Burn-Break&Become Unstoppable B3u

How Veteran Women Turn Grief into Purpose and Business Growth

• Bree Charles

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After the crisis fades and the house grows quiet, three sisters—retired veterans and entrepreneurs—gather to confront life beyond survival, where grief lingers, faith is tested, and purpose takes shape. Brenda carries the weight of losing five loved ones in a year and protecting her peace, Ashley recalls delaying grief until it struck unexpectedly, and Monique reflects on military trauma and the long road back to grounded faith. Together they move from prayer over fear to practical healing steps like boundaries, therapy, asking for help, and leaning on community, while wrestling with how to prepare children for loss through resilience, emotional language, and support systems. Their conversation pushes back on the myth that strength means silence, weaving legacy, leadership, and entrepreneurship into a vision where joy endures even in the shadow of grief.

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SPEAKER_00:

So thank you, ladies, for um coming and sitting in and having this conversation with me and my audience. And I want to talk about how as women we were taught to survive, but we wasn't taught how to survive after the struggle. Okay, and many of us, um many of us have grown up with uh in certain uh households and certain traumas. Even today, you know, we we go through some struggles. We're all here, we're all retired veterans. Uh but my my sister right here, but you are still the wife of a veteran. Um you know what it's like when you've seen your husband go through some things. So I just want to kind of ask what, because we're walking, we're walking into our becoming, right? We can come from the making to the becoming. So I just want to talk a little bit about how we have gotten to where we are today as women who are business owners. We're all business owners here. And uh, like I said, the military. So what do you think is uh some of the lessons that life has taught you? What is life have what has life taught you? What is life teaching you? And how are you surviving today? I'm gonna start over here. I'm gonna start with the lovely Miss Brenda.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, so first of all, thank you for having me, Shaw. Um, it is such a pleasure to be a part of what you have started to do because a lot of us really need this, right? Um, so what started me or what has motivated me throughout this whole journey of life is really just trusting God, trusting God um and going into things scared, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So because we're sometimes talk ourselves out of things because we are scared.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

If you go into it scared with faith, you can't fail. Because God is in control of it, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_05:

That is that's that's the that's it. Yeah, it's it.

SPEAKER_00:

That is I like what you say because we just talked about this yesterday. Now, mind you, these are all my sisters, okay? These are all my sisters. I think she the baby, but um we are you are you the baby? Oh one of the babies, oh the baby. But you know, sometimes we how we always say life be life and life be life and we don't even talk, baby, what, a month? A month? I talk, I gotta talk to her every day. I gotta talk to her every day. She's oh Jesus. This is the Miss Ashley Brown, she's the behind the scenes person, but we all we sometimes we go what a month? May I I don't think we go a month over. Do we go over a month of talking? We have okay, a month and a half. I don't think I let her go over a month and a half, but we always say, man, life be life, and we go through our things, and then we come back together and we're you're sharing our stories, picking up the pieces, and then we share how we get through this. And one of the things we were just talking about yesterday is how our pre how to pray over our fear and to put the worship over our worrying. So um uh I know that we were just talking yesterday, Brenda, and you were telling us how you have been not not not have you arrived at your peace, but how you're protecting your peace, how you go through being strong after losing how many? Five five family members in a span of what one month? One year, yeah. One year. And it's hard. Uh explain a little bit how you were saying how it's hard when people call and you know and ask you those questions, are you okay or whatever?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so um throughout the journey, like it started with my best friend and then my grandmother, my sister, my nephew, and then my great nephew. And throughout that whole process, of course, you know, the first initial was my best friend, and it was like easy to receive, right? Because I'm like, yeah, I needed the support, whatever, whatever. Then it comes to my grandmother, and I'm like, okay, now you're just calling me like three months later to say the same thing. And it became numb. I became numb to it. And I it was to the point where people call and they're like, I don't know what to say. And I'm like, I understand it because I don't know what to tell you to say, because I wouldn't know what to say to you, right? Because it's not a typical thing to happen to people, right? Right. It's not really normal to have that many deaths back to back to back, you know, grieving. You you don't have time to grieve one person before you're grieving the next. So it's it was just like to the point where I say, you know what, I have to be okay with God's decision.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_05:

