve been homeless, my head still hangs high. My eyes are still gleaming with light and dignity. I may never trust or even go near any of the men that have mentally, emotionally, or physically tore my family apart, but you have to forgive to forget the pain, so I did. As soon as we fell, we picked ourselves right back up on our feet to soar to our next destination. Moving thirty-seven times isn’t the easiest thing to do, but we have to stay strong. Now, I’m here. I believe that if I follow my dreams, they will take me farther than what I can imagine they would take me. My dreams will help me become the person I want to be by, volunteering, lending a hand, and saving a life. I know I can get there someday, but reaching my dreams takes time to reach success. I have been there every time my mother has come close to dying. When she was smothered with bleach as she cried out to stop, When she was shoved down the stairs, knocked out, stumbling towards the darkness. When she was stabbed and beaten multiple times, I thought that this would be the last time I will ever see her. When she was shoved through a wall, bruised from head to toe from the hands of a criminal. I have been there. People don’t realize the pain my family and I have been through. The sacrifice, the abandonment, the suffering. My chalky blue eyes have seen the worst, have felt the worst. Even when I thought things couldn’t get any worse than this. Trust me But what I believe is that all the pain my family and I have gone through, is a lesson from God telling us that we are stronger than we may seem. They shouldn’t feel sorry or worried about me.

5. Thoughts… I wrote this poem to not only inspire others to share their stories, but it share my rough times through this world. I don’t want to be felt sorry for, though, because what I’ve been through has made me stronger.

6. Growing Up

7. Jordan Growing up has been hard on all of us, but it hasn’t been as hard as my brother Jordan. When he was born, he couldn’t get out of the hospital for over a month. He was born to early. I think that if it’s anyone to feel sorry for, it would be him. He’s had twenty sets of tubes in his ears, and over thirty visits to the hospital over his asthma, his body not responding with him, and surgeries. He is been through enough pain, but I think that he will always be a strong and willing young man ready for anything that gets in his way.

8. Austin He hasn’t had it as bad as Jordan, but he has been their right by my side every single day of my life. He’s always their when I’m not. He has been the one to always stand up to anyone that harmed my mom. He has had his share of going to the hospital, but he has always gone their for doing something dumb like falling out of a tree, falling off a stool with a plate in his hand, or crashing his bike up. I see him as the strongest of our family. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone, but I do think that he would do something to save my mom, though. I wasn’t always their when she was crushed, but I was always by her side. He would always be the one to go to if I am having boyfriend problems, or just school. He isn’t the oldest, but he is the strongest.

9. My Life… My life hasn’t always been a walk through the park. It has ran into a few stumps and bumps through our journey. My mom has always been through enough of this through her years of raising me. Some days I would sit in my room and cry until their wasn’t anything else to cry about. I would just sit their and wait until the ambulance would arrive or when the cops showed up. That’s the sound I grew up with through my years.

10. Our Homes This was our home. It was my bedroom. Living in it wasn’t as bad as the screaming and yelling that always went in through my head, but it wasn’t any better. I lived here for almost a year, because we couldn’t find were we should go next. Homes became harder and harder to find. It wasn’t fun to live in a house that was falling apart, but that’s the thing. We could be anywhere in the world, even without a house, and we would still always be together. Our home is where the heart is. It’s where we are all still together. My mom has been through a lot, but if we don’t leave the past, we will be stuck their forever. It’s not anyone's fault for this, but it is the men that have hurt us that got us here. I was in a lot of pain moving over forty times in thirteen years, but it’s made me stronger, and I wouldn’t change the past. The past is what got me here today. It’s what got me through these years, and it’s what got me to meet these amazing people. It’s got me Bode Helping Hands Club, second most achieved award from Barack Obama, volunteering at various places, and it’s built up me.

11. Our Homes These are some of the buildings that my family and I have been through. They aren’t the cleanest buildings in the world, but they did keep my family and I safe from all those men that have been after us.

12. Today I’ve always had a gift of standing up for what I believe in. If I don’t think that something is fare, I will say something, I won’t be the one to stand back and watch life go on. This is a letter I wrote when I was living in the YWCA that I thought was unfair, because we couldn’t go shopping when we were at school. I had mostly everybody sign it.

13. This is me… This is us today. We are all still together and we always find a way to turn the negative to the positive, because if not, than we could be stuck under our past the rest of our lives. I am happy to say that I wouldn’t ever change my life, because this who I am and this is who I want to be. I will always be a Wray.