Pieces of Me: How Fate Brought Me Home

A full-circle memoir of resilience and hope in the face of adversity.The pieces that make up Stephen Castro's life are gritty and raw. His earliest memories are of his parents locked in a bathroom attempting to hide their heroin addiction from Stephen and his brother and sister.In time, his parents sought residential treatment to heal themselves and their family. Although life eventually settled on a more peaceful path for the family, it dealt another cruel blow when Stephen was just eleven years old. His parents' former lifestyle came back to haunt the family. They learned that both his parents and six-year old sister were HIV positive.The Pieces of Me: How Fate Brought Me Home follows Stephen through many other battles, including military life, cancer, depression, emergency surgery, and the premature birth of his son, who weighed less than two pounds at delivery. It is a concise, powerful memoir that gets right to the heart of the story.For so long, Stephen felt incomplete, wondering if he would ever find his place in the world, like a jigsaw puzzle missing a key piece. "But deep within me, a spark of hope remained, promising that my journey was not yet over, and that there was still time to embrace a brighter future." As the pieces of the puzzle of Stephen's life come together, they tell a story of fate and healing, of redemption and strength, and the healing power of love. "For sometimes, it is through the darkest chapters that we find the strength to write a new story, one filled with understanding, growth, and the rekindling of love."