Because He's in control of everything. He knew from the day that we were swarmed into our parents' belly, our mother's belly that we will be born on whatever day, and he knew the day that we would die.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_05:

And so that was my reality check. Like, it's okay to not be okay. And that's what I would tell people. Like, I'm not okay. But if I'm shutting down, if I don't call, if I don't answer, it's just because I have to deal with it in my own time. And I can't I can't allow myself to apply my burdens, my grief onto you. You've got life going on, you know. So if I know that you have life going on, you may be going through something too. So I can't just say, hey, here, take this and beat you down with it, right? Because it's too heavy for you. So I have to go through my process and trust God that He's gonna get me through it.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'd say, I I I think that's the same for me. I I'm close to you all. So you know I will call and be like, you know, I I'm a little different. Now, everybody is different in their trauma. Some people want to be just quiet. And from what I noticed, most of you, y'all get quiet. I'm okay. And you know, and it's like, okay, well, you know, I know that they will reach out if they need or want to talk. But for me, y'all already know it get quiet, call Brie, because she she probably about to jump off somebody's first step, you know.

SPEAKER_05:

So this is the first thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because some people believe silence is a healing mechanism. Now, for me, I always teach people that you know, don't listen to yourself because in trauma, when we get in trauma, we we tend to listen at our, I should have done this better, you know, I could have made maybe I should have done it this way, or maybe if I was there, this wouldn't have happened, or maybe we, you know, all the anxiety things that we think in our head. And the truth is that I just again have to re-uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Re-assure myself is that that work control. God is in control. But we always want to control the situation and pray to God. Say, God, you're in control, and then we go out there, we're trying to fix everything. So, you know, what are some things, some things, Ash, that maybe you find yourself trying to control, and then you just said, you know, I'm gonna just give it to God. I can't do this no more. As being a single mom, I mean, you have so much.

SPEAKER_04:

Almost everything, really. Um, like I guess we could stay on the topic, like losing people. So, I mean, I like like when my stepdad passed, I'm like, okay, everybody else is crying hurting. I thought I gotta, I gotta be the strong one. I gotta go help my mom to get the arrangements, I gotta distance that. So I'm the only one at the funeral checking on everybody else. It wasn't about me. I'm making sure everybody's good. I'm making sure the the lineup is right. I'm like, nope, we forgot about uh my auntie. She ain't in the line. Hold on, we're not walking in yet. She's on her way, she's still on the highway. We gonna stand out here and wait. So I'm told the funeral director, I'm like, You good? Play some music. She's on her way, she'll be here in a minute. So it's like it takes me a minute to, I know it takes me a minute to process things like that because I'm too busy making sure that everybody else is good. And literally, I don't think I fully processed his death until maybe like a year later, like the anniversary. And it hit me because it was just me at home. The kids were at school. I was like, he literally died a year ago. And it just like, it it's almost like it had just happened. It just hit me. I'm like, oh my god, I gotta deal with this. And then fast forward to my good friend Keisha, her mother passed, and I'm like, I can't cry because she's crying. So I have to get it together. I gotta get strong, I gotta make sure this, this, and that. So I'm over there helping her get all the arrangements. She's breaking down, and I'm like, you better cry, you better not cry. I'm like literally talking myself in my head, not knowing that it was just making it worse on me because it was almost like I didn't want to put off because that was her mother, I didn't want to put off the pain I had onto her while she already had pain. And then that made her rely on me more. And when it hit me, like I'm at Sam's, and I was like, oh my gosh, she's dead. And I was like, oh my god, like I'm literally in Sam's, like, oh my gosh, people look at me, I can't cry, I can't cry. I'm trying to keep it together, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm losing our races, like trying to get it all together, and I'm literally in Sam's breaking down, and literally that was a year after her passing.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like So do you ever notice how when we we pour and so she said something good, like how we pour and pour into people, and I noticed that with my nephew, like I was trying to be the strong one, but at the end of the day, I'm always we always as women, we always try to be the fixer. But who's who's fixing who's who's fixing us? Who is fixing who's fixing us during these these times of who's fixing you? Who was pouring into you as you was pouring into everybody else?

