Surviving Loss: Interview w/Cola Bennett – Author of C.O.L.A – Casualty of Love’s Apologies

Below is a transcript of an interview I did with Cola Bennett about grief. It has been edited for clarity and ease of reading.

Vimbai: I am so excited today, to have a chance to speak with Cola Bennett. Now we’ve had a little bit of history here in that we ran a story about three years ago, I believe was three years ago. And at that time, you were just publishing your book. And you had been working really hard to get it out. I remember, it was a busy time for you. So I’m so glad that we can come back and have another conversation today. You look great!

I saw you do something recently on social media, where you, you read a portion of your book. And just to introduce you to everyone who’s going to be watching this: you are Cola Bennett, and you are a poet, and the author of your book, which is your autobiography, and is called C.O.L.A. And that stands for Casualty of Love’s Apologies. And I love that, I love that because I remember seeing you on various platforms. And when I began to hear more and more about your story… I first saw you on Erica Elita’s, she had a show and she had you on there as a guest. You were on that show and you talked about your your life and your journey. And I was like, I got to get in touch with this woman. So, thank you. Welcome. I’m so glad to see you. How have you been?

Cola: I’m really well. I’ve been doing a lot of like, a lot of things on wellness over the last little bit. And just focusing in on what that means for self care and moving forward. So that’s been primarily my goal, along with working together all these other things done behind the scenes.

On losing her son:

Vimbai: I cannot imagine what it’s been like to go from the stage of praying and saying, because you believed that God was going to heal your son, and just to bring everyone into the conversation: Cola lost her son when he was eight years old. And she had prayed, specifically for God to heal him, and she believed that he would be healed. Doctors said, ‘No, he’s not going to make it. He only has a few days to live, but he kept, he was a fighter. He was a fighter. And so for you to go from this place of God, you know, I know you’re going to heal my son, to losing him and then arriving where you are now, where you can look back and just have an appreciation for that journey. How have you been able to do that?

Cola: First, it started off with me understanding my son’s purpose. And so I looked at people always say, when you pass away, some people pass away before their time, but others pass away when they have served their purpose on this earth. And so I took a look at like, what was my son’s purpose. And I looked at when he came into my life, he came into my life at a time when I was broken. When I was walking around, I call it I was like a zombie, where I didn’t want to live, I was so frustrated, I had gone through so much trauma, at age 14 up until 16, when I got pregnant with him. And so he came at a time, where if he didn’t come in my life at that time, I probably wouldn’t have survived.

And so he came to give me the love that I was missing, he came to distract me from my own destruction. And the time that we had together, we created amazing memories. So whenever I got sad, whenever I thought about it, I just held on to the memories that we had, and the time that we’d like to spend together.

And I’m like, ‘What impact did he have on my life?’ And from that perspective, it gave me a lot more peace to understand, okay, he’s gone now. But the time that we had he impacted me for the better, he changed me for the better. And that’s what I’ve been able to hold on to.

Vimbai: What year was it he passed?

Cola: It was 2014.

Vimbai: Okay, so seven years have gone by. What has your experience? What would you say about the grieving process because from what I understand about grief is that it comes in waves, there are times where it’s kind of calm, and you’re doing life and doesn’t hit you as hard. And then sometimes out of nowhere, here it comes and you’re overwhelmed with the feelings of loss. What has your experience with grief been?

Cola: My experience has been exactly that. Grief for me, it’s come in stages, it doesn’t all heal at once, it heals like one level, you feel a bit better and next level, feel better, next level. And that in that way, I don’t know if I necessarily went through the five stages that they explained. Maybe just because my understanding of God and my relationship, my faith just carried me through different stages, or just had different times. But um, the interesting thing with grief is, so when my son’s birthday will come around. And in celebration of life, people would flood me with, ‘I’m so sorry’, ‘stay strong,’ all these amazing messages. But those weren’t the times that I was weak. Those are the times where I expected, like I knew was coming. So I had enough time to mentally prepare myself for it.

But it was days like maybe Christmas or just like a random Tuesday that I saw a car drive by and he loved cars. Those were the days when I felt the weakest. And people around me didn’t actually understand that. So they only tried to support on dates when they felt those were hard for me. And I was like, ‘Well, I’m cool today.’ And maybe I won’t be cool in two weeks. So really, for me, it’s just it’s kind of waves and focusing on positive things has really helped pull me through. Music has definitely been a huge play in my journey and just getting to a different part. So I don’t think it can all be explained all at one time.

