Janis Todd-Randall was twenty-five years old when the life she thought she was building collided with a moment that would divide everything into before and after.

She had already survived a childhood marked by secrets, fear, and wounds no child should have been asked to carry. She had become a teenage mother, joined the United States Army, crossed oceans, chased dreams, and learned how to keep moving even when life gave her every reason to stop.

But nothing could have prepared her for the day violence entered a room and changed her family forever.

And then he appeared.

As Janis struggled to understand why she had survived when someone she loved had not, the silent presence remained -- watching, waiting, and seemingly standing between her and something she could not yet understand.

Until one day, he finally spoke.

And what he told her would change the meaning of her survival forever.

This isn't simply a story about surviving.

I Was the Miracle is a deeply personal memoir about childhood trauma, a mother's extraordinary love, family secrets, ambition, devastating loss, gun violence, survival, and the mysterious presence that appeared when death came frighteningly close.

It is a story about what remains when almost everything is taken from you. About the people whose love continues to reach us after they are gone. About the invisible baton passed from one generation to the next.

And about discovering that sometimes the miracle you've been waiting for isn't something that comes to save you.