Better Than Before: What the Worst Day of My Life Taught Me About Strength, Resilience, and My Ability to Overcome Trauma!

By Kamille Coward

What do you do when life hits you head-on and removes your ability to work, care for yourself, or even walk?

In her debut book, Better Than Before, Kamille Coward shares the raw emotion and lessons she learned after surviving a horrific car accident just days before her 30th birthday. Packed with honesty and go

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kamille Coward
• Release date: Jan 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781955605564

Book preview

Preface

The book you are about to read is an accurate account of events that happened in my life. I’m not going to make things sound worse than what they were, but I also refuse to sugar coat anything. Often, when we go through difficult times, we try to cover it up and pretend we are okay out of fear of being perceived as weak. Well, what happens when what you are going through takes away your ability to work, walk, drive, and live independently? What happens when the woman who worked so hard to turn her life around gets hit (and I do mean that literally) with a blow that threatens to take away everything she’s earned? If you’d like to know the answer, get cozy and keep reading because I’m about to tell it all!

"Every situation in life is temporary, so when life is good, make sure you enjoy it fully. And when life isn’t so good, remember that it will not last forever and better days are on the way."-Jenni Young

The Day Before My Life Changed Forever

Saturday, January 21, 2023

My parents planned a surprise birthday party for my twin sister, Kandace and me. The entire party wasn’t a surprise, but all of the family members who traveled to help us celebrate our upcoming 30thbirthday was. Our favorite uncle, Uncle Aaron who helped our mother take care of us when we were younger traveled all the way from Florida. Our grandmother, Uncle Al and his family, a few of our friends, my twin sister’s boyfriend, and our stepsiblings all gathered to celebrate this milestone.

My sister and I were so excited to receive the love of our family and friends. 30 is a milestone birthday and we were thrilled to be living and loving life. The party was full of smiles, tears of joy, hugs, and well wishes. It was a whole vibe that felt like the perfect culmination of that season of my life.

You see, prior to this season, my life wasn’t exactly going in the direction I wanted it to go. I’d made some choices I wasn’t proud of and needed to make major changes. I decided to relocate to a new city, and it was just the change I needed. After moving, I secured a new job which I exceled in and ended up receiving a promotion just a few short months later. I am a middle school math teacher so even with the promotion, I secured a part-time job, so I’d be able to afford the lifestyle I desired. I purchased a new car and was in a great place mentally. To put it plainly, I bossed up!

Sometimes when you make mistakes in your 20’s people can try to make you feel as though your life is over. The failed relationships, judgment, and trauma can hang around your neck like a tightening noose, but that day, the day of my party, I felt the noose loosening. For once I felt like I could pat myself on the back for being a successful, independent young woman who paid her own bills and went after what she wanted in life. Never in a million years would I have imagined what would happen next.

I’ll share more on that in a moment. For now, I want to share with you a few of the pictures from our birthday party. Having an identical twin means having a built-in best friend to share all of life’s highs and lows with. This is true for Kandace and me. As you’ll see from the pictures I’ll share throughout this book, Kandace and I were both excited about stepping into our 30’s and the greater measure of womanhood they would bring to both of us.

We have great examples of strong powerful black women in our family, especially our mother and grandmother. Now, we were entering into our own grown woman era. This was a time we expected to put away the