So much of my beginning was shaped by my grandfather’s quiet strength.

It feels right, at least to me, that I’m beginning to write this story now, as I wait for more information from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and sit with the simple fact that I am still here. There’s a pull to remember my life, and all the people who shaped it.

I want to reflect on our shared time: growing up, stumbling forward, and doing my best with what I knew.

I want to make space for the grief I carried—often silently—after losing the greatest love of my life when I was just nine years old.

I want to hold every detail from a life interrupted, a life some tried to erase, a life marked by trauma, yet still mine. And I want to honor how, even then, my life quietly prepared me to tell this story. I wouldn’t wish this kind of pain and sorrow on anyone.

Still, I’ve finally reached a place where I feel ready—maybe even eager—to live whatever time I have left with intention, depth, and joy.

I know I can’t move forward without first looking back. I once read that we shouldn’t slam the door in fear when pain comes knocking. Instead, we must invite it in, offer it a seat, and ask it to stay until its lessons are fully revealed.

I’ve heard that knock for years—and now, I’ve finally opened the door.

I sit with the pain, the growth, the unraveling, and the rebuilding. I search for the words, reclaim my voice, and in doing so, begin to heal.

The longer I sit with my pain, the more I see that this journey has been unfolding all along—it’s not just part of my story; it is my story.

I’ve carried these secrets quietly, tucked deep within my heart for fifty years.

However, this time—this series—will be different.

It has to be.

I can no longer pretend or protect what needs to be seen. Everything must be laid out, examined, and expressed. Some of what I share will not be polished or easy to read.

There will be no tidy endings, no ribbons to soften the truth.

What you’ll find here is raw, honest, and unfiltered—and above all, it will be real.

This is my story—my truth.

It begins in a clear way; however, unlike most stories, it doesn’t follow a familiar path.

There is no neat middle, no tidy end. My life never unfolded in a traditional way, nor will the telling of it.

The pieces I’ll share have lived inside me—echoing through my heart, mind, and soul—for over fifty years, waiting for their moment.

I honored my Aunt Dorothy’s wish to wait until she left this world. Now, I honor my brother George’s wish to share before I leave.

The time is now.

Throughout this series, you’ll be introduced to a nine-year-old girl struggling to make sense of the story her entire family told her—that her mother had died of cancer. An eleven-year-old stepping hesitantly into a new home at 1161 Covington Road in Los Altos, California—awkward, confused, and burdened by more than the usual weight of adolescence. A sixteen-year-old treated as a woman by her father, yet still just a girl, lost, searching for her place in the world without the love or guidance of her mother.

A twenty-one-year-old carrying trauma she couldn’t yet name, her pain magnified by the moment she first opened her mother’s death certificate.

A twenty-seven-year-old woman mourning the loss of her best friend.

And now, a seventy-one-year-old woman sitting with the past and the present, still waiting—waiting for answers from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department about what happened to her mother. I believe it was murder. Not suicide.