Sometimes I'm tossed and driven, Lord, Sometimes I don't know where to go. My mother and father won't own me, So I'll try to make heaven my home. - Tina Turner

If you are unhappy with anything — your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car — whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.

It hurts to have to remember those times, but at a certain stage forgiveness takes over. Forgiving means not to hold on. You let it go, because it only hurts you. Not forgiving, you suffer, 'cause you think about it over and over again. And for what? I had an abusive life, there's no other way to tell the story, it's a reality, it's a truth. That's what you've got. So you have to accept it.

I had witnessed the circle of life and death in nature, where plants and animals came and went in their own time. And I had heard about deaths in our community, young and old people, dying in all sorts of circumstances. But this time it was very personal. After Margaret died, there was a lot of talk about God's will. Our community was deeply Baptist, after all, and that was a natural response to the sudden tragedy that killed her and a few other young people, including my half sister Evelyn (my mother's child from a previous relationship). Thinking about the mysteries of life and death, I didn’t have a problem with the concept of an underlying universal force. But the idea of a bearded old white man in space, monitoring activities here on Earth, felt unrelatable and just plain unreal. I couldn't verbalize my own vision of God then, as the vocabulary hadn't come to me yet. But from the youngest age I can recall, I knew I could experience "Godliness" in Mother Nature. Something told me I had a piece of God in my heart, even if the traditional beliefs of my family and the way they practiced religion weren't right for me. I wished they practiced what they preached and lived more positive lives.