My mother passed away from an overdose when I was 2 years old. She had drowned in her own vomit and I had found her. Despite my young age, such a traumatic event stayed in my memories. Growing up, everybody looked at me with pity: The girl who's mother was a drug addict. I heard the stories of her in that state, but it was from everybody else's perspective. I didn't understand why she would be so reckless, and I felt like she had chosen drugs over me. I hated my mother because of this. The hate I felt for her was so deep rooted and so raw; I felt abandoned, worthless, confused, and hurt. When I moved away from home at 18, I connected with my grandmother. I went to visit her and she took me to see my mother's grave for the first time. Nobody understood why I wanted to see her burial site so badly, but that was the closest I had been to my mother since her death. I wanted to scream at her, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to dig six feet into the ground and curl up in her arms like I was 2 years old again. That still didn't heal me though. There was more that I needed, but I just wasn't sure what it was. My grandmother took me back to her house and I sat on the floor while she emptied out a closet -full of pictures of my mother. I saw her when she was my age, we look like the same person, I saw her marrying my dad and to me she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I saw her with me and the love in her eyes when she looked at me. I could physically feel my hatred disappearing. She was a smart and beautiful woman who loved her daughter, but I still couldn't understand why she had made the choices that she did. Until I noticed my grandmother, standing in the closet, looking at me like her whole world was about to shatter. At that moment, I could see both the love and the pain that she felt every time that she looked at me, her grandaughter, the young woman who looked exactly like her daughter and who was all that she had left of her daughter. She handed me a folded up floor plan. On that floor plan was a poem that my mother had written titled "For Gianna". The poem recounted her story, her post-partum depression, the pain that she felt, and the immense love that she had for me. She spoke of her need to get better and to be strong for me. That was it. That was what I had needed my whole life. I didn't need to hear other people's stories. I needed to hear hers. My mother had been dead for years, yet she had just spoken to me. My mother was a drug addict, but that did not change who she was. She was an amazing woman, and a loving mother. Yet, after all these years, the only thing people can say about her is that she was a drug addict. They don't remember the vibrant young girl who loved music, who fell in love, or the woman who had me. This change in my life has helped me to realize that nursing is more than just having somebody's life in your hands. It's about compassion, empathy, and seeing past imperfections. I only wish somebody could've done that for my mother.

Iḿ motivated by my little brother. He was born when I was 11, so I got to watch him go through every step of life, and Iḿ looking forward to see the ones that are to come. Heś so vibrant, active, and a little crazy but I love him with all my heart. I decided that I wanted to become a NICU nurse not long after he was born, because I want to help babies that weren´t born as healthy as he was. I want to help those children get better, so that they can become vibrant and healthy like my little brother is, and I want their families to experience the same joy watching them grow up that I experience everyday. My brother motivates me everyday,. Even when I feel like Iḿ feeling overwhelmed, he reminds what Iḿ putting my hard work into, and all of the good that will come out on the other side of it.