Hi. My name is Sierra. I am 11 years old. Although I am young I know what it is like to be strong. My life has been difficult since the day I was born. I was born with a heart defect. I have been in and out of hospitals my entire life. The doctors said I wasn't supposed to make it to see the age of 4, but here I am at age 11. Last year, just as things started to get better as far as my health goes, I lost both of my parents. They died within 3 months of each other. My mom died because she got shot by accident. We don't really live in a great neighborhood because of my medical bills it was all my parents could afford. There is alot of gang related activity in my area. Well one day my mom was checking the mail and bullet that was meant for someone else hit her instead. 3 months later my dad dies of a heart attack. Now its just me and my brothers and sisters. I have 2 brothers and 3 sisters. I am the youngest. My 2 brothers are 19 and 15 and my sisters are 16, 13, and 12. My oldest brother takes care of all of us and he goes to school. Things are rough and money is tight but we have each other and that's all that really matters. The six of us live in a 2 bedroom apartment in the same neighborhood my mother was shot in. Sometimes i wanna cry because i miss my mom and dad so much. Sometimes I feel so bad i just wanna stay in bed all day but thats when i think about how much worse things could be and i continue trying to be as strong as I can. God is the only thing that has given me and my family the strength to go on.