Brittany and Destiny O’Dell were 12 years old when they arrived home from school to find their mother dead. A nurse who worked late nights, it was routine for her to be asleep when they got home, but this time they couldn’t wake her. She had choked in her sleep.
That began a cavalcade of adjustments and a new “normal” for the twins.
They were pulled out of school for several weeks to grieve. Their birth father was never a presence in their lives, so they found themselves moving in with their 24-year-old half-brother and his wife. Not long after came a change in schools, bringing them from the Sequatchie Valley to Soddy-Daisy High.
The tragedy forced them to mature much more quickly than their middle school peers.
“That was the biggest turning point in our lives,” Brittany said. “We knew we weren’t on our own, but we didn’t have our mom anymore. We had to get used to changing parenting styles, a new home, new animals and a new school.”