I grew up in a very old-fashioned Roman Catholic, Italian-Irish family in Philly.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the 'dark continent', and because I was a girl.

When I look back over my life it's almost as if there was a plan laid out for me - from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn't afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.

You can be cool and at the same time respect your woman, who will hopefully become your wife, who will hopefully become the mother of your kids. America needs to get back to family values.

I'm very excited about my new agreement with the Heat. This contract allows me to address all of my family's long-term financial goals while allowing the Heat the ability to acquire those players that we need to win a championship.

For me, it's about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It's where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that's very important to me.

While I have felt lonely many times in my life, the oddest feeling of all was after my mother, Lucille, died. My father had already died, but I always had some attachment to our big family while she was alive. It seems strange to say now that I felt so lonely, yet I did.

I was always on the go, and thought I was too busy to develop something like this. I thought at the time that diabetes went along with bad habits, but I was the last one in my family to eat junk food.

In my family in particular, I think, there was a sense we have to work twice as hard.

My mother isolated herself from all family and friends for some 20 years. And never met her grandchild, my son.