Leslea
Chestina Turner
ENG 101
16 September 2015
Life is good
I am a single mother. I was born in Hazard, KY. My parents are Eugene and Polly Collins. My mom died in 2005. My mom had eight children. Furthermore, my dad divorced my mom in 1984 and remarried. He and Liz had five children. In fact, my dad had 13 children altogether, nine boys and 4 girls. Two of my brothers are deceased. We have a large family. I have fifteen nieces and nephews. I had seventeen originally, but two have passed away in tragic accidents. I have numerous great nieces and nephews. I have went through some difficult times in my life. I have loved and lost my high school sweetheart to cancer. Have I gave up on life? No, I have not. Am I happy? Yes, I am and I am excited for what the future has in store for me.
We moved around often growing up. In fact, I lived in nine or more different places in Perry County. I was a very active child. For example, I loved the outdoors and playing sports. I was like a tiger with lots of energy. Now, I am more like a cat. I prefer to stay home and lay in the sun all day. I attended three different schools. I hated being the new kid and I hated school for the first few years. I was put on the school bus crying each morning. There was a graduation ceremony after kindergarten. So after a few weeks of first grade, I came home and told my dad that I had already graduated and did not need to go back. In his words, I was a hand full. He let me stay home until the next year. Of course, the truancy officer came around often.

I attended a private school beginning in second grade and off and on for most of my life. I loved it. I began to enjoy going to school and doing my best. I played on the volleyball team for seven years. I worked hard and always wanted to win all of the sports and academic awards. I was the valedictorian of my graduation class. There were only five of us so the odds were very good. I was the only girl and had dated three out of the four boys. Hence, I married one of them two years after graduation.
My husband’s name was Robbie Crase. We dated for five years and was married 15 years. He died at the age of thirty-six to cancer. He was a wonderful husband and father. He was friendly and loved to make people laugh. Our daughter, Jessica, was four years old when he passed away. She is twelve going on thirty now. She is beautiful. Secondly, she is funny, boy crazy, girly, and has a wonderful caring heart. She adores animals. She wants to bring all the strays that she sees home. Although she can be a handful at times, she makes my life complete.
I have had numerous jobs beginning at the age of fourteen babysitting my niece. Formerly, I worked at HCTC for eight years. When my husband died, I became a stay at home mom. My daughter had a very hard time for the first year without her dad. She was a daddy’s girl. Due to that, I worked part-time for a few years. Now that she is getting older, I’ve decided to go back to school. It is hard to balance her life and mine, but it’s my time now.
So, I have many plans for the future. Therefore, I need to get busy working on them. I plan to work and study hard. Also, I will be busy with my daughter and her sports. I love being a volleyball mom. I am lucky that I have a good support system. Jessica’s paternal grandparents are so helpful and always there for her and me. Thus, I am able to depend on them. With this in mind, I am ready to move forward with my life goals. I plan to obtain my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and maybe open my own business one day. Overall, I am very blessed and I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life.