I definitely feel like there’s different levels to it. And just because you feel better one day doesn’t mean that you’re not grieving, or doesn’t mean that you’ve overcome it, it means you’ve overcame one level of it. And you might go to another level at another time.

On being sexually assaulted at 14:

Vimbai: Yeah, yeah. Um, you touched briefly on how your son came into your life at a time that was very pivotal because you were going through a lot of different things, you know, because I know a little bit about your story. I know that you were 14 when you were raped, and you have been raped multiple times. And so that kind of catapulted you into a lot of emotional turmoil. So in a way, somebody’s taken away your innocence without your consent. It’s a loss of a different kind. Can you walk us through that process of losing the power to actually engage in sexual activity and consent to that. How did you deal with that loss?

Cola: To be honest, I didn’t deal with it. I didn’t deal with it properly at the time. So typically, not typically. But sometimes women go one of two ways. They’ll either try to get their power back and control the situation, or they just close up and lockdown. I desperately tried to get my control back. So I wanted to rampage like different guys that I talked to, I made sure that I was in control of when and how and so I was heavily promiscuous when I was younger. And so when I say I didn’t really deal with it is because I was going from one person to the next person, the next person, I didn’t allow life, I didn’t allow situations to heal me. I felt like my healing would be getting one over on another person, or making sure in this relationship, I didn’t get played on this relationship, I didn’t get played. And so it wasn’t until in my 20s, when I really sat down and I took a look at everything. I’m like, ‘Okay, I need to heal.’  

And because I was just continually looking for love, looking for love, looking for love. And so what I would say to anybody who’s been through that situation is make sure you take the time to heal and to grieve the pain that is felt and so deeply in our hearts. Those are the ones that we need the most time to just learn how to respect ourselves again, learn how to value ourselves, because the respect was taken, the value was taken. And although it was taken by somebody else, we still have as our body, so we still have the ability to control it, and to learn how to love ourselves again, and to learn how to react in different situations.

On creating healthy boundaries:

Vimbai: Yeah, yeah. And you are working with a lot of different things because many people didn’t believe you, at the time that this happened.

Cola: Yeah, but the main people who didn’t believe me was my family. And those are the people closest to me. And so the gangrape rate that happened at 14 led into the molestation from my uncle, because my support system failed me, essentially. Um, my support system wasn’t there. And so they still allowed me to go to my grandmother’s house where all my cousins were making fun of me. And the one person who seemed to look after me was this individual was my ex-boyfriend. He was the only person who was like, ‘leave her alone, don’t bother her.’ And what I didn’t know at the time was that he was grooming me for the abuse that came after that, so all the time that I’m saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go I don’t want to go, I want to stay home.’ My parents, unfortunately, they just didn’t know any better. And so they didn’t understand that they were perpetuating the abuse versus keeping me safe which they thought they were doing.

Vimbai: So what is your relationship like today with those family members?

Cola: With my parents it is a lot better. I still I live with them right now. After my son passed, I eventually made my way back home. And this is where I’ve just been rebuilding my life. But as for my cousins, because I didn’t really grow up with them, and because what I did grow up with was like a lot of bullying. I don’t really talk to them that much.

It always felt like I was forced to go for, you know, when parents always force you go say hi, go do this. They don’t know how detrimental it is to a person being forced to be in an area with people. So when I was little, we’d always go to my grandma’s house for like, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But what would happen every time I went, I myself would be asking questions in my head. ‘Are they talking about me?’ The torment was on myself. It was in my mind. And so I believe it was, I don’t remember what year, but when the whole #metoo movement came out. I had done a video talking about how my uncle had my ex-boyfriend had molested me. And I hadn’t talked…that’s one thing…So I talked about the rapes openly but the molestation I hadn’t talked about as openly and this is the first time that I talked about it freely on social media. I was in a WhatsApp group chat with my family, and as soon as I found out, they began saying this is not true. All this stuff. Some were saying, well, prove it. And I told them if they want proof, read my book. It’s all in there.

