Throughout her 61 years on this earth, Elmira Denise Jones has been through some detrimental situations that would cause the average person to give up. She has had to deal with the loss of several loved ones, substance abuse, illness, losing her job, and almost losing everything she owned. Life has caused her to go from a young woman who was once strong, and healthy, to a woman who is now old, fragile, and disabled. Although she has been through so many bad situations in her life, she is still managing to survive the storm.
Born and raised in the inner city of Baltimore, Maryland. Elmira’s life has always revolved around family. Growing up she was surrounded by both parents and grandparents, an aunt, and her siblings who all resided under…show more content… “Being a parent was a new experience and I had a lot of sleepless nights”, Elmira said. After high school, Elmira got married. After getting married, she and her husband moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Elmira later gave birth to her second child. For the first three years of her marriage was everything was great. Suddenly, things took a turn for the worst. “There were signs my husband had developed a drug problem. This was the beginning of a nightmare for not only myself, but for my children. My children were being exposed to things I was unaware of”, Elmira said. Elmira’s husband was often in and out of jail. As a result of her husband’s mischievous behavior, after five years of marriage she divorced her husband. After her divorce from her husband, Elmira moved back in with her parents for a while, until she found…show more content… She worked in the computer field with much advancement doing data entry and database management. Elmira ended her work experience being an office manager in the health care arena for 15 years. She was forced to resign due to the illness that she suffers from called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is defined as a group of lung disease that makes it hard to breathe. This disease makes it hard for her to be able to live a normal life. She must walk around with an oxygen machine every second of her life. This illness caused her to lose her apartment and many other things that she loved so dearly because she could no longer afford the lifestyle she had