Part 1 of Essay
November 16, 1982 is a special day to me. On that Tuesday afternoon at 4:09 p.m., I, Amanda Marie Burns, was born in Bedford County Hospital, weighing in at seven pounds and five ounces. My mom and I spent my first week of life in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where my paternal grandparents lived and where my dad spent his ch ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... and I often stayed with my aunts while Mom and Grandmother worked. When I was four, Mom got remarried, and we moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina. We lived in a duplex for six months, just long enough for the three of us to find a house. Then we moved only five miles away to a place I could finally call “home.” In August of 1988, I started kindergarten, at Swansboro Primary School. In October of that same year Mom gave birth to my sister Kira. In 1990, to my sister Kristy was born. The next ye ....