And so after I decided that I was gonna come out of the group because I took a stand for myself, I’m like, I’m no longer going to engage in what I considered to be toxic, toxic behavior, just because they were family. And for me, that was when I got my freedom. That’s when I took a stand for my voice. And so I haven’t been back for Thanksgiving, I haven’t been back to Christmas, I’ve chosen to, if need be to stay here by myself where I felt more safe and secure, than to put myself in a situation where I’m just there just because it’s what you’re supposed to do.

Vimbai: Yeah, yeah, you know, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday, actually. And we were talking about how oftentimes, because we’re conditioned growing up to do what’s expected of us, we end up not paying attention to our intuition, or not being good advocates for ourselves. And then we often find ourselves causing ourselves so much pain, emotional pain, because we’re trying to fit into what society, or a parent, or culture has told us how we should act. You know, and I like that example that you gave, because oftentimes, we do that with kids, oh, go greet your elders go greet, you know, be respectful, and all of that. But sometimes, like children have this strong intuition often. And sometimes if they’re not taking to somebody, there’s something there and by forcing them to go, you’re forcing them to ignore their intuition. So they grow up ignoring this thing inside of them, because they’re like, Oh, well, yes, I may not feel good about it but they told me I have to, I have to go regardless.

Cola: And so for years, because I was always forced to go to my grandma’s house, then I just, I felt a lot of guilt when I didn’t go even though I knew it wasn’t healthy for me. And so I finally had to, like, take a stand for myself. And this is like, only a couple years ago, when I’m like, well into my late 20s that I’m like, No, I’m gonna take a stand. I’m not gonna stand for this. It doesn’t matter if they’re not talking to me, whatever. This is how I feel safe. And I’m not gonna go.

On the day her son passed away:

Vimbai: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And, you know, it’s funny how sometimes it feels like, Oh, you know, as we get older, there’s certain things that we have to unlearn. Right? And that, and that’s one of those things. And sometimes we feel like it’s something that we should have had a grasp on when we’re younger. But I tell you, I am just in my early 40s, and there’s some things that are just clicking to me now. I’m like, listen, why am I doing this? I don’t want to do it. So forget about what is expected of me, you know, and so I love that you’re owning that right now. And just saying, you know, these are my boundaries that I’m drawing to protect myself. Can you take me back to the day that your son passed and kind of walk me through your emotions that day?

Cola: Yeah, so my son lived for six months after they said he was going to die. And throughout those six months, we had like, death scares where he they’re like, Okay, well, this weekend is not looking good. And he overcame that. And so I got so far, I was getting frustrated with them. I’m like, y’all keep saying he’s gonna die and he’s not, so just stop and figure out how to treat him. They didn’t want to treat him because of the underlying condition of the muscular dystrophy. Basically, when you have underlying conditions, they just look at the percentage of you bouncing back and that’s their own judgment. as well. For me, I was like, God’s gonna heal him. And that was my stance. But he was up and down throughout the six months, it was really up and down. There were moments that I was cool; there were moments I had a lot of peace. And there were moments that I just broke down when I saw him really swollen, couldn’t walk or when I saw he couldn’t do the things he used to love to do, when he couldn’t even drink water, which was a basic necessity in life. Those things really broke me.

The morning he passed on, my parents were at the hospital. We were playing like Kirk Franklin in the room. And in the morning, my dad and mom just give him a kiss. My dad went to go officiate a wedding, and said, ‘Hey, I’ll see you in a little bit.’ Um, my son woke up like nine something. And I said let’s go to the bathroom. We took him off the machines, I called the nurse, he was hooked up to the machines. Um, my sister said, Hey, you went to the bathroom and he just was really incoherent. And as he stood up to go to the bathroom, he fell back in my arms. And I put him on the bed and he was gone. And for a while, those moments stayed with me, that I was there for his last breath and what that felt like, but when I was actually in the hospital room that day, I was at peace. I was like, ‘Ok, God. You can still heal him. I’m like you raised Lazarus from the dead. There’s no reason why you can’t.

And so my sister jumped up and she was screaming his name as the doctors came in. And they were working on him because I had rescinded my DNR, so they will start working on him. But I stood there and I prayed. That was my thing, I prayed, I prayed, I prayed. I had put on one of the most colorful summer dresses I could ever have. I was just a bucket of color on the actual day.  And I said, no matter what was happening, God’s gonna take care of us. And so I just kept praying. I just kept praying. And for eight days, I went on a water fast and I believed for resurrection. And that’s what it was.