SPEAKER_04:

To be honest, it was people trying, but um we're Leo's, we understand. I didn't want to deal with everything. I didn't deal with it right then. I wanted to deal with it when I wanted to deal with it. So you can ask me if I'm okay, and what do I always say? Oh no, I'm good. I'm okay with it. I'm just I'm okay, I'm fine. I'm not getting ready to tell you. I'm about to break down and just roll on the floor and take my hair balls out and just crawl all over everywhere. I'm not gonna tell you that. I'm gonna be like, okay, you know, because the way I look at it is like you said, life is life, and I'm not gonna put what I got going on to get because I don't know what you're going through.

SPEAKER_00:

You might be going through on something heavier than I'm going through, and I pile mine on top of you, and it's like and I guess everybody's different because when I'm going through something like give me something to take my direction off of my trauma.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_05:

But the thing is, it will for a second, for a moment, right? But then when you start to think about, okay, well, she just told me that her sister died, her grandma died, her best friend, her nephew, her great nephew, all of these people, and now here it is my nephew passed. Now I got to process my nephew's death for you, is what I'm saying. You gotta process your nephew's death, you gotta process my grandma, my nep my best friend, my nephew, my grandnephew. It's extra.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

You don't need all that. You got to process what you're going through. You got to be the support for your family, you got to be here for your husband, your kids. I can't be in my mind like, oh dang, Bree stressed out about me. Yeah. My stuff. When reality is, we all just need to be able to support each other through it. And sometimes supporting each other through it is saying, hey, I don't have the words. I can't really uh put your stuff on me right now, but I can pray. I can give it to God, and I could be there to cry with you. This is what I tell people. I'll cry, I'll laugh. Whatever you need to do. You want me to just sit in a room and look at you and cry, I'll do that. But sometimes it's just what you need. And even down to me, like I could not go to work. Like I had to continue to work through like my boss told me, like, listen, no, don't come to work. You just lost your sister, you just lost these people, like it's too much for you. And I said, No, I need to work. Because if I sit here too long, it's gonna, it's gonna be too much for me. So let me keep myself busy to keep my mind off of it. So when it's time for me to go to the funeral, go to the this, go to the that, I could be there for my family. I don't have to, you know, and so the same. I had to plan the two neck, my two nephews, I had to do their whole funerals, I had to do my sister funeral, all of that, right? But hey, who else, nobody else is strong enough to?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And my faith in God was enough. Like, yeah, I have my moments. I have my moments. The wind can blow wrong, I'd be like, oh man, I miss my sister. I can see a little baby, and I'm like, oh, that's my little nephew. I guess it's okay. I have the moments, but I can process through them more with being able to just say, you know what, God, I still trust you. And yeah, I I will acknowledge, no, I'm not alright in this moment. But I'm going to be just fine, but I can't give it to you to try to help me be okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yeah. Big sis. This this is the big sister of the group. Okay. And when I say we are retired, means we don't get up and do nothing in the morning. Like I can always say, Oh, I know I could call Monique because I know she ain't working. You know, and Big Sis, let me ask you, with um all that, you know, that you go through, health issues that you go through, husband. I I noticed that you're always the one who's taking takes very little, not that you don't take care of yourself, but you always are. I gotta do this, my husband that. How are you surviving with everything that you have been through, even with the death of your father, you take care of mom, everybody takes share, share a little bit about how you are surviving. Prayer. That seems to be prayer for everybody. You get prayer, you get prayer. Okay, I feel like Oprah now. Yeah, prayer is free.

