Lakiesha C. Allen Knihy

How do you move on from the death of a loved one, when their death wasn't supposed to be? How do you cope knowing that your family's race played a major part in your family members medical care? Battling the many forms of discrimination in healthcare, while also fighting for the life of someone you love is quite the daunting task. This is Karen's story, the Allen family's story on what it's like to watch someone you die due to medical negligence and malpractice from numerous health care professionals, while also knowing that if your loved one and your family were of a different complexion, the end result would more likely than not, be a different one then the one your family is now faced with.This past year without Aunt Karen has been hard, giving her story a voice has been hard.....but her story has to be told.

Conceived in incestuous rape and later emancipated from the foster care system at 18, I have used poetry to help me cope with many issues that have come up during my path to healing. Every poem in this book is a poetic reflection of a very trying time in my life. After realizing how much writing out my emotions helped me deal with the ails of life, I decided to take the advice of those I have shared my work with and as such I have, "put it in a book", in the hopes that the poems given to me by God will help heal another person, just as they have helped me heal.