Vimbai: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it’s, it seems like, you know, as you’re talking about it, it seems like it’s something that is still fresh in your memory, like you can recall so much from that day. And I just can’t imagine being in that moment and experiencing all that you went through at that time? What have you learned about the grieving process that you didn’t know before?

Cola: Um, what I’ve learned, I mean, I learned a lot about anxiety, I learned a lot about depression, I learned the importance of putting a self care plan in place. That’s one of the biggest lessons I learned…that when we were going through the situation, I stopped taking care of myself. And because I stopped taking care of myself, it was a little bit harder to navigate afterwards. I didn’t already have a routine in place, I didn’t already have go-tos. What my safe space was, I was just in like, the space of just like, I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know what to do. I’m gonna just lay here. And so now, I would say make sure you have self a self care plan in place. Make sure you know what your goals are, make sure you know what helps with your mindset, make sure you know what gives you a little bit of joy, and pull on those when you need it, when the moments are the roughest for you. Because if not, you can just go completely under and that can get really dark. And if you don’t have something to pull you back out of it, you might just succumb to it.

On her relationship with God during grief:

Vimbai: Can you talk about some of those conversations that you’ve had with God? Because I’m sure there’s been, like a whole range of emotions, from anger, from disappointment from, you know, all kinds of thoughts and feelings that you’ve had towards God? Can you shed some light on that?

Cola: Yes, absolutely. So I got saved the week after my son was out of the hospital. I grew up in church, but me and God, we kind of have this funny relationship, especially cuz I’ve been through all the traumas. But the time when my son got sick, I tried to make a deal with God. And I said, ‘Hey, if you save my son, I’ll give my life to you.’ That was my deal. Because I said, if you’re gonna make him die, then I want to go to, and so we had to, like, balance it out. And I think God was probably laughing, saying like, okay, whatever. But I got saved. And that was the starting of this journey, this faith walk that I have with God and healing, completely healing over my past and everything.

The one thing I didn’t have was anger against God because I understood the situation. I had gotten a chance. It’s funny, because when my son was born, and we got the diagnosis, I was upset. But I said, but who are we to say anything? Whenever God’s ready to take him, he’ll take him. Until then, we just enjoyed him. And I was reminded of that, after the fact. And I said, ‘Well, God, I didn’t actually expect you to take him.’

But a lot of my conversations with God were, ‘help me, God, I need you. God give me hugs. Like I asked God for hugs. And just for His comfort and for His peace, I asked him a lot for His peace, because peace is what carries me through and sustains me through the grief process. Without peace, I feel tormented without peace. So many things go off in my mind. And so I started writing letters to God, and just detailing as honestly as possible, where I’m at, what I feel. People, sometimes people feel like you can’t because it’s God. You can’t say, ‘God, I’m upset,’ or ‘I’m this and that.’ But I would flat our say, ‘God this is where I’m at.’ Let me know where to go. And so viola, we really worked up to the season that I’m in right now, which is joy, and where I’m finally feeling and this is seven years later. I’m finally experiencing God’s joy and His love and His hand over my life, I have to say.

I was praying at 5am. And I had this dream of a double anointing being poured over me. And I just woke up so happy because I’ve been praying for this. I’ve been believing for it, that I’m walking into a different season, especially when, in September, a lot fell apart from me.

And so in the past, when things will fall apart, I’d be full of anxiety and jump right back into depression. Why me? Why is this happening? Like, hasn’t my life been hard enough with what’s going on? And September when things fell apart? I said, All right, well, God, it’s all you. So the peace and the maturity that I’ve gotten over the years has grown, where things can fall apart all around me. And now I understand, well, it’s in God’s hands, it’s not in my hands, there’s nothing that I can do about it. There’s nothing that I can do to change it, what I can do is give it to the Father who loves me, and just allow his peace of wash over me until things change.

On her broken engagement:

Vimbai: Yeah, you know, one thing that I so admire about you is your relationship with God and how you choose to surrender at certain points in your life. You’ve talked about when you were engaged at one point, and that was the time when your son was very ill, and you’re going through, you know, the hospitals and all of those things. And you were just like, Okay, you got your confirmation, and you’re like, take off the ring. This is it. Can you talk about that?