SPEAKER_06:

So with me, it's basically the same with all of us. You know, it's like you gotta be that strong because I am the LD. So it's like all of my siblings are looking at me. Even my mom is looking at me. My husband looking at me. You know what I'm saying? So it's like I don't have time to break down because I gotta make sure, like they said, everybody else is straight. I gotta make sure these arrangements are done. I gotta make sure their partner, be it spouse or whatever, is straight. You know what I'm saying? So I get my I get my time. You know, I sit and I pray. And in my mind, I tell myself they're in a much better place. They came here and now they've gone back to love. So they're in a place of love. So that helps that helps calm my anxieties because I have a problem with it anxiety. You know, so me knowing that they're okay on the other side gives me the strength to make sure everybody on this side is good. You understand what I mean? So um it's a lot of prayer. It's a lot of faith, and it's a lot of trusting myself. I have to trust myself that my mind is in the right place because I can come. I can come out of that quick, you know. Being in the military and doing all the deployments and seeing what I saw just messed me up. You know, it's like when I went in the military, I was that calm, laid-back person. You know, nobody believed I had kids because I was still like, you ain't got no kids. I'm like, Yeah, I got three. Why are you so laid back? You know, you know, and I'm like, because I don't worry about anything. It's like my faith was so strong to where I knew if this was a bad, if Monday was a bad day, Tuesday was a better day. That was my mentality until I got into Uncle Sam's, you know what I'm saying? And saw the things and meld with the people. Because like I'm from New York, so it's like a melting pot. There's different cultures and everything, but it's a different beast being in the military. So it's like and those deployments just scattered me all over the place. So I lost my faith for a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, we as we all we all fall short of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

I lost it because I went in to believe in one thing, but then you showed me something else. So it's like I thought, you know what I'm saying, that took me out of who I was. So I had to get me back.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_06:

So when me came back, then it was a little easier for me to be there for everybody. Because like I have friends still from the military can call me at the crack of dawn. Girl, and if I'm sleeping, they'd be like, You see it? Yeah. Um okay, I'll call you back. I said, You alright? That's the first thing come out of my mouth. Are you okay? I said, I'm alright. Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. No, are you okay? Because evidently something made me on your mind, you know what I'm saying? Cause you calling me at this time of the day. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think of myself at first. You know, it's like I put other people ahead just to make sure they're good. So once they're good, then I'm okay. Does that make sense? It's like I'm calm because you're okay. And like when me and you talk and you going through your things, I sit and I listen. Sometimes I'll be like, okay, it's time for vacation.

SPEAKER_00:

We need to and it is hard, it is hard. Well, being everybody knows me. I I'm that, you know, but I've learned to, you know, not I can't, and that's the whole thing about prayers over your fear and worship over your worrying. And I had to learn that I, you know, even when Manny or other sister her, you know, that's when I was into my thing and we lost Eddie. It was like, I want to fix everything. I want to fix it. I want to fix it. Wow, God. So it's just like I am learning because we have all lost somebody, each and every, it's like, I didn't. Who who taught us that when we were growing up? Nobody taught us about the struggle. Who said, Ashley, you're gonna, you're gonna walk into this this struggle. Here's how to get out. Brenda, you're gonna walk into the struggle. This is how you get out. Mo, this said you're gonna walk into the struggle. Nobody taught us that. Nobody, hell, nobody even taught me that. My grandmother, who was the the glue and the backbone of our family, who was when was somebody gonna tell me that people was gonna die that you love? You know, I think that's a whole big thing too, as women, as we share these stories. And this is about uh building, building legacies, breaking, breaking cycles, building legacies, because I don't want to keep repeating the same, same cycle. You know, uh, we we were brought here and taught a whole bunch of things. And it's like, okay, now why how do I save that stress from my children, my grandchildren? I don't want a funeral, I don't want one because I believe that that is within itself that looking at the person in the casket, lowering them down in the ground. Oh Lord, it's like it's too much stress and anxiety. And I feel when my mother says she she doesn't want any of that either, just bury her because now I gotta look at you. Now I gotta wish and and hope. And and I just I rather I would rather teach my children, I don't want my grandchildren grieving me like that. Like I want to remember, remember me as I was. And that that's why now I prepare, even then, there's no prepared preparation for death. It's it is none because something happened abruptly, you know, it didn't come out of nowhere, and you're like, what happened? Now those I can understand, but I'm trying to like prepare my grandchildren to even just say, hey, I'm not always gonna be here. You're gonna go through things in life, and this is how you get out of them, you know. And I think that's what we even when situations happen that we have no control over, even now at 54, about to be 55. Okay, okay, I am saying to myself, Bree, you gotta pray over these fears and really put action and meaning behind the words because I always oh, God is in control. God is in control, but those words started to become less and less meaningful. So now it's like, um we like you just said, sometimes you fall short, and it's like, okay, I fell short, but God, okay. How many times, and it's okay to revisit your failures and then build off of those failures. Okay, I fell back into this depression. But I'm gonna put my prayers over this fear. I'm gonna go ahead and worship over this word because your peace, your peace, you can't control peace. You just can't do it. You can't do it now. All of us here have a significant other, right?

