🌼 The Story That Built This Foundation

Twenty‑seven years ago today, a woman who had already buried three children, a woman who had been told she would never carry a baby to term, a woman whose heart had been shattered more times than anyone should endure… went into labor with me.

Her name was Corina Mae, and she was the strongest person I have ever known.

Her water broke at my grandmother’s house, and the rush to the hospital began. My mother kept begging to stop at gas stations because she “had to pee,” and my grandmother — terrified and determined — kept yelling, “You ain’t having your baby in a gas station bathroom!”

When they reached the hospital, my grandmother parked in the loading zone to get her inside as fast as possible. She came back out to find a ticket on the windshield. She just shook her head and said,
“I was unloading.”
Even in chaos, she found humor.

But no one knew what was coming next.

My mother labored for 27 hours.
Her epidural failed because I was pressed against her spine.
Her pain was unimaginable.
Her body was exhausted.
Her hope was hanging by a thread.

And still — she fought.

At 1:30 PM on June 24th, I entered this world by an emergency C‑section. My father, who had stayed awake the entire 27 hours with her, was found asleep in a chair beside a vending machine. He was exhausted. Everyone was.

But my mother… she wasn’t done fighting.

I was rushed to the NICU for jaundice. Doctors told her she couldn’t get out of bed — not after major surgery, not with staples, not with the pain she was in. They told her it was physically impossible.

But they didn’t know my mother.

For hours she tried.
For hours she cried.
For hours she pushed her broken, stitched, trembling body to do the impossible — because her baby was upstairs alone.

And finally… she did it.
She got into that wheelchair.
She went to the NICU.
She saw me — tiny, fragile, with an IV in my forehead — and she broke into tears. Not because she was weak, but because she loved me with a love that could move heaven itself.

Several days later, we went home. And as I’ve always said,
God cried tears of joy that day, flooding the streets and rivers.

I was the miracle baby she was never supposed to have.
The baby she wrote poems to while I was still in her womb.
The baby she saved letters for — letters I didn’t find until after she passed.
The baby she protected with every breath she had.

She always told me,
“No matter how old you get, you will always be my baby.”

She passed on December 23rd, 2020.
But her love didn’t.
Her strength didn’t.
Her legacy didn’t.

Her legacy is this foundation

The Corina Mae Foundation exists because of a woman who endured loss after loss, pain after pain, and still chose love. Still chose hope. Still chose compassion. Still chose to fight for others.

Everything we do — every voice we uplift, every disabled Alabamian we support, every barrier we break — is because of her.

Today is my birthday.
But today is not about me.

Today is about her.
The woman who fought through the unimaginable to bring me into this world.
The woman who loved me with a love so deep it still guides me.
The woman whose strength built the foundation that now carries her name.

Mom, I miss you. I love you. And I hope you’re looking down today with pride.
Your legacy lives on — in me, in this foundation, and in every life we touch.
Happy heavenly celebration, Corina Mae.
Your miracle baby is still fighting — just like you taught him to.