When her peers were spending the last days of summer lounging at the local pool in Aurora, Illinois, Judith was a thousand miles away. In Georgia. Her cousin was hospitalized after the removal of a 10-pound tumor. The family needed Judith, so she arrived a week after her cousin’s surgery and stayed for a month. She was 14.
“Even at the hospital, my aunt said I was the one waking up when a nurse would come in, and I would be asking what they were giving my cousin,” Judith said. “My mom said as a kid, I could see videos of women giving birth and it wouldn’t gross me out.”