SPEAKER_06:

I'm gonna disagree with you about okay. What I want to disagree with you on is the part about you telling your grandkids you're gonna go through this, but this is how you get through it. You can't do that. You don't think so?

SPEAKER_04:

No, everybody. Everybody's gonna be told. The way I handled the loss of my father is different than how she handled the loss of her because maybe the relationships are different, maybe the situation, how it happened was different. And then our thought processes are different. Me, I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to handle it at the time. So what I did was I I for I basically forced myself to just throw it in the back of my head. I was still literally, I would, you know, still text the phone or whatever, because every now and again we would text messages or whatever case, but I was still doing the stuff that I usually do in it because I didn't want to do it. So you can't really prepare somebody.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, when I when I say when I say preparation, it's just don't think that I, you know, I'm gonna be here forever.

SPEAKER_06:

Well, I get I get that. But the best way for you to help your grandkids is to help them build their strength, help them build their strength and help them build their mentality around situations like that. You can't say, well, this is what you do if this happened. No, you have to make them stronger mentally. Yes, so that when that situation does happen, they have the mental capacity to sit back and say, now what am I gonna do? This is what's going on. What am I gonna do to handle this? How am I gonna go forth with that? You know what I'm saying? You have to give them strength because nowadays these kids out here are the weakest like kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey guys, they they they built different. Ain't that the terminology? They built different, they fall apart, they built different. So, what I mean so that's that's kind of what I mean about you know, preparation, like guiding, teaching them like, hey, you don't don't go and fall apart because I'm not here. You know, we need to learn to teach and guide and well, to teach God and direct all of our young people, and then let God be in control of the rest. Because I want to, you know, teach them that, hey, you know, what the I I see what you're saying. There's no way that you could teach anybody to prepare for my going, but this is what I want you to do. The first of all, what happens in every household when the strong person passes away? What happened when the glue of the family per passes? Everybody. It's scattered. So it's like that's the cycle I want to break. That's the that's the cycle I want to stop because here we are, you know, having million-dollar properties, all the stuff we have, now I'm gone and everything wanna fall apart, and y'all gonna let it go. And no, like, you know, no. So I've seen it in too many families. People pass away and the house is given up.

SPEAKER_05:

So the only thing I was saying is to teach them how to manipulate throughout life in general. Teaching them how to manipulate throughout life in general would also be it will entail death, right? Because that's a part of life. We're here to we we're going to live and to die, right? Because that's just what it is. Um, however, we just have to allow them the opportunity to deal with it the way they want to, because once we start telling kids, because I was taught the same thing, oh, you gotta be strong, you can't cry, you can't do this. Yeah, you know, it puts in our mind like I can't, I can't express my feelings. I can't have these emotions because if I do, it shows weakness. However, we need to be able to show that so that we can get the help that we need. That's what the mental issues are because that we got so much distorted in our heads that we don't have the outlet for it. So we have to be able to release those things. It's not saying that I have to bring it to you, but there's professionals. Yes, right. Making sure they understand, hey, it's okay to go to counseling. Counseling is not saying that you're weak, it's not saying that you're crazy, it's not saying that you just whatever, it's saying that, hey, I realize, I recognize I need help. It's just like people that have alcohol issues, right? Yeah, they go to these AAU meetings or whatever, AAA meetings because, hey, I realize I have an issue and I don't want this issue. In order to get help, I have to go and sit with professionals who can help me maneuver through that. We may not, as parents, as grandparents, as whatever friends, family members, we may not be able to help them maneuver because we're familiar.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? Right.

