My mother and dad traveled 13 years before they got me. My, first of all, my dad had like an eighth grade education. And my mother had a high school education. But my dad was brilliant. I mean he just was. And back in the steel days down in Lone Star, Texas - which is close to Pittsburg, Longview, Tyler, you know just in that general area - Dad worked for a place called Lone Star Steel. And that was by Pittsburg. And, they had a plant, a sister plant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania people, for some reason said they were going to come down to the Pittsburg, Texas plant and look at who all they had there to possibly bring them up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And they tested everybody at Lone Star Steel that wanted to be, and my dad was one of them. Now, remember I said he had an eighth grade education? Out of all, I mean we were talking a massive amount of people, you know? Not just like 30 people we’re talking about maybe 300, 500 hundred people that worked at the steel mills at this time, maybe even more. But dad beat everybody in his aptitude test and the skills knowledge test. And so they took a chance on him and moved him and my mom up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And from there, my parents traveled, like I said, for 13 years before they adopted me in Colombia.

And when they got to, Colombia, my dad - first of all, he got really, really sick and almost died. And there was an American doctor named Madame. And she knew about me because her - my real mother and my real father, who were not together, married together, came to her for her to abort me. Yes. So she, so Madame knew of me. And so my dad, very, very sick. Madame took care of him as well. And she asked him, she said, if you make it through this Garland, you know what, what would you like to happen?

 And he said, well, he said May and I - my mother's name - could never have children. And he said, my one regret in life is that we never had children. And so she took it upon herself to spirit him along, wonderful woman, and she said, if you make it, I know of a little girl that needs a home.

And he pulled through and, you know, it was a two year process to adopt me, but they immediately started the process after they, you know, came to the orphanage, met me. And that's how I came to be with them.