 I'm an artistic director here at Raleigh Dance Theater and I'm from North New Jersey originally, but raised in Raleigh. I know Miss Lee because my mom enrolled me here. Actually when I was, I want to say 11 years old to try my first class and Miss Lee was the teacher. She teaches you the foundation of dance, but while she's doing that she's giving you confidence in yourself. Like for one of the first times in your life you're learning. I continued teaching because in a private school a young girl told me that you know she was excited that I was coming to teach dance and but she said she was excited to do ballet and she says you know when is the ballet teacher coming and I says well I am the ballet teacher and she said but you're black. She says there are no such thing as black ballet teachers and I realized oops I really need to be teaching so I kind of fell into this. She's given me options and she's taught me how to pursue anything. She's given me that confidence to feel like I could do anything. Two of my students had never kind of left the town before and for them to see their faces you know going on the plane, going through turbulence and being excited about landing in a foreign country was one of the biggest things I ever did. It was phenomenal to see these kids face light up to leave the country. So that's something I'll never forget and it's something I'd love to do again going back after this illness I really want to get things moving again. Honestly when I first found out about her sickness it was heartbreaking because just to know that this is her passion and this is what she lives to do like the studio is her whole entire life so it was heartbreaking just to know that this was going to set her back. They said my hemoglobin had gone down to four and I shouldn't be walking around and then I got a transfusion immediately and I was admitted into the hospital and then upon doing the initial tests they found out I had multiple myeloma. I think anyone could look up to her or someone older than her a three-year-old anyone can look at Miss Lee and be like wow I want to be like that person. The greatest compliment people have given me is like you ain't sick so you know so the only time when people had seen me with the bald head they're like oh you really are sick and they're like we can't believe you're still moving you're still doing things and I'm like yeah I'm gonna beat this thing you know I didn't even know I was sick until I had to put myself in the hospital so I think listening to the music coming into the studio this is what keeps me going and hopefully I'll keep going if you in a wheelchair I'll still dance there are ballet companies that are wheelchair too so believe it or not so they're out there so that that's why I'm going to keep going