The year is 2003, I am alone with my 2 young children aged 7 and 5 and I have no clue how to do this thing called life after the death of my husband.  I decided to try and numb my pain by getting a part time job while my children were in school thinking it would help me to have a focus and a goal.  I had to take care of my kids, they were so young, so innocent and their lives had been tipped upside down.  I enjoyed working for the most part, it meant I could buy them nice clothes, take them out to eat, keep them social with their friends and family.  They wanted for nothing materialistically, they had the latest Game Cube, Playstation etc.... The 3 of us in a nice home, with nice things and yet something had been taken from us and no matter what I did, I just couldn't take our pain away.  I felt like I was failing them all the time.  I made bad life choices in terms of friendships, which I broke off as a result of being unforgivably abused and mistreated.  I thought maybe being in the house constantly surrounded by our memories wasn't allowing any of us to heal and served as a constant reminder of what we had all lost.  I moved house 4 years after his death to try and start again. I hoped it might help my boys to have a fresh start and begin a healing process of some kind.  It actually made things worse for us all.  Unfortunately I had no choice but to cut off certain non blood related family members and so called friends after I became chronically, long term sick.  They caused us nothing but aggravation and heartache.  As time passed my health kept deteriorating to the stage I couldn't walk unaided, I couldn't lift my head for long, drifting in and out of consciousness.  I managed to contact my doctor who was extremely concerned and came out to see me almost immediately.  I swear to this day she saved my life.  She arranged for a nurse to give me a blood test and for me to have some care at home.  The blood test picked up a haematological disorder.  It took me years of therapy, regular blood tests and injections to finally get back to my feet again. Several further diagnoses and years later I found myself trying to cope with the death of my mum.  I was sat here in my little office area watching YouTube videos.  By this time I had been doing graphic design as a hobby for many years, it helped me so much to try and cope with debilitating illness, they were the darkest times of my life.  Had I not been diagnosed and treated, I wouldn't be here today.  I felt by this point I had reached my limit as far as graphic design goes, I wanted to learn more.  I've always had a strong thirst for learning and I found a video on YouTube by Art With Flo.  I started watching thinking oh this is just going to be another watch me paint and  babble  video, but she captured my interest.  Her digital art tutorial video ignited a fire inside of me once more.  I was so pleasantly surprised, I thought to myself, this lady is so cool.  She's awesome in fact.  I watched her fascinated at how she paints and explains everything so well.  I had to comment and thank her, expecting no reply as most don't respond on YouTube.  She replied! She just got super cool and awesome in my eyes and she was and is so nice and so helpful and supportive.   I had finally found my calling.