This podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay.

Please listen with care. Weigh, Land.

Campsite Media. Shela Manas came to no death at a young age. She was born in Murray County in northwest Georgia, and she was the youngest in her family so she was

spoiled as a kid but she had to grow up fast. My mother died when I was 15 she had a

heart attack three years later my dad drowned. I was 18.

The thing of it is I've been raised that you know you don't just lay in wall or you move on pick up and make the best of it.

Sheila and her brother got jobs and bought a house together.

She was 17 when she had her first daughter.

I was going to raise her.

I didn't need a man.

That's the way I was raised, independent.

Death shapes us all that brings families together

or rips them apart. Death can rob you of stability or grant you new freedom.

For Sheila, the death of her parents intensified her independence, but also made it protective,

loyal.

In 1979, Sheila was working in hospice care while finishing her nursing degree.

One of her patients set Sheila up with her son.

Oh, she kept her, oh, I've got this good-looking son.

You're just gonna have me.

He's coming in.

Well, he came to see her that day,

and I thought, well, he's not bad.

...