God bless my mother; I know you're looking down on me.

My mother, God bless her, forced me to take touch typing when I was 16.

I remember my uncle and my father telling me that my mother didn't want me because I was blind. She thought being blind was a disgrace and a punishment from God.

I was so angry at God for taking my father from me that I marched up to my mother before the funeral and told her I was going to quit nursing school. I just wanted to stop living.

My mother would strike me off if I didn't say theatre was incredibly important, and when you see something like 'Network' at the National Theatre, my god it's important. You feel like you can't breathe.

I wanted to own a junk yard as a child, you know. I used to smash cars and think, 'Oh, my God, there's been an accident.' My mother would take me to junk yards, and I look back on that and I think, 'Wow, that was really loving.'

As far back as I can remember, my mother would have me down by the bed at night with her, praying. I can still hear her voice calling my name to God and telling him that she wanted me to follow him in whatever he called me to do.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

My mother had heard the story of Hannah and Samuel, so she prayed that if God would give her a son, she would give that son to God. That was a perfectly appropriate thing for her to do, but as I observe, she did not have to tell me she had made such a promise. In particular, she did not have to tell me when I was six.

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