Holly "Radiant"

Photography by Randy Bacon

“When I was six, the last thing I remember is waking up in the police station. My dad had driven us there and turned himself in after killing my mother. He had just brutally murdered her. And the next moment was just all chaos—it was a lot of crying, and people trying to tell you that your mother’s gone. And it was just all blurry from there.”

Holly was immediately sent from her home to live in a cabin in the woods down in Blue Eye, Missouri. She lived with her aunt and uncle in a humble home with a floor made from flat rocks, from the creek at that time, and no plumbing. That was the best alternative for her. “We just found a life in the mountains, the creeks, just simplicity. Looking back, it was simplicity that God gave us. Everything else was too complicated; it was too much.”

“But whoever my mother was, I thank God that I had the first five years of my life with her. She was different. She just wanted to live life. And I think that’s where I must have gotten my shine because everybody else was so sad due to the tragedy throughout my childhood. It was something that was given to me early on. And it’s not perfect, you focus on it. You work on it. You choose to stay on this side—on that radiant side."

"I choose to stay on the radiant side of life.”