“I grew up in Fairhope. I think I have always been a caretaker. My first job was as a RN at USA Medical Center for five years and then travel nursing. My mom was a nurse, too, and she is my inspiration. She got pregnant at 15 and dropped out of high school. She got her GED and started working as a nursing assistant. When she had my sister, she wasn’t making enough money to survive so she went back to school with two kids to get her LPN. Then she went back to school to get her RN when she was pregnant with me. She was constantly reading, studying, and trying to better herself. When I went to nursing school, she was going back to get her Masters degree as a Nurse Practitioner and we graduated at the same time. After watching my mom, I have no excuses. If she can do it, others can, too, and I use her story to encourage other people. My dad helped raise us while she was in school.

I went off for travel nursing for ten years and lived in places like California, Oregon, Philadelphia, New York, Minnesota but I always came back home to Fairhope. After traveling for years and seeing the country I went back to the University of South Alabama for my Masters Degree to be a Family Nurse Practitioner and followed in my mother’s steps. My family especially my mom was so proud. My aunt is also a Nurse Practitioner and my mom wanted the three of us to go back to school together and get our Doctorate degree in nursing at the same time because it would change our family history. They went back but I didn’t because I had just graduated. I regret not doing that with them. A mother, daughter, and aunt all graduating at the same time from the same school with their Doctorate degree. It’s not over yet and I am going to go back to get my Doctorate degree.

I try to use my medical background to educate the community. Our people don’t trust doctors a lot because of some of the things that have happened through history such as the Tuskegee Trials. I want to bring that trust back and help people get the life saving screenings they need and help decrease the health disparities in our community. We started doing community health fairs and the first one in Fairhope was small but good. One of my goals is to have my own clinics focused on quality care in Fairhope and Mobile and I have been going through a lot of the steps to do it but there are a lot of blocks too. I think I am about a year away from making it happen.

I also want to open a transitional home to help prisoners back into society and be productive citizens. It will be a safe place to teach them skills and how to find a job or create their own opportunity. My oldest brother was in prison and had a hard time finding a job when he got out. He will be a part of this.

I want to help people with mental health issues as well. I have a younger brother who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and in the African American community, mental illness can be pushed to the side, frowned upon, just thought of as bring weak or that you need to pray. Mental health issues need to be addressed and people need to get the medication and help they need to be productive and happy citizens.

I have a passion to help people with mental illness because I have suffered from depression all of my life. I just hide it very well. There are some days where it is hard to get out of the bed. It hit me really hard last year in Febtuary 2016 when my mom was diagnosed with cancer and told that she only had three months to live. But looking back I realize I had bouts of depression all of my life. I just started treating it when I was an adult.

Thankfully, my mom is still here. I went with her to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa and found out early that she looked to me and reflected what I was feeling so I learned to have a poker face and keep everything positive. She never saw a day of weakness in me but I would cry myself to sleep at night and pray to God that my mom would be healed. After bringing my mom back to the room after her treatments to rest I would take an hour everyday to go to the gym, walk, cry, and pray and go back to the room energized with a positive mind and ready to go. My mom did go through her stages of grief and depression but we made it through and I’m grateful that I was able to be there to help.

After dealing with my mom’s cancer I found out that my uncle Charles Bush was diagnosed with cancer as well. He was somewhat of a loner. Never married and had no children. I would take him food every time I cooked to try to let him know that he wasn’t alone and that he was loved. I promised him that I would take care of him and his dog Sunny. When was hospitalized I checked on him during my lunch break, took him food, and fed Sunny. My husband Charles and I were making arrangements for him to stay with us because he would need a caretaker 24 hours a day. Unfortunately he passed a few weeks later but I kept my promise and took care of all his arrangements as he requested and I am taking care of Sunny.

Reading helps me relax. At the end of the day I always ask myself what did I learn new today. If I didn’t learn something, I open up a book and find something before bed. I would consider myself as a girly girl but I also have a motorcycle. I started riding with my husband but I got bored on the back of his and wanted my own. Riding on a motorcycle is total freedom.

I consider Fairhope as my home but my eyes were opened from traveling and living in other places. When I came back, I realized how sneaky and in your face racism can be. I didn’t understand it growing up because that was just how it was. We didn’t hang out uptown in Fairhope because we weren’t welcome so we went to each other’s houses and places where we felt we belonged. Even now if I go to a bank, I am treated a little differently. You have to prove yourself more to get a loan. Access to capital is a privilege that we don’t have freely and that holds us back. As a black person, the walls are a little higher, we have to work a little harder, the doors aren’t open as fast for us and you have to be more determined. We have to break some of the barriers down even if some people don’t want to acknowledge that they are there. If it doesn’t affect you, you don’t think about it.

Before I close my eyes, I want to see us all together. I want Fairhope to be a utopia for everyone. People are starting to see the unfairness that African Americans have been subjected to all of their lives and a movement has started towards changing that with organizations like Fairhope Sisters Unite (now Fairhope Unite).

It is our responsibility to help the next generation be successful and give whatever knowledge we have. I am optimistic about the changes that we can make together. My vision is to have one community that looks out for each other and provides the help and support that each of us needs. It goes back to the old saying, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ My answer is yes, I am my brothers and sisters keeper.’”