In 2004 I was given the news that my mother was very sick, and then later found out that she had cancer.

My mother had been my entire life for years. I stood by her when I was nine years old and she decided to leave my father because of the abuse. I lived with my mother in Maryland until 2002 and then I moved to Kansas with my sisters.
 
In 2003 my sisters and I moved to Oklahoma where I was able to find work with Wal-Mart. I became friends with a few people there in the first year. They were there for me to talk to when I was told about my mother being sick. I had only a handful of real friends that I talked to daily about what was going on in my life.

I remember the day. It was August 26th, 2004. I was working the morning shift at Wal-Mart and over the PA system I heard, "CSM Crystal you have call on line 1". I thought nothing of it as I went to answer the call, and then I heard her voice. It was my mother's girlfriend on the phone. My heart sank instantly as I asked what was going on. Her reply was that my sisters and I needed to come to Maryland. She didn’t think my mother was going to live much longer. I dropped the phone and went into tears instantly hearing the news. I went to my co-workers and told them what was going on. One of my friends gave me a ride home so that I could contact my sisters and find out how we were going to get to Maryland.

I realized that I didn't have the money to get a plane ticket to be able to go, and I was in a panic. I contacted my friend, Michelle, at work just to talk to her and see if she had any suggestions on what I could do, and ask if she thought the boss would be able to give me an advance. She said, “Let me see what I can do and just relax everything will be fine.” I hung up the phone and began calling my sisters to let them know the news, and they had already been contacted too. They tried to see if they had the extra money for a ticket for me but they were unable to come up with any.

An hour after talking to Michelle, she called me back and said, “Come up to the store. We have the money for you.” I asked how that was possible in such short time. She told me that as soon as she told a few people at work about what was going on, they told more people and before you knew it, everyone gave money to help. I never knew I had touched that many people at work, but to my surprise I had more people there that cared for me than I had ever known. So thanks to the kindness of numerous people who I worked with daily, I was able to get a plane ticket to fly out the next day.

Crystal
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