SPEAKER_05:

They're too familiar with us. I can go and tell my kids something right now. My 21-year-old daughter, I could tell her, hey, the sky's blue outside. You should go out there and watch it. So beautiful. Mommy, that's kind of not blue. What are you talking about? But you may be able to express it to her a little bit different and tell her something a little bit different. It kind of gets into her mind to say, you know what, it is beautiful. It is, it is, but I'm I couldn't get through, and that's okay. That's why we have villages, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Allow the village to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00:

And that that is a part of what I like to talk about too in the black families. In the black families, we were always taught that you don't need no strength, you don't need to go there. What they teach us in the military. If you ain't no pain, no gain. No pain, no gain that you know, if you feel this pain, it means you live in. Get back out there, go on that 35th deployment, you know. So, yeah, we were we were taught a lot of things. And as women, I women, um I I and I hope my my male uh my male viewers don't get mad, but women, we are the backbone. We are the backbone.

SPEAKER_05:

They have to do that because I mean mother was created out of the real of man, so they have to know that you can't live without your rib.

SPEAKER_00:

It's it's we we not only are we mothers, we're we're doctors, we're lawyers, we're sh we're psychologists, we're we're judges. We we the babysitters for the grandkids, you know, and it's like with all of this things that that we have to take on as women, it's like we need to know it that first of all, we need to go back to the basics, especially when we're talking about today and today's time. Okay, and that's what burn, breaking, and becoming unstoppable is all about. We have to burn through the trauma of our past so we can make a better future for our children and breaking. Those generational cycles, you know, when it comes to deaths, when it comes to marriage, when it comes to raising your kids, you know, uh that, and then we have to teach them to how to walk in their purpose, well, not teach them how to walk in their purpose, but just to let people know that, hey, you have a purpose. You have a purpose in this life, you know, um, and kind of, you know, um, I know a lot of us are, you know, we're faith, you know, I was taught so many religions growing up in my in my childhood. But what I know, what I try to teach now, I don't kind of Bible beat the kids, but just to say, hey, even my grandkids to say there is a higher power. I know that I was on an interview with another sister of ours, and she, if y'all watch, she said that there was a man who um his faith, he put his faith in a chair. So we have to say, hey, have faith in something. Do you notice how the young people to now they get so defeated? They first of all, they want everything right now. Right now, and that's just not possible. So, you know, um you you I look at some of the kids and be like, who raised y'all? You know, you see that the 70s babies, the 80s babies, the 90s babies, when you start to look at these brains.

SPEAKER_05:

Internet, social media, games, all of that. We I mean, of course they're in the house with us, but that's what they pay the most attention to.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So yeah, we didn't have all of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we didn't.

SPEAKER_05:

So we didn't have the the things that was distracting us from what we had to listen to, even if we didn't always agree with what our parents was doing or saying what have you, we still didn't have something to kind of alter our thinking process. My kids, we could tell them something, they'd be like, Well, hold up, I was on TikTok and they said this, this a little more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, you know what I'm saying on chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, okay. Okay, if that's what you want to go with, but and so I had to start telling my husband when they come back with those mommy, pop, y'all was right. I said, don't even beat it down to them to say, I told you because that's what my parents did, right? Yeah, it was more so, you're right, okay, you got it. It was a lesson that you had to learn. Yeah, so I'm just here and I tell them this all the time, babe. We just here to wipe the tears when they come back.

SPEAKER_03:

That's it.

SPEAKER_05:

That's it. And just and be thankful that they did come back. Yeah, you know, because some kids they don't come back, you know, they'll keep going off and doing whatever they have to do. But for me, I'm just open book to my kids. Like, and I tell them the same thing, babe. We have to be completely transparent with them. No matter if it's something that we're going through, we have to let them know. Because eventually, sometimes, some way uh down the line of becoming an adult, they will experience something, if not the same, something similar. So if we're not transparent and show them what we go through, because we ain't perfect, they're gonna think, oh well, I don't have no example. Because they always have perfect stuff going on. No, we we fall short too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

