The Unexpected Journey: Fire and Gold details the obstacles you faced trying to protect and provide for your daughter. Why was this an important book for you to write?

It was important for me to share our story because I encountered several parents over the past few years who’s children were victims of sexual assault and rampant bullying. Some of those parents did all that they could to protect their children only to lose them to suicide. Other parents followed a path similar to myself in going through all of the proper channels of authority only for the systems to fail them. Some of those children committed suicide too while others became addicted to drugs and alcohol in an effort to numb their pain. Another subset of parents simply didn’t know what to do and they desperately cried out for help. I helped as many of them as I could on a one to one basis but I found that it wasn’t effective enough. I truly needed to elevate my voice and expose Haelee and myself to help the most people.

Moving along, Haelee published a book entitled The Rules of a Big Boss: A book of self-love on June 25, 2020. That book is a self-help manual for young and adult women to maximize higher levels of self esteem. She was very transparent in it in recounting her issues with low self-esteem, sexual assault, etc and how she overcame it all. People that read it clamored for me to share the rest of the story from my perspective. I was reluctant to do so initially because I wanted to save everything for a future autobiography that she and I would write. COVID and being unemployed allowed a lot of free time hence I decided to share a portion of that future autobiography in the form of a memoir with hopes to help others in their journey particularly those that are struggling with anxiety and depression. I will be submitting that book for a Literary Titan Review within the coming weeks.

You wrote this book with your daughter. What was the writing collaboration process like?

The collaboration process involved a little bickering back and forth between us because I speak one way and she speaks another (Ref: Venus vs Mars). We resultantly had a few starts and stops so that cooler heads could prevail in our tug of war of strong wills. I’m happy that we went through it however because the entire writing experience actually bonded us closer than we were before.

What were some ideas that were important for you to explore in this book?

The most important idea was that Fire has three purposes. It can be used to cook, burn, or give light. Cooking is obvious so I won’t get into that. The burning process is important to note however because we all go through trials and tribulations in life. Those trials and tribulations will burn us if we lose sight of God in the experience. Fire will purify us and light our path however if we keep our eyes focused on Him. In so doing He will allow us to walk out of the fire as he did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We will come out as purified Gold when it’s all over. Given those sentiments we should never give up on the journey. We should fight forward knowing that our pain has a purpose. The end result of that purpose will be precious to behold.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

My daughter is the one true gift that I have short of my salvation in Christ. With that being said, I felt like I was going to lose her every day to either suicide or murder. I thought that I had moved past the trauma but some of it still lingers. I literally burst into tears with each keystroke as I recounted the horrors of that portion of the story. I got stuck there and almost gave up the writing process because it was so painful. My friends Kiescha Cherry, Genesis Amaris Kemp, and my editor, Shanique MJ Davis helped me push that pain point however in reminding me that our story needed to be told so that it could help others.

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