The daughter of two drug addicts, Liz Murray grew up in poverty in the Bronx, often hungry and often living in the streets. When Murray was 11, her mother tried to exchange a coat for drugs, but the dealer refused the offer, told her to get some help, and gave her a medallion with the Serenity Prayer on it. Her mother ignored the Narcotics Anonymous token, but Murray tucked it away and looked at it from time to time, treating it as a novelty rather than as a pathway to a better life.
Murray was 15, homeless, and a school dropout when her mother died from AIDS. Shortly afterwards, still homeless, she looked at a worn and treasured photo of her mother and saw her own future. “Like my mother, I was always saying, ‘I’ll fix my life someday.’“ Murray told So Yummy. ”My time was now or maybe never.”