But that's that's where building strength with your kids come from. You have to, I didn't have the energy. I didn't have my parents, my family is from the South. My mom's side is from South Carolina, my dad's side is from Virginia. So they're like Ichi and black wood or whatever, and the Indian side is there, and um, and then my dad's father is Peruvian. He's a black Peruvian. You know, they dropped him off in Peruvian, you know what I'm saying? So it's like I didn't have a time I didn't have examples of weakness in front of me. You know what I'm saying? If something was going on, you saw that strength behind, you know, I I can't be able to. That's how my grandparents were, that's how my parents were, you know what I'm saying? And it's like I didn't have any choice but to be strong. So when something goes on, it's like I can't go. I didn't this is what I did.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_06:

God, I know you got me. And then I take it from there. You know what I'm saying? Because I can tell you I can go, I can go. But I have to remember who I am. I didn't come up like my parents didn't teach me to fall apart. They taught me to fight. You know what I'm saying? Physically and mentally. So but like I said, sometimes you gotta break down the build back up.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_06:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

I'ma look different because my situation, um of course, I don't know, y'all. But my situation's a little different. I'm not gonna get along with it. But my when I was two, my father killed my mother. So my aunt had to raise me. So I didn't have that direct. My mother taught me this, my mother taught me that. I didn't have that. But I had my sister, and then I had her friends, and then I had cousins and all that. I was just literally whoever was older than me and was around, those are the lessons I got. Or either I learned on my own. So what I do now is try to break that cycle with my children. Like my daughter now, if I call her down here, she'll say it. The one thing, if we if something's going wrong or whatever, we she know I'm always saying, I'm gonna figure it out. It's gonna be okay. Fire yo. Fire. I ain't gonna figure it out. She already knows. We in the car, I'm like, oh my god, I didn't get, or I don't have to move this. And she uh she be on her tablet. Mommy, you're gonna figure it out. Yeah, because she knows that's what I'm always like boom, both of them know there's never a time where I I don't want to ever teach them defeat because I saw that so much when I was younger with a lot of different things, whether it was with whoever maybe my I I still call my aunt, my mom, whoever. She was where I saw defeating that. And I never allow my children to see that with me. Like I went through a a literally a whole domestic violence relationship, and my son couldn't tell you nothing about it. I never allowed him to see any of that. He the only thing he could tell you is I couldn't stand him. That's the only thing he told you. He couldn't tell you anything else because there was never a time I ever want them to see defeat. I want them to always know where there's a will, there's a way. And then of course we we still we pray together, we all of that. And then going back to the how you said preparing them. I was never taught to be prepared for like when people die. I guess that's why I handle it the way I do. But I always tell my kids, you know what, I might not always be here, but I will always be here and here. You always have memories of me, you always have the stuff that I said, and I will forever be in your heart. We are we are a part of each other. So I might not physically be where you can see me, but you will always, always remember either something I said, did, sung, or whatever the case. That's how I feel like I prepare my kids because literally I just keep little small things. If I just go in my son's room, did you know such and such and such? Well, listen, if that happened to you, you better like I'm you know what I'm saying? Like when it's dorning, I can catch myself on his bed talking to him, he'd be back there like but crazy thing is he'll go through a situation and he'll come in my room. Like, oh Lord, what he's like, Ma, remember when I wasn't listening to you when you came in my room and you tell me I need to say, Guess what happened to me? I was like, Oh, so mom does know something, huh? Okay, I'm just saying. But it is it's crazy because you think they not listening, but they date.

SPEAKER_00:

They do they do listen. They do listen.

SPEAKER_04:

They they don't do it how to tell them, but they form their own way, which I think is good. Yeah, because they gotta learn on their own. But again, we're not always gonna be here, but I that's how I'm trying to for them to be able to at least figure out how to do it on their own if that situation had an accident.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And and I agree with all of that. Okay.

SPEAKER_05:

And I told my students, like that's a big thing for me. A lot of times it made me overwhelmed because I can't be a little bit, yeah, I don't know how we can be.

SPEAKER_00:

Y'all know how I can be. I'm the Scorpio. I don't even I'm not even into time. Uh I'm not even into to uh what's the Zodiac times, but I do believe in it.