When I was born in China, my birth mother decided to give me up for adoption. She was my first mother. I was adopted by Sally (my second mother) and Al Giordano, who already had two young boys, also adopted. I lived a happy childhood with my family until April 2011 when my mother told me she had cancer.

At first, I was confused because I had heard of cancer, but I thought of it as something like the dinosaurs, something that I would never know firsthand. Sally fought cancer hard before it killed her in December 2011. Before that happened, a lot changed in my life. My father, Al, was depressed by the cancer diagnosis and committed suicide in November, leaving me with the possibility of being an orphan.

Sally didn't want this. Thankfully, she had made a new friend, Kim, who had cancer the previous year, was in remission and wanted to help give back to the community by delivering homemade meals to cancer patients' families. Kim and Sally quickly bonded over their mutual interests and character traits, and Kim was asked to become my guardian.

Kim already had three young boys, but she and Dan soon became my third set of parents. That's how my life changed in six short months.

Middle school and high school are pretty rough times for everyone, but for me, they were about more than finding boyfriends, completing hard homework, and wondering if I was cool. Of course, those were all common struggles of mine, but I had a lot of deep thinking to do as well.

This article is hopefully meant for anyone else who's going through a tough time and needs a little bit of motivation or inspiration or just a simple, "You can do this" because I did it. I could be a mess right now, on drugs, depressed, or have other problems that I can't even imagine. Instead, I'm an 18-year-old who's ready for her sophomore year at a great college where I know I have great friends and am only a two-hour flight away from a loving family. They always say that the third time's the charm anyways.