The picture that most people paint when they think about childhood is happy and fun. Most people would mention games like hide and seek, tag, and kickball. It sounds like the typical childhood a child would have right? But for Joy Obaseki this was not the picture perfect childhood that your everyday child would have experienced. During Joy's childhood, she encountered numerous deaths of her loved ones. Joy lost her father, grandmother and her best friend's mother. The deaths sadden Joy greatly but at the same time she feels that each loss has greatly influenced her in making her who she is.
             At the age of three, Joy lost her father due to a fatal car accident. Although Joy was very young at the time, she feels that the death affected her because she would see her mother mourning. Joy says, " The death of my father was hard to take, but it has taught me to strive for the best." Joy feels that even though she didn't really understand the death, she knows that her father is in Heaven watching and that makes her work harder in life to make her father proud. While Joy was just getting to understand her father's death she was faced with another unfortunate loss of her grandmother.
             The untimely loss of her grandmother occurred on New Year's Eve when she was fourteen years of age. The death of her grandmother was very tough to take because she was very close to her grandmother. Joy and her grandmother were best friends. Joy felt that her grandmother was her backbone. Joy says, "Ever since I was young my grandmother encouraged me to always stand up for what I believed in, and never forget where I came from." Knowing this, Joy feels comfortable with who she is and what she believes in.
             Following the loss of her father and grandmother, she was faced with yet another tragedy. One day while they were hanging out at the local mall, Chantai, her best friend received a phone ca
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