Now Available
I'm Still Here
Surviving What Should Have Killed Me
The Story Is Finally Here
After sixty-five years of living it and years of writing it, I'm Still Here is now available.
This is the story of a woman who survived what should have destroyed her and discovered she belonged all along.
A story of family, caregiving, chronic illness, faith, resilience, identity, loss, grace, and the unwavering faithfulness of God.
If you have ever wondered:
Do I matter?
Do I belong?
Can I survive this?
This memoir was written for you.
By Pastor Nicole Washington
Pastor. Teacher. Author. Speaker. Patient Advocate. Survivor.
The Opening
My family's story does not begin with me.
It begins on a plantation back porch in the Deep South, where a little girl slept in hay with a dog because she belonged to neither world — not the slave quarters, not the big house.
From that back porch, this family has lived through slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and every hard season in between.
My grandfather ran toward the wounded at the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. My grandmother graduated Spelman College with honors. My mother entered Spelman College at fourteen years old.
And I am sitting in a dialysis chair in North Metro Atlanta, Georgia — still building, still declaring, still here.
Six Generations. One Unbroken Line Through American History.
At least six confirmed generations of this family have lived, survived, and built on American soil. Their story spans every major chapter of this nation's history.
The Enslaved Woman
Possibly first or second generation on American soil. Her name has not yet been confirmed. She is the beginning of this story.
Era: Slavery
The Great-Great-Grandmother
Her daughter. The product of rape by the plantation owner. Not permitted to live in the slave quarters. Not permitted in the house. She slept on the back porch with the dog in a bed of hay.
Era: Emancipation & Reconstruction
Mama Fanny — Sandy Perdue
Her daughter. The family line continues. Faith takes root in the soil of survival.
Era: Reconstruction & Jim Crow
Blanche — Ada Blanche Perdue Mitchell
Spelman College graduate with honors. Wife of Dr. Aldis Samuel Mitchell — the physician who ran toward the wounded at the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. She gave her granddaughter Psalm 23 as a lifeline.
Era: Jim Crow & the Civil Rights Movement
Gwen — Gwendolyn Estelle Mitchell‑Wright Darden
Entered Spelman College at fourteen. University of Chicago concert pianist. Founder of Just Friends. A woman of extraordinary gifts and a complicated relationship with her daughter that shaped everything that came after.
Era: Civil Rights Movement & the Modern Era
Pastor Nicole Washington
Born October 1, 1961 in Birmingham, Alabama. Pastor. Teacher. Author. Speaker. Patient Advocate. Caregiver. Survivor. Still here.
Era: The Modern Era
From a plantation back porch to a dialysis chair in North Metro Atlanta, Georgia.
This is what six generations of survival looks like.
Most memoirs tell the story of one person's life.
This one tells the story of a wound that started on a plantation back porch and traveled through six generations of American history — and the woman who chose to be the generation where the wound stopped.
It is the story of what happens when a little girl who grew up feeling unseen in a neighborhood full of civil rights heroes grows up to build a publishing house from a dialysis chair.
It is the story of Blanche and her Psalm 23. Of Aunt Willie Mae and her sayings. Of Dr. Aldis Mitchell running toward the wounded. Of six people in a science classroom who became the beginning of a ministry. Of a burned pancake that tasted like the best thing she ever ate because her daughter made it.
It is the story of ten near-death medical crises in a single year — and books written anyway.
It is the story of love that does not require presence to remain love.
It is the story of purpose that does not expire.
And it is for every person who has ever wondered whether God was still writing their story.
He is. He has never put down the pen.
It tried.
It failed.
I'm still here.
— Pastor Nicole Washington
The emotional anchor of the memoir
Read a Free Excerpt
Thirty-Eight Chapters. Six Parts. One Extraordinary Journey.
PART ONE — The Family I Was Born Into
The plantation back porch. The physician who walked to Morehouse with sackcloth on his feet — and ran toward the wounded when the bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The grandmother who gave a little girl Psalm 23 as a lifeline. The parties everybody else remembers. The telephone that never rang for her. The year her mother stopped speaking.
PART TWO — Becoming
Nothing happens by chance. The neighborhood that raised her — where Andrew Young was the family next door and Dr. Benjamin Mays asked a little girl about her dreams. The women who prayed over her future in a Chicago brownstone before she understood what her future was. The room of W.E.B. Du Bois. The country woman in Hueytown who put her back together. The dream that became a detour that became a calling.
PART THREE — Love, Family, and Ministry
The man her biological father introduced her to. The wedding she did not plan — including the Valium her mother gave her and the ex-boyfriend who appeared at the rehearsal dinner and again at the wedding. The Texas years. Six people in a science classroom. The children she carried and the children she never held.
PART FOUR — When the Body Declared War
February 2019. The weight she released and the weight she gained simultaneously. The diagnosis. The chair. The congregation she found in a dialysis center she never would have chosen. The birthday spent in the chair. The photograph in the hospital gown with the playful face. The snowstorm and seven days without dialysis. The year of ten.
PART FIVE — The Hidden Weight
The caregiver nobody saw — her husband and her mother in the same nursing home. The silence. Letting go of the house.
PART SIX — Still Here
The woman who loved the water and the freedom illness made harder to reach. Building everything while sick. The people who stayed. Still here.
“The story is not that I never suffered. The story is that God never left.”
— Pastor Nicole Washington
Who This Memoir Is For
Anyone who has ever felt unseen — and needs to know their story matters.
Caregivers who carry invisible weight and wonder if anyone notices.
People living with chronic illness who need to know they are not alone.
Those who grew up in the shadow of extraordinary families and struggled to find their own voice.
Readers who love deeply human memoirs about faith, survival, and grace.
Anyone who has ever wondered whether God was still writing their story.
If you are still here — this book is for you.
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I'm Still Here
Surviving What Should Have Killed Me
You survived things that should have stopped you.
You are still here.
And if you are still here — God is not finished with your story.
This is the story you have been waiting for.
Nothing happens by chance. Not even the fact that you found this page today.