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     In Something Greater, I confront all the things and people and bills and injustices that dogged me in the first book. If you read the first book you might be squirming in your seat right about now. You know it’s not going to be pretty.

     I shamelessly suggest you read my first book first; it would be dishonest not to. But if you’ve already gotten yourself comfortable and you’re in the mood to keep reading, then I’ll do a little recap.

     Let me “synopsize” my life for you. I was raised by a single mother in Washington D.C. who sang professionally on the famous Chitlin Circuit. We lived with my grandmother, who had the strongest influence on my upbringing, and two evil aunts. My mother died of alcoholism when I was 13 and I didn’t find my father until I was in my twenty’s. I suffered some pretty severe mental and physical abuse at the hands of my aunts until I learned to fight back. Thank God I was a math wiz. Processing numbers kept me sane, put my through college and I made a good living from it, first at the IRS, then with my own accounting business. After having a beautiful baby girl, my life took a dramatic turn. Panic attacks kept me from leaving my house, so I started a new business selling Chitlins online (that’s hog’s intestines if you didn’t know). I ran the business from home and quickly developed a loyal customer base across the country that included the Who’s Who of the African American Community. When my panic attacks subsided I opened a storefront to sell Chitlins but it wasn’t long before I got a bomb threat and found myself in the middle of an FBI investigation. Two storefronts and one restaurant later, I was still fighting a powerful undiagnosed mental illness and even more powerful forces who didn’t like the idea of a Chitlin Restaurant in their backyard. And along the way I made the acquaintance of a young man named AJ who also suffered from multiple personalities. Our multiple personality entanglements got very complicated and he captured my heart even though there were many other women in his life that caused me endless grief

     I am about half way through my life as I see it and like any exciting football game, I’m taking a breather at half-time wondering what the 3rd quarter will bring. Shauna 15 – Evil Forces 15, but I like to think I’m on the winning side.

     The most important thing that I learned from the first book is that I never developed a sense of shame - about anything. And in my case it worked well, like a survival tactic. I embrace the good and bad in my life and accept both as part of who I am. More importantly, I realized from my first book that it was the shame of others that laid the most serious obstacles in my path and caused me so much trouble. Did my aunt beat me because I was too black or didn’t have a father? I wonder now if it was her shame hitting me. It was definitely the shame and greed of corrupt politicians that kept me from opening my Chitlin Restaurant on Ager Road. It was the shame of others who sent Arian Youth and KKK crazies after me. It was the shame of an African American literary agent who couldn’t accept the dignity of our ancestors and decided my book shouldn’t be turned into a screenplay. And finally it was the shame of a powerful local individual, who didn’t want a restaurant in its backyard with the word “Chitlin” in the title, who threw me under the bus.

     Most frightening is what I learned about the shame associated with mental illness. Do you know it’s a fact that people would rather admit to a crime than admit to mental illness? I talk about my diagnosis to anybody who will listen. I have been cured of a mental challenge and I am proud to say so! Do you know how easy it is to point a finger at a mentally challenged person and say “you don’t count, you aren’t a viable human being because there’s something wrong with your thinking?” How can we ever hope to care for the mentally ill and cure mental illnesses if we are hiding it in the closet like an ugly dress we should never have purchased?

     What in the hell is everybody so ashamed of? I’m proud of my past, my weaknesses, my heritage, my success and my failures. I’m proud of the fact my ancestors bought their way out of slavery. I can hear my aunt now, “Does she have no shame?” Hell no, I have no shame.

     Our slave heritage is important and must never be forgotten. We didn’t choose it but we dealt with it. Our ancestors fought for dignity and freedom. They made customs and clothes and food out of throw always – that’s what Chitlins are and that’s what I am – a triumphant throw away that was turned from trash to treasure.

     It’s called integrity people. Having no shame is integrity. Be true to what you are, good, bad or ugly and learn from it. In the next book I’m going after every dirty corrupt politician and judge and religious figure and self-important know-it-all who tried to keep me down.