Brea Leflore

My family has always been considered a low income family, staying in a low income area. In the beginning my mom was my caretaker, but going in and out of jail for long periods of time resulted in a close family friend taking over. I’ve always called her my aunt even though she isn’t blood related to me. I only found out about our non-relation a few years ago. She adopted me, my younger sister, and older brother, thus making her our official guardian. So back in the my seventh and eighth grade years I can say I felt more than comfortable when it came to school clothes and lunch money. My aunt then got sick and was diagnosed with diabetes and arthritis in both her knees. These set of diseases caused in and out visits to the hospital. Eventually her job got tired of her going to the doctor and fired her after employment of seventeen years. She didn’t feel right about her departure and went to a lawyer. She had a case and sued her old job. We lived off her case winnings and unemployment for only a few years. Next we had to survive off her savings which eventually dwindled. She wasn’t just taking care of our household she was also taking care of her sick mother’s home which housed my three cousins and their mom. Now all we had left was the government’s disability checks each month. I couldn’t keep letting everything rest on her shoulders. By fifteen I had my first job with my brother working on the side of me. I didn’t help with anything major but things like my phone bill, the water bill, and my lunch money I took care of. He began to pay two hundred dollars’ worth of the nine hundred and eighty three dollar rent. He also took on his own phone bill and expenses. For the last couple years my brother goes from living in California to give the family a break to living in Dallas here with us. We’ve never have had it easy but I try my best to keep a job. I also applied for many scholarships and financial aid as best I could. I didn’t get any that I applied for. I did get one for my grades that I didn’t know anything about until enrollment at Texas Woman’s University. Just now finishing my first semester of college, I will get back to working. It killed me to have to allow my aunt to send me money but I had no clue how much the work load might be. I’m biology major and no it wasn’t the easiest but I can’t keep taking from the household. I want to reach my goal of becoming either an OBGYN or an Anesthesiologist and to buy my aunt her very own house for taking care of us so well. Being biology major is a great step I need to take when thinking about entering medical school. I can't reach anything without biology and without medical school helping me every step of the way to learn all that I need.