Silver moonlight pours in through a window and floods the wooden panels of my bedroom floor. As I lay tossing and turning in my bed, unable to sleep, with questions swirling in my head like the twisting body of a tornado, the one question echoes, am I valuable, am I worth being alive? I pull a soft blanket around my shoulders and readjust my pillow desperately trying to pursue fleeting sleep. Like most stories, mine begins far from my birth, and as I lie wrestling my mind drifts back to the life that helped set my story in motion. Read more