I am inspired to write this book because of me wrestling with some major health issues in the last five years. By writing these words I am gaining new insights into myself, my family and my life struggles in general. I am hopeful that my sharing will strengthen, empower and encourage others who may be facing similar circumstances.

These reflections have caused me to remember the suffering, sickness and pain of the past that takes me back to rural Alabama during the mid-1950s. I was the third child to be born to Mr. John Sherman Pelt and Mrs. Addie Mary Montgomery Pelt, in Forkland, Alabama. Until I was five years old, we lived in that setting. We lived in a three-room house on my paternal grandfather’s property. My father plowed a mule to cultivate his cotton and corn, and drove a pulpwood truck. He also worked in a small factory to help make ends meet. With a two-year college degree, my mother was able to teach in a two-room school.

Approximately during the same time (1959), my father and maternal grandmother became ill. My father was diagnosed with scleroderma; a severe hardening of the skin and other vital organs; and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Needless to say, this was a trying time for our family. My father lived for eight years with his disease, staying for long periods of time at the Veteran’s Administration (VA) Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama; but from what I know, my grandmother’s struggle with her illness was brief. She died in April of 1960.

Because of what was happening at the time; the death of my grandmother and the long stays of my father in the hospital, we (my mother& my siblings) moved in with my maternal grandfather, George Montgomery. He lived in Clinton, Alabama, just twenty miles away. However, at the time it seemed a world away.

This situation was challenging for everyone. Naturally, my mother supported her father and mother, during the illness and death of her mother. Further, she felt that she could not abandon her grieving father. At the same time, her husband’s (my father) life was predicted to be very short. Therefore, she did not have much of a futur