Cola: So I woke up in the hospital that morning. And my first thought was, for whatever reason, I’m like, I don’t think I should be engaged right now. But at the same time, I was like, it was just a phase. So that same night that I got saved, the same woman was talking to me about relationships. And because I’ve been in so many horrible relationships, I finally got into a relationship that was better than all the other ones that I’ve been through. And she said, sometimes what you deem is better is not God’s best. And that has always stuck with me. But because I thought it was better, I thought, well, this is the best I’m gonna get. And she’s like, God could have even better than that for you. I just couldn’t fathom it. And so I took her advice. You know what… I am going through a lot right now. So I think I’m just gonna put a pause on it, I’m gonna just tell him, you know, what I was going to pause it to figure some things out, because I’m like, he was also sick. And I’m like, I can’t take care of two of you at the same time.

He was in the states this time, I can’t be taken care of you in the states and taking care of my son here. And my son is the most important thing to me so let’s just put a pause on it, and then we’ll just revisit it. That was the deal. That was on a Friday.  By the Monday, God sent somebody from Facebook whom I had never met before, never had a conversation with her before but she came to my house, just to pray. And by the time she was done praying, she said, ‘By the way, the man that you’re with is not for you. He’s not the one God has for you. God has somebody else.’ Like it could not get any clearer. You know, we ask God for signs and God puts them in our face.

I understood the assignment, and I heard the sign. And so I took off my ring, put it down, and I said to my ex-fiancé, ‘God said no, we can’t move forward with this. I’m ending it.’ Of course, he was heartbroken. He didn’t understand. But for me, I was like, ‘Well, if I’m going to deal with God, I’m surrendering my life to save my child, nothing is gonna stand in my way of letting that happening. If this relationship with you is going to hinder me and my son’s healing, you have to go. And it was that simple for me.  I’m like, I’m not letting anything come before my relationship with God, or my healing for my son. And that was it.

I had a friend who asked me, ‘how do you walk away so quickly?’ And I said because God knows what best for me. He knows better than I could ever know. And now fast-forward to now and I look at what my ex-fiancé has done with his life, I was like, ‘Oh, thank you, Jesus. You knew, you absolutely knew that where he was headed would have just brought me down and it wouldn’t have made sense.

On business setbacks

Vimbai: You know, if only we can have that wisdom in the moment, when it’s not clear, right? Because at the time we make those bargains, like,’ Lord, okay, you do this, and then I’m going to do this.’ And I love the honesty in your relationship with God and just how you just approach him with…this is what it is. This is how I’m feeling and this is what I want you to do and you just have this boldness about you, which the Bible says we should come to God’s throne with boldness, right? So I absolutely love that. Now we’ve talked about some of the losses, of course, the loss of your son and then some of the trauma that you experienced before. Let’s talk about your business because you’re an entrepreneur, and you talked about some recent losses in September, so let’s go there. What happened?

Cola: So let me tell you, let me bring it back a little bit when you talk about loss and disappointment and when you have this expectation of God and he doesn’t do it, you just, like you take it to heart sometimes. So for my book, which I absolutely love, it’s a beautiful cover. I had this whole plan that when this book drops, God was just gonna WOW. Everyone was gonna get a copy, millions sold, and it was gonna be amazing. That’s not what happened. And so that was my first disappointment when it came to the book. I believe it’s an amazing story, it can still do well, it can still go far. It did sell copies, let me not act like it didn’t sell copies, it did bless people, which was part of the goal. But it hasn’t hit like I wanted it to hit.

Because of that disappointment, I turned my attention to focusing on my skincare business, which we’ve been just like, for the last few years just building and building and going hard, overworking, hustling. Kind of the same thing that I did when I had a job, but now it’s working for myself so it’s more hustle, more energy just with less pain because it’s for yourself. And so now fast-forward to September. We had launched this business last few years and we’d had a lot of wins, but I ended up going to Florida for a business conference and we were preparing to open a second location, an in-person location where people can come and get hand massages and the wellness services that we do, because what I realized over the years, is wellness is really important to how a person functions in their day to day life.  You want to talk about grief, wellness is the answer, you want to talk about stress, wellness the answer; but people don’t always know how to do it. So we wanted to show them the tools and the services they can use to make it more effective.

So we opened a location. We’d been working on it for the last five months, getting it all together – we decorated, we transformed the space – and the first week of September it falls apart right as we’re about to open it. And not only did the location fell apart, but because I poured all my savings into getting this location ready for the last five months, I didn’t put enough attention onto my online business and my online business crashed at the same time.

Not a lot of people know it because I didn’t talk about it fully. I’ve mentioned it here and there, but I haven’t fully sat down to tell it. So my online business fell apart we just didn’t have enough funds to cover both. The thought was to focus on this location which is going to open and it’s going to make us so much more money then we can pour back into the online space. But it fell apart and there wasn’t a contingency plan. I’m very much all or nothing at times, so I was like ‘it’s gonna work, it has to work.’ But it didn’t work.

 So for the month of September and up until now, I was dealing with the grief of losing a business before my eyes, of me put all my savings into it and it for it to crash and burn the way it did. When I returned from Florida and went to the garage and it had all the stuff we had purchased, we had put all the time and effort and I just cried. I just got so sad seeing it all in a garage versus the space we had planned for.

I finally gotten to a point now, after taking some time to pray, taking the time to just be at peace, I finally gotten to a point where I don’t cry over it. I celebrate it and said, ‘okay, well God, you know the reason and we can do something different in the future.’ For now, we’re gonna focus back onto the online and get that going.

Vimbai: I think oftentimes it’s the risk that’s involved with being an entrepreneur, right? Like we often don’t talk about the dark side. We see entrepreneurs on social media living it up and all of the beautiful stuff that comes with it. But then there’s the other side. Failure is just part of it, it comes with the territory.

Cola: And the importance of taking the time to deal with it. We don’t take the time to deal with it, we just move on to the next thing. And it’s an open wound that doesn’t get the proper time to heal. And so taking a step back, taking time to sleep more, taking time to focus in on the things that you love to do. I didn’t even realize how busy I was prior to this pause. And now that has paused, I was like, ‘Oh, this is nice.’

So now rebuilding, I’m going to make sure we rebuild so that I’m not building my life around the business, but I’m building the business around my life. Making sure that life is first. Things that I like to do – working out, eating good, reading all this stuff, and I’m building the business in the extra time.

When you take the time to rest, God will exalt you. God will lift you up. There’s one week before the website crashed, that we took a pause because there were just so many things happening. And in that week of me not doing the business, we made more money than in the weeks that I was constantly working. So it just showed me that there’s honour in taking rests.

When grief goes on and on without being addressed, it can form bitter roots, and that gets turned into disease and into mental anguish. We have to make sure that we are constantly uprooting unforgiveness, uprooting negativity, uprooting all the things that come out on a daily basis and make sure that we’re replacing it with love, patience, peace, kindness and the rest of it. It’s continuous work, but the results of that are beautiful to see.

Vimbai: Yeah, because even just looking at you, and knowing the background of your story, and just seeing the joy on your face, it’s just, I cannot believe it was just this past September. A month ago, you were dealing with the loss of something that you have poured so much time and energy and resources into, and yet here you are hopeful for the future.

Cola: When I went to Florida, I met one of my friends and she just pronounced joy over me and said this season is going to be joy. And at the time I was crying. But since I’ve come back, it has honestly been joy. Since I’ve been back, there has been peace. It’s funny, I sent my book off to a publisher recently. And it was the first time in a while that I got excited again about publishing it, this could be the break that I’ve been wanting for.

They got back to me two weeks ago, and they said they’re gonna pass on it. And in that moment, I looked at it and I was like, ‘Alright, cool.’ And so we keep going. So I know the healing has happened. I know the growth has happened. When things are happening all around me, when I keep seeing nos, I keep hearing negatives, and I’m just like, ‘I’m okay.’

Vimbai: I love to hear that. A no just means that that’s not the right fit. Because if they had said yes, it just would not have worked out for your good because God is in control of everything that happens. He’s working things out for our good. And so I love the fact that you see that in your own life. I get excited about that, because when I see it in someone else’s life, it is reassurance that that’s happening in my own life, too. So I am so grateful that you share your testimony so openly. It’s amazing to see you as this woman who has come through all of this trauma and all of this pain that really could have broken you.

Cola: Thank you, I truly believe that my goal, and my vision is to impact people through my story as a testimony, my story to bring light and to allow people to see that you can come through it.